My dear Clive,

There you have it. Seven years have passed since I began to consider these matters. This volume will achieve first publication in a year when we both reach a new decade, and when my age will be exactly double yours.

As I walk in Hilary’s garden wondering what form of words to use, it occurs to me that the question to ask is, Why do individuals of the human race long for close community with each other, and yet remain so often apart? Could it be that the isolating factor is similar to that which makes us feel, as a species, apart from the rest of nature? Perhaps the Earth mother you meet in these pages has proved less than perfect. Like a real mother, she has had her troubles—on a cosmic scale.

So the fault is not all ours, or hers. We must accept a lack of perfection in the scheme of things, accept the yellow-striped fly. Time, in which the whole drama is staged, is, as J.T. Fraser puts it, “a hierarchy of unresolved conflicts.” We must accept that limitation with the equanimity of Lucretius, and be angry only at those things against which one can be effectively angry, like the madness of making and deploying nuclear weapons.

Such matters are not generally the subject of literature. But I felt the necessity, as you see, to have a shot at incorporating them.

Now at last I have done. The rambling edifice of Helliconia is before you, with my hopes that you will enjoy the results.

Your affectionate

Father

Boars Hill

Oxford