BRIAN ALDISS The Twinkling of an Eye Or My Life as an Englishman HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager in 2015 Copyright © Brian Aldiss 2015 Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (glasses on books); Mayang Murni Adnin (wood texture) Brian Aldiss asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 978-0-00-748258-0 Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 978-0-00-748259-7 Version: 2015-07-01 If we apply to authors themselves for an account of their state, it will appear very little to deserve envy; for they have in all ages been addicted to complaint…Few have left their names to posterity, without some appeal to future candour from the perverseness and malice of their own times. I have, nevertheless, been often inclined to doubt, whether the authors, however querulous, are in reality more miserable than their fellow mortals. Samuel Johnson: The Adventurer, No. 138
It was on 15 November, 1990, in the gloom of winter, as I sat in the car with my wife, a tape of old Jugoslav folk music playing, that I beheld the town where I was born, much changed, and decided to begin the toils that would result in my creature, my book.
The story of my life – to me so individual, yet objectively so commonplace! Myself now subject to decay, I have witnessed the decay of countries, empires, and ideologies; to counter-balance which, I have enjoyed the growth of my own family and survived to see the continuation of my line…
Contents
Chapter 12: The Enchanted Zone
Chapter 14: The Forgotten Army
