The Absolute Book

by Elizabeth Knox

People who read Taryn’s book often quoted Heine: ‘“Where they have burned books at the end they will burn people.” That’s what your book is about,’ he said. ‘That’s where its whole argument leads.’

‘But the destruction of books is a gesture and a threat. It’s like saying to the people of those books: You’re next.’

old horror writers—James, Chambers, Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood.

The tarn was surrounded by tough alpine grasses and thorn bushes with berries of candy pink and cough-drop red. At that camp the party’s fire looked choked and small. And when the moon came out its light shone on and through the blue ice cliffs fastened to the black rock faces of surrounding mountains. The night breeze came as an icy downdraught carrying a scent of hostile nothingness, as if it blew all the way from the stars.

The Great God of the Deserts, the God from the Void, sequestered himself many hundreds of years ago. His worshippers had too many competing views of his nature, and it unsettled his mind. That’s a thing that can happen to gods. They’re very impressionable.’

Perhaps, in a world too full of people, she was the one too many.

A book for the general reader on an esoteric subject has to argue for its own interestingness by being interesting. And never argue for its own importance, which a work of scholarship may do. I consider the balancing act of “being accessible” a discipline rather than a limitation.

‘But that’s just the news, isn’t it. They make their money out of having ordinary people on the edge of their seats all the time and fretting over every little thing.’ ‘But,

‘The fallen angels arrived in Hell when they were thrown out of Heaven?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘They took over.’ ‘A small number of angels is stronger than a great number of demons. They’re like the men with the guns. Except no one can take their guns.’

There’s no point in just providing a spectacle. There’s no point in changing people’s minds or even their world views, but not having the means to change the world. That’s just acting in bad faith.’