The Bookbinder

7:15 AM

On the cold morning of November 14th, I found that my brother Frank had become a foxed, leather-bound, and mysteriously dusty hardcover of The Monadology by Gottfried Leibniz. Mondays, right?

It made sense, I reasoned. We had fiercely clashed the previous night along metaphysical fault lines. I tried and failed to explain my metamodern philosophy, which was partially inspired by the late German philosopher, along with the scientific advancements of the last few centuries. To Frank, this kind of “universal system” was anathema. And it drove me crazy when, as in our last dialogue, my brother’s stance against universal absolutes became his absolute. My starting point of an absolute Good and the reality of meaning was his nonstarter. He was armed and ready to reject these kinds of things with his usual cohort of claims — including of course that “value, meaning, and truth are subjective.” Frank was always such an unbearable postmodern killjoy. But I never wished him any misfortune. I suppose if one must become a book, this is a damn good one. Lucky Frank.

Books are, of course, written by people — but maybe they have an even more human origin than I knew. My personal library contains hundreds of books. Could some be former people? I found myself thinking that there were a number of people I knew who would be better off as books.