The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki

And yet . . . Do we flatter ourselves? Did not the sequential form of our folios give shape to your stories and compel you to tell a certain kind of tale? Long, sinuous, patient tales that wound through time, teased forth by the slow, forward turning of our pages. They were beautiful stories we nailed together. Weren’t they?

Bound as you are by your senses—so blunt and yet so beautiful—it’s impossible for you to imagine that the myriad beings you dismiss as insentient might have inner lives, too. Books are in an odd position, caught halfway in between. We are sensible, if not sentient. We are semi-living.