It is because
an acute intelligence sometimes appears
to hide, the immense foolishness to which it is linked
–of which it is only a negligible part
–does not delay in returning to it.

The certainty of the readers inconsistency,
the friability of the most astute constructions
constitutes the profound truth of books.
Since appearances limit it, what truly exists
is no longer the growth of a lucid thought
but its dissolution in common opacity.

The apparent immobility of a book deludes us:
each book is also the sum of the misunderstandings that it occasions.

–excerpt On Nietzsche by Georges Bataille, trans. by Stuart Kendall p.177

Another day of isolation in the house due to Covid.  The anti-viral seems to be working and the bouts of fever have receded.  I am feeling better.  Now on my second cup of coffee.  Is that a sign of recovery?

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And there’s the compulsion to write and to read books…  I am a reader.  I have read books, found solace, a refuge in books my entire life.  I have a stack of books resting on the floor next to my desk waiting to be read, – eight books.  Am I in a hurry to get to them?  Not particularly.  Each author will be received in due time.  None of these promises to be an “easy read.”

I recognize that I will bring my assumptions, a manner of interpreting reality that’s certain to be incompatible with that of the author’s.  It’s work, slow going to read a new philosopher.  It is always a worthy struggle to engage another mind.  I freely confess this reader’s inconsistency.

Because a book is held immobile, fixed in hand, I am seduced to the assumption of the incontestable authority of the written words.  The very materiality of the bound volume seems as if a “monument” to an internationally acclaimed author.  Bataille suggests the most carefully composed descriptions and theory of a text is crumbling (friable) when one considers the immense zone that is yet unknown relative to the subject.  Every published word is qualified by the unknown.  And not to be forgotten are the sum of misunderstandings which the work will occasion.

“…each book is also the sum of the misunderstandings that it occasions.”

“The profound truth of books…”  Forgive me until I can stop laughing.  Bataille writes that there is an immense foolishness hiding behind an acute intelligence.

There is no reason to take myself, a reader, or any author that I happen to be reading so seriously.  I must practice reading while I chuckle…