Irony is how we define everyday situations to be. You are merely a figment of the imagination. You are no more than an embarrassing moment. I hate it when you are rudely awakened to the fact that there is a disconnect between you and a story. The desire to be engaged in an elegant and lyrical work of art disappears. The baby episode in Rebecca West's "The Return of the Soldier" was meant to unite two ultimately different worlds, a what-if, a what-could-be, an indication of happiness. It felt so deliberately imposed, it wrote me off the text.