Sons of the Book

We dream of the book we might write together, which might appear under both our names. Our Anti-Oedipus, he says. Our Anti-Duhring. Our System-Programme.

It won't be a book about a book, we think to ourselves, but a thing unto itself, standing on its own two feet. Not a book about books – a commentary-book, or an introductory book – but a book that would live its own life, running through the forest like Baba Yaga's hut.

A book that made itself, somehow. The book granted Pinnocchio's wish to be a real thing. A living book, a living flame, a star which consumes only itself.

A book that does not need us, that's our dream. A book that has its own adventures, far away from us, cleverer than us and better than us, a book which surpasses us in everything.

And who will we be, cast into the outer darkness by its glory?, W. says. Who will we be, measured by our book, by the greatness of our book?  We will be sons of the book, we agree. We'll be fathers on the book which will give birth to us as its sons, that's what we dream of. That our book will give birth to us as it dismisses us and sends us away. As it pushes us away with a laugh and leaps into the world …