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Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books by Marcel Bénabou   {Not reviewed by THOMAS} If he is not going to write a review of Marcel Bénabou’s book entitled Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books he might as well not write the review in a comfortable spot, he thinks, not doing something being somehow more demanding than doing something of a comfortable spot, he thinks, but he is not sure either if this is so or even if he thinks that this is so. My pleasures these days, he thinks, are increasingly of a negative sort, not being answerable to the world, for example, whatever that is, whatever that means, even for brief periods, being prominent among them. It is not true that all absences are the same absence, an empty box that does not contain chocolate is quite different from an empty box that does not contain dogshit, for example, even if it is the same box, and inactivity, likewise, in a comfortable spot, preferably, such as on this sofa by the window, specifically, is very different depending upon what activity I am not doing, he thinks. Although he lies here and writes nothing, he thinks, it is not incorrect to think of him as a writer as it is specifically writing that he is not doing as opposed to all the many other things he is also not doing. Lying on the sofa by the window and not writing a review of Marcel Bénabou’s book entitled Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books is pleasurable, he thinks, as he lies on the sofa by the window not writing a review of Marcel Bénabou’s book entitled Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books, but, he admits, lying on the sofa by the window having already written a review of Marcel Bénabou’s book entitled Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books would likely also be pleasurable, but, probably, not pleasurable enough to forgo the pleasure of lying on the sofa by the window not writing a review. Velleity is enough, he thinks, inclination without action is enough to give specificity to my non-achievement, making it a specifically literary non-achievement, and meaning to my uselessness, making it a meaningful literary uselessness. It is more satisfying, he thinks, as he lies on the sofa by the window, to fail to do something in particular than to fail to do anything at all, one should always be as particular as possible about what one fails to do, he thinks, thinking, he thinks, like a connoisseur of failure, a failure connoisseur, though thinking this puts him off the thought. There are other impediments to writing a review of Marcel Bénabou’s book entitled Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books other than the specific pleasure of not writing a review of Marcel Bénabou’s book entitled Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books, a pleasure, if it is a pleasure, that resembles in every way a failure, his failure to write a review of Marcel Bénabou’s book entitled Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books, for example there are other impediments in what he terms, politely, being answerable to the world, which situation he increasingly resents. Despite his best efforts, he thinks, he has failed to attain that state of complete uselessness that enables the mind to function without obligation, that state of complete uselessness that is absolutely necessary, he kids himself, for writing. He is neither useful enough nor useless enough, but useful enough for what or useless enough for what he cannot imagine. He does not admit to himself that he might write for he knows that the intention to write is an insurmountable impediment to writing, though not, perhaps, he admits, as insurmountable an impediment as the absence of an intention to write, not that it makes sense to consider relative degrees of insurmountability, he thinks, insurmountability is an absolute, he thinks, if it is impossible for me to leap across the Riverside Pool this does not mean that leaping across the Riverside Pool is less impossible than leaping across the Tasman Sea, at least for me, not that I have or have ever had even an inclination to leap across the Tasman Sea, but if I had such an inclination would that make my failure a work of art? My failure to write is an absolute. But if I write that my failure to write is on account of my absolute failure, he thinks, and that my creative sterility is in fact my creative sterility, I overcome my failure and my sterility and am able to write, and at this point it becomes even more important, he realises, that I do not write, as this would invalidate the mechanism by which my failure and my sterility were overcome. The inclination to write, he thinks, as he lies on the sofa by the window, must be resisted at all costs, and, he thinks, those costs may be high or low, he doesn’t know, immeasurably high or low, the absence that supplies the cost is an unplumbed absence, he thinks, though, if he says unplumbed, perhaps the absence should rather be either deep or shallow than high or low. Same difference. He will not write. When he was young, he thinks, lying on the sofa by the window, squandering his talent was a literary act, it was a literary act not to be dictated to by his talent, whatever that was, a literary act to achieve nothing, but now those decades of achieving nothing through the deliberate squandering of his talent, the deliberate literary squandering of his talent, he corrects himself, resemble absolutely decades of achieving nothing through the simple absence of talent, which is probably the case, he thinks, there is no evidence otherwise, I have been careful of that, my squandering of talent resembles no talent. I am free at last but exhausted by the effort of all that squandering, if there was any talent, and probably there was not, there is no reason to think that there was, not that it matters, I have squandered it all away. Still, he thinks, exhausted, it’s the squandering that counts.