Whose fault was it? Who can we blame? Because we have to blame someone. It has to be someone's fault. Who allowed us to read these books? Who, who would give us the right to read them and the right to write about them? Because something went very wrong at that point. Someone's guard was relaxed. Someone wasn't watching. And then it happened, the great catastrophe. The library was breached, we found ourselves a place at a desk and read, and wrote.
But who allowed it? Who got us into this mess? Who raised our aspirations to the sky? Who set these great books alongside us? Who granted us commerce with great ideas? Because they were too great for us. They were more than our heads could contain. We wandered around dazed. What had had happened to us? How could we account for it?
But there was no chance of that: accounting for it. Someone's back was turned. We were mistaken for real readers, for real thinkers. Who allowed it? Who can we sue? Because our horizons were opened too widely. We saw too much – and what could our lives ever be thereafter? And could we be blamed for taking ourselves, too, to be thinkers? For confusing ourselves with people capable of thought? And didn't we write, too – what temerity! Didn't we confuse ourselves with writers, by some cosmic error?
Someone wasn't watching – but who, and what does it mean? Perhaps something had come to an end. Yes, that must be it: something was at an end, a whole phase of civilisation. It's time to let the wreckers in: someone must have decided that, and in we came. We thought it was by chance – thought it was our luck (or our curse) that we were admitted, but it was a sign of something else, some great collapse.
The most lofty and serious of works had become a playground. The greatest of thoughts, toys. In came the degredators and paraphrasers! In came vandal scholars and idiot writers!
Once, they would have kept us out. High walls would have kept us from looking in, and rightly so. What business had we in there? But the walls have crumbled, and the gate stands open. What happened? Who left it deserted? These are the end of times, W. says. They must be. It all ends here, with us, The Star of Redemption open on our desks.
Lars Iyer's Blog 