=William Gass on the transubstantiation of world to word=

I could not understand, then [as a young reader], how completely the world survived as the word, or that it was the historian's duty to outshout Time and talk down Oblivion. Nor could I know that the last little existence my Malt Shop might have (or this spindle-rack with its beckoning books, my stupidly named and simple streets, those shining tins of imported oil, their golden roses and musical medallions) would consist of a few foolish sentences, these random jottings, a small sheaf of loose pages carefully concealed from any likely reader.

—from The Tunnel