Totems

W. doesn't believe I actually read books. — 'They're like totems to you', he says. 'They contain what you lack. You surround yourself with them, but you don't understand them'.

My office is actually filled with books, that's the paradox, W. says. I get a childlike excitement from them, from the fact of them, with their heady titles and colourful spines.

Of course, the real reader has no need to surround himself with books, W. says. The real reader gives them away to others, lending them without a thought of them being returned. What need has he for a library of books? He would prefer to be alone with only the most essential works, like Beckett with his Dante in his room at the old folks’ home. Beckett with his Dante, and cricket on the TV.