Cirrus@Austlit

'THE FIRST WORD I REMEMBER being captivated by is 'monotonous'. It must have been in primary school, when I was ten or eleven. I was drawn to the long, strange word. I liked the look of it, the repeated ohs and their symmetry on either side of not. The thrill extended to the even more monotonous `monotonousness' and to the contracted, elegant source word, 'monotony'. 'Monotonous' appeared in our schoolbook as a prompt for composition. Mono-tone. All the same tone. No colour. The grey of drizzle, clouds, fog and the dusk that preceded the winter dark as I rode home or walked from the bus stop on wet footpaths pasted with leaves that had fallen from the black trees overhead. 'Monotonous' was a mood, an atmosphere, a grey that contrasted with the warm yellow lights of passing cars or house windows - an all-enveloping condition.' (Introduction)