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This essay, written by the author on his 1988 novel, INLAND, is one of 16 essays from a forthcoming collection on each of his published works   *   I wanted from an early age to be a poet, but this was not because I considered poetry superior to fiction I read as much fiction as poetry and was equally affected by both, but my ignorant teachers and the ignorant authors of my textbooks had led me to suppose that an author of fiction is gifted with some sort of insight into human nature, and – more preposterous still – that the purpose of fiction is to create believable characters I was in my twenties before I learned that I was admirably qualified to write fiction because I knew next to nothing about human nature and was incapable of creating any sort of characters, and I was in my forties before I learned that a certain sort of author may be able to write a work of fiction the meaning of which he himself cannot explicate   No sound in the English language corresponds to the vowel sound in the magyar word kút The vowel sound in such English words as moor or poor is vaguely similar, but only vaguely The magyar sound is intense and consistent, making it eminently suitable for a singer to inflate and to prolong with feeling I inflate and prolong the sound thus once at least daily   Ten years ago, I composed a musical setting for two paragraphs comprising 156 words in the magyar language The music is my own version of Gregorian chant Knowing nothing of musical notation, I committed my composition, so to call it, to memory while I was devising it, which took no effort whatever I likewise committed to memory the two paragraphs mentioned The word kút occurs thrice in the paragraphs, but I prolong its vowel sound only when I chant it for the third and final time, near the end of the second of the two paragraphs   The date is surely recorded in the relevant volume of some or another registry of deaths, but