‘...and it was arguably here, in this position of wretched seclusion, detached from any cultural movement, without institutional support or camaraderie, with no readership, no media profile or publishing deal, no outside interest whatsoever, and with no economic independence, no definable role or status, no energy for writing and no time or space in which to write, with no desire to write, no material, no plan, no words, in this inescapable state of intellectual abjection and terminal exhaustion... it was here that his best work was produced.’