THESIS

Candide! Mon ami malheureux, we too are fellows. I cannot recall your every indignity, list all the low blows. But I hold you in high regard—you knew your philosophy! The best of all possible worlds? The dictum is debatable, but a bold thinker needs a big idea.

My thesis? Fear not, I will lay it out fully, in due course. But I can start with some suggestion: Samuel Pickwick, you are the living proof; haunted Sethe, tomboy Jo, precocious Scout, you are further inspiration. Heroes, heroines, and artful dodgers, I’m talking to you all. And I call you my people. Characters of fiction? Yes, in a turn of phrase, but you are as true as they come. You inhabit a different world, but like the reader, you sing a silly song, break a little wind, when the coast is clear. Readers have a digest; you know the full account. Humbert, you are positively a pervert, but a bigger fabulist to boot?

The abundance beggars the belief? My people, you need no persuasion, yet I tell the tale for you, as much as any other reader. And I will have more to share. Señor Panza, I know you will wait, the very soul of patience. Ms. Eyre, I will be honored to bend your ear. Humbert, you cannot escape the reckoning.

Calling the detectives! You have another case of identity. Holmes, you dangle your deductions. Can they deliver one more time? Miss Marple, you have a woman’s curiosity. Let’s give it a good old scratch. Fans, followers, aficionados, you will find out what I mean.