W. says my horror of books is gleeful, unlike his horror, which is just horror. Bookshops fill me with a kind of gleeful joy, W. says, whereas he just feels sadness. The packages of review copies keep arriving, he says: his office is full of them and he can't bear to open them. All those books! It depresses him, he says, but no doubt it would fill me with gleeful joy.
I'm perfectly suited to the end times, W. says. It's a perfect fit. Glee, that's your Grundstimmung. I'm not capable of sadness, says W., not really. The apocalypse doesn't really perturb me. W. spends all day in his office, surrounded by books in parcels (which keep arriving, he says), mourning the end of civilisation, whereas I take glee in the coming end.
He's like the Fisher King, says W. He's wounded, mortally wounded, and there's nothing left for him to fish in the waters of the history of philosophy. Am I one of the knights who tries to cure you?, I ask W. Am I Percival? No, W. says, I am his wound and his impotence and his dream is someone will come along to save him from me.
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