PLACE, PRACTICE, AND KNOWLEDGE
Books are a load of crap.

PHILIP LARKIN, «A Study of Reading Habits,» Collected Poems, 131

I read that in THE NATURE OF THE BOOK. Print and Knowledge in the making. ADRIAN JOHNS. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS. CHICAGO AND LONDON.

Considering books are not necessarily THE truth, this thought [coming from a poet] is a bold declaration from the perspective of a printing culture that regards books as sacred.

Books shouldn’t be sacred. Sacred books can be used as political hostages and burnt at the stake to infuriate and derise^[1] when they’re just objects. Things made out of trees, water and glue and ink. In the most materialistic and cynical viewpoint. They neither should be a pretext to say menstrual blood is impure. Are boggarts impure^[2]?

Books shouldn’t be just things either. When a library burns and the other side of the History disappears, we lose the multiple perspectives there are to a single event. Diversity. And diversity means more than tolerance. It means survival. We survive best when we’re not all the same!

Hereby… what’s a book? Pasto kalo. 

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^[1] Can’t remember when it happened but some very amusing person in the States announced they would be burning Quran books. Which caused a very uncomfortable situation. Thus, books can be hostages. Or victims. The word bookicide may not exist, but it doesn’t mean at all the massive destruction of books never happen,

^[2] Sure, when rubbed off with the sleeves.