As the modern critics like to say, they have intertextualized, and so have bred new books. I have written in my books, and written on my books in critical essays and works of interpretation. Above all, from these old books I have conceived my own new ones, exchanging pleasure for pleasure. Most writers are constantly giving books back to books. Joyce gave a modern ''Odyssey'' back to Homer, and Anthony Burgess is constantly giving Joyce back to Joyce.
Books are full of gettings and givings.
That is why they are so often filled with dedications, acknowledgments, quotations and footnotes. This writer thanks the Rockefeller Foundation for the loan of the Villa Serbelloni on Lago di Como, which made writing it such a delight. Mimi, who will know just what I mean when I say. . . . That one thanks an editor for plying him with Perrier at the Four Seasons and getting this project started. Another thanks Wordstar.