In 2001 I was also asked to contribute something to the Paris Review, in memoriam of Malcolm Bradbury.

Ian McEwan was putting it together, I think. I don't know if it was ever published.

I wrote:

In the Class only one rule matters: whilst the others are discussing your work, you say nothing. They may set off after a hare you never intended, may catch, kill, skin, cook, eat and regurgitate it; you say nothing. They may find your work is an animal they can’t recognise, and can’t be bothered to classify; but you say nothing. They may accuse you of creating a weird bestiary merely for sake of having created a weird bestiary; still, you say nothing. You say nothing because, in the end, what you write is indefensible. It will have only one advocate, and that will be its own excellence.