Literature just sounds privileged and racist and elitist. And passe. And vaguely fascist. It’d be outlawed, if it was any kind of threat, which of course it isn’t. They’ll just let it all fall out of print. Become unavailable. Except in digital form, and who cares about PDFs? Actual books – an anachronism. No one’s interested.
Actual literary books will seem vaguely disgusting soon. Dirty. And so will literary readers. They’ll be made to feel ashamed. They’ll skulk.
All your books. They’re dangerous now. Full of wrongthink. Full of mental poison. We know better know than any of that.
It’s like you spent your life dreaming of old Europe. Or being dreamed By old Europe. You’re a bad dream of Old Europe.
Did Old Europe really dream of us? Was there nothing better to dream of than us?
Europe’s tormenting itself. Europe’s turned masochist. How does it end, all of this?
Do you think you’re saving the world, writing in your notebook? Are you saving yourself?
You’re writing all this down in your Work, capital W. In the last book. And who will publish it, the last book?
The last publisher, of course. And it will be edited by the last editor. And its typos will be corrected by the last proofreader …
Work in Progress 