Introduction

I was asked to write an introduction to this collection of narratives—a sort of treatise, I suppose, on home improvement projects. The author, a former student of mine at the University of Maryland, is someone I remember as a particularly unpleasant young man. He mostly sat in the back of the classroom, making sniffling noises, and holding an improbably large white handkerchief. During our discussions of Keats, he would gag loudly. During an in-depth treatment of Dickens, he had this to offer, with no explanation—an especially odious poem regarding the main character in Great Expectations:

Pip, Pip
He cut his lip
While in the pool,
Taking a dip


I seem to recall him sitting, often with one finger probing a nostril, trying to get the attention of some of the more attractive females in the room. He had the unsettling ability to move one eye independently of the other, resulting in a Quasimodo-like effect, or perhaps remniscent of the frightening countenance of trolls. His efforts with the young women were never rewarded with any success that I could see. Mostly he was an object of derision, scorn, and outright ridicule. The large white handkerchief—no doubt—did not further his cause much. There was one occasion where he came to the lecture wearing no shoes.

I didn’t want to write this introduction, didn’t care so much either what was contained in the narrative. I did it, however, on the condition that he never ask me to do a similar thing again—or ever to contact me, for that matter. I’ve read through the introductory passages in a cursory manner, saw that the words seemed to be in the proper order, the sentences strung together fairly well. As for the content, it has something to do—from what I can gather—with kitchen sinks, faucets, pipes (the references to pipes seem endless), trips hither and yon in a dreadful old truck. A lot of it appears to be pointless mucking about with decaying old things, knocking things off walls (quite a bit of knocking things off walls, come to think of it). That’s mostly what stuck with me. If he is going somewhere with all of this, I cannot imagine—or care—where.

I should note that what little I remember of his poor showing in my literature course is also reflected in the current writing set before you.

--Dr. Edward C. Gibbons, Professor Emeritus, Modern British Literature