Not long after my friend sent me the snappy “Things I’ve Noticed As I’ve Got Older” e-mail, I received another e-mail from another friend. This was a response, or an addendum, to a conversation a group of us had been having in a bar the previous night, about what exactly could be said to constitute “political fiction.” The e-mail was long—perhaps a thousand words—and elegantly written and subtly argued. It was about Mo Yan and Borges, and about the ways in which fiction can be valuably political with or without the intent of a political message on the part of its author. About the first e-mail, it’s worth pointing out that the friend who wrote it is an Internet entrepreneur, a successful salesman. About the second, it’s worth pointing out that it was written by an academic, a writer. I responded to the first e-mail straight away. I still haven’t got around to responding to the second, unless a Gchat apology for not having responded counts as a response. There may be some wider inference to be drawn from this, but we have reached the end of our allotted ten paragraphs, and so that must count as our arbitrary conclusion.

2.