James Studdard: The common thread running through most of the
criticism is that the notes (and VN) would have been better served (as Tom
Stoppard suggested) being burned...I really am confused by all this
piffle.
Mark Bennett: The
matter seems straightforward to me: whoever buys the original note cards
should burn them.
JM: A symbolic, artsy
and self-defeating "auto de fé"?
VN's (possible) last words in it were:
“efface”, “expunge”, “erase”, “delete”, “rub out”, “wipe out”,
“obliterate”.
All of these are mainly applicable to
a written text, not to a flesh and blood "corpus" or to the material
surface of a card. Besides they are, in themselves, words and not actions.
I understand their spirit as representing
something similar to the liar's paradox, as it has been transformed into a
promise by author L.F. Verissimo:
"I'll never lie again. This is the last time, I
promise you."