Oh Holy Text

In a fit of rage, curiosity, or hunger my ex black and tan pound-puppy Doberman with long tail and floppy ears attacked this copy of the Text and tore it to shreds. I now have in my possession a copy of the first few pages mangled and chewed.

The title page, torn in half, reveals the first page of “A Note on the Text” and from an entire page full of words, one of the readers of this particular copy has underlined, in pencil, two words: jouissance and bliss.

Appreciate the humor and honest irony of a puppy eating this text with such a title. Was the puppy not precisely engaging, in the most literal sense, in the sort of action -- deriving a sensual pleasure from a text -- that the book suggests every reader take part in? Only if he had humped the book first would the puppy’s actions seem more appropriate. And he may have, after all, in our neglect, no one was around to witness the jouissance of the puppy’s interaction with the book -- otherwise, it never would have happened.