He had never heard of the crime of “interpretation” until he became a book censor. Even then, he hadn’t understood what it involved. When he’d asked the First Censor, his answer was that interpretation was an Old-World practice from the time when readers thought they could engage with texts to create meaning. “But,” the First Censor had continued, “we don’t have to deal with such issues. The only meaning in our lives comes to us from the government. Our duty as book censors is to block all avenues of interpretation.”
