Abstract & Overview
Inspired by such imaginative works as Alan Lightmans Einstein’s Dreams and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, “The Written World” is a series of descriptive vignettes paying homage to literature itself. In an office in an ambiguous high school, an English teacher with hopeful dreams of becoming a published author tries to escape the mundane life of staying late to mark essays before returning home to an empty apartment. He reminisces about the once promising days of his university undergrad years and his mind wanders to a conversation he had in an English class one year about the different meanings of literature: the different ways in which to look at literature and the different metaphors that surround literature. “In a moment’s lapse of inspiration” (“The Written World”) the teacher writes at the top of a page: “Conceptions of the Origins, Properties and Uses of Literature” and begins to record his short vignettes. “The Written World” presents literature in many different styles. From the metaphorical tale of a pregnant woman giving birth to a book, to the dark story of a literary orphanage where the city’s discarded and unwanted literature is kept. From the absurd tale of literature being the only chew toy suitable for dogs to the romantic story of a young man who finds and loses love through literature. Behind the text lies such ideas as “what does it mean to be an author?” “Why do we read?” “Why do we discuss literature with others?” and “What inspires one to write?”20