Books are not self-contained. They are not unitary. They are social beings. Because when we read we can hear the voice of the author. The imagination of the author's persona is the active experience of reading. This imagination is like a courtship. It is sequential, it reveals itself in steps, it assumes an objectective and pursues it relentlessly.

The most disturbing aspect of reading is hearing a sharp and clear voice but not being able to hear the voice of one's own self at all. Reading is harmless. It is like listening to music inside your head. The only suggestion we have is to read after you can at least hear murmurs of your own voice.

Murmurs in the actor's head while she is reading are helpful. The help they provide is two-fold. One is narrative and filtration. The other is only understandable via an analogy with singing, a duet is a mode of singing that involves listening to the self as well as the self's imagination of the other at the same time. A duet is a more realistic to listen to than a solo rendition of a song because it acknowledges more.

Narrative guides our mind to read selectively and constrain one's response to reading a text to the immanent friction involved in the act of reading. We have to refuse to think about what we read and respond to it only in the immediacy of the act of reading. The specific character of the text and the dynamic of its construction only reveals itself in this friction. Analysis after the fact, without an actor who can channel the friction of the original experience does not work. Analytical language attempts to be precise to discount the presence of the actor who can channel the friction. Analysis aims to encode the friction in the specificity of its jargon. But this does not work, as specificity in encryption does not equal specificity in decryption.

Books are not finite. They can skim over the limitations of their format easily and from voices become windows to a psychic experience, a relationship with another dimension.

If the binding does not exist, if the sequence of the pages is not numbered, if the commitment of a book is rather absolute.

A book can be a file. Through a set of rituals, this book can then be served with a refill periodically and grow in varied and unknown directions.

Because continuing a conversation is easier than starting a new one. If we interrupt our sequence of talking every now and then, then how do we constantly seek new listeners. Finding a single listener is hard enough. The listener or the reader is not passive but an active agent who is archiving our voice and after a point, she starts claiming to know us more than we know ourselves.

So, a periodicity is more valuable to us than a grand-standing. We want to cultivate a relationship and not enter into a dialogue. Presence is registered only when layers of time accumulate and make an impression on us.