The unconscious mind of a book

Clémence Boulouque once told me that every book has an unconscious of its own. Readings that did not fit, thoughts we threw out. Now that Forgiving Philosophy is out, I can go back to that material.

I once assumed the discarded pages were lost. They were not. An argument ends by leaving behind some thoughts that were never refuted, only unaccommodated. They eat at the table of the book that excluded them.

That is what a parasite is. Para-sitos: the one who eats beside. The guest at the edge of the meal, never invited and never sent away. Serres adds that the parasite is also noise, the interference a message has to carry in order to be a message. A book with nothing left out is an impossible object.

So what I am starting now is not new work. It is the host turning around to see who or what has been eating beside it. These are the questions I could not ask. They have had a couple of years to grow strong on my inattention, and they know where the argument is thin.