From James Wood's piece on Naipaul, Wounder and Wounded:

“If you want to write serious books,” he said to me, “you must be ready to break the forms, break the forms. Is it true that Anita Brookner writes exactly the same novel every year?” It is true, I said. “How awful, how awful.”

Resonated so well with me. I enjoy Brookner whose books are fine variations on the same theme. Yet, you know, very same theme.