Reading Clive James's brilliant translation of Dante's INFERNO. No medieval work of literature casts so active a shadow: impossible to imagine the work of William Blake or T.S. Eliot or Samuel Beckett without it.

Souls trapped forever in darkness, trawling through mud, obsessed with petty grievances. And that's just the Donald Trump voters.

Another writer/artist profoundly influenced by Blake: the late and much lamented Alasdair Gray. LANARK is an INFERNO made in Glasgow. And how fitting that his last work was a translation of THE DIVINE COMEDY.

P.S. I'm perpetually disappointed to learn how few of my friends, colleagues & students, here in England, have even heard of Alasdair Gray. LANARK is canonical in Scotland, where it heralded, more than any other work, a literary Renaissance still flourishing north of the border.

P.P.S. Trying really hard here to tweet about something other than the US election.