Literary Darwinism

There is a bomb in a high school right now. A bomb that could go off at any second and without warning. It looks harmless enough, age fading its navy-blue covering to a dull grey, sandwiched between Dante and Shakespeare, biding its time within the bowls of the library. Its fuse is silent--there is no ticking to be heard, no hint that is given to what might lie inside. This bomb was written by the Marquis de Sade.

A mere freshman, I stumbled upon this literary landmine, and after thumbing through it, snapped it shut and glanced from side to side like a guilty criminal, expecting the whole world to be watching. But no one was. The Marquis is a name generally unknown to high school students, a name that serves as the root for "Sadism," as in "S&M," and this book of his read as a manual for bizarre, dangerous, and sometimes comical sex--located conveniently enough within the confines of your average school library. As I put the book back on its shelf, something occurred to me, and I took it back and opened it to the back. It had not been checked out for over two decades. Or, it had not been officially checked out for over two decades--who knows how many like myself came along since that time and learned of it, not reading it, not needing to, but going away with their imaginations sparked--knowing what it contained inside, or more importantly, the very possibilities of what *might* be.

Some believe that the book, the printed word in its myriad variety of shapes and forms, is an object whose purpose lies in being read, to communicate a thought from one person to another, across the mighty distances of space and time. But such a definition is woefully inaccurate to describe the nature of a certain little blue-grey book, sitting and ignored, among the dry and dusty volumes in the dark corners of a high school library.

I discovered the book and left it to its own designs. But what if a far more rude student had chanced upon it? What if the information was read, was read aloud, loudly, and for all to hear? Students gathering in a circle, snickering, bragging, shouting their discovery and flaunting at authority, laughing that something such as this would be overlooked by the Puritans, and somehow fall into their grasp. The book would be destroyed.

Its very existence depends on being ignored, overlooked, and misplaced--sharing itself only with friends in quiet secret. It is a landmine, the very instrument of its own destruction. This old book of Sade's has a special place within my heart, as does every animal on the endangered species list. Its purpose--is survival--and that message is something mere words can never say.

For Generation, this is

Richard Leader