Books are no ordinary children.
No dad wants his daughter to offer herself intimately to, well, everyone who cares to open her and delve inside.
I call the book Human: Instructions for Use my daughter, yes. She feels like a woman, the way she touches back and triggers my imagination. The way she questions me while I’m questioning this world.
(BTW: It would be absolutely preposterous, of course, to write a book Woman: Instructions for Use! Very few would read the book and too many would rush to disagree with it. A flagrant waste of time!)
A Slovenian reader thought even the title Human: Instructions for Use was audacious, and I beg to agree.
Yes, it’s arrogant to pretend to know who and what we humans are, how we should be, how we should live. I’d have to be in deep denial to preach to others some ideals that are, undoubtedly, beyond me.
I committed the beautiful crime of being the young fool that published the audacious title Human: Instructions for Use in Slovenian in 2007.
I didn’t know what I was doing, anyway.
Tell me, which dad knew what he was doing when he had his firstborn?
Book after book, I learned to relax. Their fate, once they are out of my hands, is not up to me.
Human is my seventh book. Twelve years after its first edition in Slovenian, in the English version, I’ve melted down the exclamation marks and bent them into question marks.
I don’t write from the position of knowing, or rather, pretending to know. I doubt myself as much as I doubt my entire culture.
Now I advocate bending all internal exclamation marks into question marks. If there’s anything I wish my readers would take from my book, that’s it: question everything!
Well, I’m not the only one with this wish. She wishes it!
The book Human is in her teens. She doubts, she questions, she’s curious. She’s turning sexy. And she’s interested in you! Please, forgive her jolting.
As her dad, I’m encouraging you to flirt with her. Kiss her! Forget about your sexual orientation and social norms! She’ll be whatever age and gender you want her to be. Commit to her. She’s keen to learn from you as much as she’s ready to give.
After all, she’s just a book … for some ordinary, for some very special.
I’m her dad, so how could I not think she is extraordinary. She’s ravishing!
Open her, delve into her. And judge for yourself is she worthy of your love.
The beauty of a book is that thousands of people can make love with it simultaneously.
I know, my daughter will be lost amidst millions of other books, born by other moms and dads. She’ll have a life of her own in this chaotic world. Her fate is not mine and I’m glad of it.
I did my job. Now it’s up to her to find her dance partners and lovemakers.
I’m launching her gracefully and I hope she lands softly in your lap.
I trust you…