From the Like a flowing River extract

When I was fithteen, I said to my mother: 'I've discovered my vocation. I want to be a writer.'

'My dear,' she replied sadly, 'your father is an engineer. He is a logical, reasonable man with a very clear vision of the world. Do you actually know what it means to be a writer?'

'Being someone who write books'

,...,........

,....,..........

'But have you ever met a writer? Have you ever seen a writer?'

,.................

In order to answer my mother's questions, I decided to do some research. 

a) A writer wears glasses amd never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He spends most of his life in bars, arguing with other disheveled, bespectacle writers. 

b) A writer has a duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation.

c) Only other writers can understand what a writer is trying to say.

d) A writer understands about things with alarming names, like semiotics, neoconcretism. When he want to shock someone, he say things like:'Einstein was a fool' or 'Tolstoy was the clown of bourgeoisie'

e) When trying to seduce a woman, a writer says:'I'm a writer', and scribbles a poem on a napkin. It always works.

f) When invited to say what he is reading at the moment, a writer always mentions a book no one has ever heard of.

g) The is only one book that arouses the unanimous admiration of the writer and his peers: Ulysses by James Joyce. No writer will ever speak ill of this book, but when someone asks him what it is about, he can't quite explain, making one dount that he has actually read it.

Armed with all this information, I went back to my mother. She was somewhat surprised.

'It will be easier to be an engineer', she said. 'Beside you don't wear glasses'.

However, I did have the untidy hair, a packet og Gauloises in my pocket, the script of a play under mybarm, which, to my delight, a critic decribed as 'the maddest thing I've seen on stage'.

This path took me to many places ..........