Also the task is to evaluate and assess, and to decide whether the work is a novel, or a book of memoirs, or a parody, or a lampoon, or a variation on imaginative themes, or psychological study; and to establish its predominant characteristics; whether the whole thing is a joke, or whether its importance lies in its deeper meaning, or whether it is just irony, sarcasm, ridicule . . . Witold Gombrowicz in Ferdeydurke After procrastinating for over two years since Yin's death on the writing of this Foreword for his second auto biographical work, I finally begin using the above quota tion from...