Perfect Books

Abstract

Having accepted SubStance's kind invitation to contribute to its hundredth issue, I found myself more and more troubled by the questions I had been asked to address, "What are the questions that fascinate you?" and "What do you want to know?" Not that they are unreasonable ones; quite to the contrary in fact. I realized nonetheless that, while there are a great many questions that fascinate me, the ones that fascinate me the most are the ones I find most difficult to articulate. Moreover, as fascinating as those questions may be to me, they are undoubtedly far less interesting to the readers of SubStance. I came to that sad recognition much less calmly than my account here may suggest, gnashing my teeth and wailing like any good academic will when confronted with an ugly truth. In the end, with iron in the soul, I accepted it. Somewhat later it occurred to me that there might be another avenue of approach. Since after all I profess literature, and since many of SubStance's readers likewise profess literature, why not recast those questions in literary terms, changing their shape but remaining relatively faithful to their original spirit? Faced with questions of this new ilk—"What are the books that fascinate you?" "What do you want to read?"—I could begin to see my way. The verbs are far too weak however: allow me to substitute "obsess" for "fascinate," and "ache" for "want." Here, then, are my short answers: I am obsessed by perfect books. I ache to read perfect books.