What is a book without a reader?

WEDNESDAY, 9 JUNE 2004

I call myself a writer, but yesterday I thought, am I not in the first place a teacher? I mean, so much of my writing is at least supposed to be educational. I can never get away from the idea that I am trying to explain something to the reader, that I am busy teaching something to an invisible audience – something that half of them already know anyway, and the other half either don’t understand, or they have no desire to understand.

Do I sometimes write in a way that makes it seem as if I consider myself clever? I should probably not try to deny it. Many people would certainly also challenge my ability to teach them something.

You, the reader, is however more than just the person on the other side of my sometimes unsolicited lessons. You are the link between what I am writing here in a dimly lit living room and the outside world. The fact that you are reading these words, at this moment, makes the writing of this text and the assembling of this entire project definitely worth it.

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