Diary

John Lanchester

I am agoraphobic – though when I hear case-histories of some of my fellow agoraphobics, who have to slay mental dragons and scale psychological Matterhorns before they can even begin to think about going out of the house, I feel pretty lucky. There are people who haven’t been outdoors for twenty or thirty years. In my own case, I have extended periods of complete equilibrium before what behaviourists would call a ‘bad learning experience’ intervenes, and seems somehow to teach me about the possibility of the phobia all over again.

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[1] Collins, 416 pp., £12, 1989, 0 00 217768 4.

[2] Minerva, 224 pp., £4.99, 5 July 1990, 0 7493 9084 0.

[3] Penguin, 212 pp., £4.99, 30 August 1990, 0 14 012306 7.


Vol. 12 No. 16 · 30 August 1990 » » Diary (print version)
page 21 | 2431 words