The writer gives shape to an inchoate problem inseparable from their subjectivity. In the degree of their skill and honesty they are able to give objective form and freedom to the question so that in every essential way it answers itself. But for all their ability they can only asymptotically approach the true underlying question. So however well they succeed they always fail. Or success seems to be no more than refining the question. The writing cannot stop because as soon as one construction is finished the apparent solution drops away and the question re-emerges in a yet more pressing form. The reader can see both question and answer, they can see what the writer must always fail to see, which is that the question has been completely answered, the asymptotic failure, the falling short, does not escape them but appears under the aspect of comedy: what is being looked for is right there under the nose of the seeker. While the same gap appears to the writer as tragedy, as the inevitable inadequacy of things, even if they might pretend to readerly satisfaction. It would all be a gift to the reader if only the question were the reader's question, which it never is, or only asymptotically so. The text is like a two-way mirror in which each party sees only the other's reflection.