The book I don't write? I was about to say. What did I have in mind? Or who? You say that, and the thing becomes a forest, a temple, an army, and each word divides itself up and eats itself.

The Book I don't write, that's generic. The Book I don't write is the one I don't write, only That One. Or perhaps – a Mallarméan use of the Book – Books, I don't write them, in general the book thing is not something I do, but also the Book I don't write is the one I don't write, you're the one writing that book, yes there's The Book I don't write, a nominal syntagma, a title, apparently, the whole thing was merely part of a sentence waiting for the rest of it, a subordinate clause in search of its main clause, stepping forth hesitantly, because of its segmented structure. Had I said: I don't write books, or I'm not writing the Book, or The book, then you'd have a complete thought to mull over. The strangeness of the statement – for why write about a book you don't write, you're not writing it, so what's there to boast or make a fuss about? Unless you are pointing out – or avowing, or disavowing – the slight awkwardness of the statement it's that the book looks like the subject, the theme of the sentence and yet it stands in place of the object, you can't tell whether it's object or subject, I don't know which is which, the book doesn't either.