A Prologue
A fragment I jotted down in a hurry, but which I will in all likelihood never work out beyond what is typed out here.
Confusion came late and suddenly to Thomas. Having lived according to his own self-made compass since he was old enough to have constructed it, he now felt as Lyra Belacqua must have felt when she lost her intuitive ability to read the alethiometer. The irony of that loss compounding one of innocence was not lost on him.
For he and the company he kept were hardly innocents, not by any stretch of their collective imagination. Not that they were exceptionally debauched or notoriously depraved, being merely the social equivalent of a knowingly arched eyebrow. None of them moved in what passed for high society in their concrete jungle, but with a little effort and sheer force of will, most of them could easily have made a debut, if not conquered and ensnared a few devoted subjects to boot.
So it was with mixed feelings that he re-read his invitation to one of Angelica's famously pretentious dinner parties. Here it was. A ticket to the A-list that he had hitherto not known he had wanted. Only one question remained in his mind: Was this party going to be a round trip, or a one-way journey to self-reinvention?
Confusion came late and suddenly to Thomas. Having lived according to his own self-made compass since he was old enough to have constructed it, he now felt as Lyra Belacqua must have felt when she lost her intuitive ability to read the alethiometer. The irony of that loss compounding one of innocence was not lost on him.
For he and the company he kept were hardly innocents, not by any stretch of their collective imagination. Not that they were exceptionally debauched or notoriously depraved, being merely the social equivalent of a knowingly arched eyebrow. None of them moved in what passed for high society in their concrete jungle, but with a little effort and sheer force of will, most of them could easily have made a debut, if not conquered and ensnared a few devoted subjects to boot.
So it was with mixed feelings that he re-read his invitation to one of Angelica's famously pretentious dinner parties. Here it was. A ticket to the A-list that he had hitherto not known he had wanted. Only one question remained in his mind: Was this party going to be a round trip, or a one-way journey to self-reinvention?