Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 86

footnoted edition of “The Nicomachean Ethics.” Each entry was earned, not granted.

And now, “Infinite Jest” loomed.

He had resisted its inclusion for years. Too recent. Too American. Too ...... tennis. But the book had persisted. It had survived the cycles of parody, the waves of dismissal, the academic dissections. It had become, in its own way, inevitable.

He lit a cedar fire and stared at the spine of the book, which he kept wrapped in linen to avoid accidental canonization. He recalled the passage about the Entertainment; the film so captivating it rendered viewers inert. He saw in it a metaphor for the castle's own Projection Room, where guests watched without expectation, and Royals spoke without audience.

Was “Infinite Jest” a mirror? A warning? A classic?

He summoned Willem - Alexander, who entered silently and placed a card on the desk; "Time is not the measure. Ritual is."

Albertina sang a single note from the opera Wozzeck and left.

Queen Maxima Furrbaby leapt onto the desk, sniffed the ledger, and knocked a quill to the floor.

William I took it as a sign.