“There are stretches where one of his characters speaks or thinks so digressively and apparently irrelevantly that it can be a chore to keep reading.”

“This reader devoted to the great writer therefore appealingly begins with his later work, when he is in full, digressively brilliant voice writing about Paris.”

“Whether digressively or directly, at a walk or at a run, the motion is on the ground and by foot, putting its weight part by part onto the terrain to be covered.”