He is reading George Steiner’s ‘Grammars of Creation’. Steiner’s scholarship is daunting, and the reading puts Him in his place, but gently. There is a mirroring in Steiner’s words of the previous days’ ‘work’.
‘Satan may have provoked God into creating. ‘Show me,’ narks the critic-theoretician. Once creation lies before him, Satan seeks out its flaws. He ironizes the Maker’s self-satisfaction – that “very good”. It is as if Satan sought to touch on some occult fibre of vainglory in Jahve.’ (Steiner, p41)
‘It’ cringes, knowing the feeling, the vanity, and the (self)-destructive impulse. And the revelation that ‘It’ has characteristics that are universal is some consolation; it lights up congruence between those of us writ small and those others, writ large. Not that ‘creation’ lay before ‘It’. ‘It’ pointed to a lack in the image, no urgency or purpose in the marks, an aimless bolting on and unbolting of things. He took note, that was how He felt as well. He decided that the work had no redeeming features. The critic’s point was won. A third voice, not His, then urged caution, it wasn’t that bad, keep it, move on and return to it.
