Ben Okri

Um....nice blurb, but generations of marketing men have robbed these statements of their power to convince. What does he actually write about? *How* does he go about exploring these realities?

I don't feel like I have to be that deep in introducing a writer... If I burb, I burp. As for you, you introduce writers in terms of travel (e.g.) when I travel from and so-and-so... back in the days when I was at Yale... etc. SO I didn't go to Yale or Harvard. Tough Luck. I am shocked that you can actually speaking to me despite your class pretensions. That makes me suspect that you may actually be interested in what I am saying.

I'm 31. Perhaps I look young for my age. It's a mere coincidence that my Korean name is young, but Hen, you must remember one thing. I think you're o.k. despite your class pretentions. IN point of fact, I kind of think that you are cool, UBER-cool in the German sense of the word. Kudos for you. Why should I explain how a novel works? AM I a student? Do you always treat people as though they were students? That would make you a professor who travels alot, from Yale to England, is it? But you don't have an English Accent exactly. It's got more of a semantic feel to it, so that you may have lived either in France, but not in Paris, somewhere more rustic, thus the leisurely attitude, the convivial jouissance. I am overinterpreting the text. And yet you pretend as though you may have lived in South Africa... Don't you have anything better to do than put up facades? You are among friends here. We very much appreciate your observations.

We're *all* students. I treat you as a fellow student. Class pretensions? Nope. A keen inquisitorial style has nothing to do with class. You're mixing up the aristocracy with the academi. And no, I didn't go to Yale or Harvard. Or Oxford or Cambridge, for that matter. And I never introduce writers in terms of travel. And my accent is a mish-mash from the various English shires. And I'm no professor. Neat interpretation, but because this is an Internet forum, you're hampered by not hearing the tone of my voice, which is why you've imagined me as pretentious when I was only trying to be helpful. You were bigging up Ben Okri, and I simply pointed out that few people, in these cynical days, can take what you say at face value, because it's the same kind of language the book-marketing men use. So in order to engage people further, perhaps some more concrete details on Okri are required - eg. what he writes about, his background, what other writers he's similar too etc.