there is a problem. Suppose your padding were very obvious-such as
a lot of blanks, or pages covered with X's or random letters. Then, it
would be as good as absent.
Tortoise: Granted. You'd have to make it resemble normal printed pages.
Achilles: But even a cursory glance at a normal page from one story will
often suffice to distinguish it from another story. So you will have to
make the padding resemble the genuine story rather closely.
Tortoise: That's quite true. The way I've always envisioned it is this: you
bring the story to an end; then without any break, you follow it with
something which looks like a continuation but which is in reality just
padding, and which is utterly unrelated to the true theme. The pad-
ding is, in a way, a "post-ending ending". It may contain extraneous
literary ideas, having little to do with the original theme.
Achilles: Sneaky! But then the problem is that you won't be able to tell
when the real ending comes. It'll just blend right into the padding.
Tortoise: That's the conclusion my author friend and I have reached as
well. It's a shame, for I found the idea rather appealing.
Achilles: Say, I have a suggestion. The transition between genuine story
and padding material could be made in such a way that, by sufficiently
assiduous inspection of the text, an intelligent reader will be able to
detect where one leaves off and the other begins. Perhaps it will take
him quite a while. Perhaps there will be no way to predict how long it
will take ... But the publisher could give a guarantee that a sufficiently
assiduous search for the true ending will always terminate, even if he
can't say how long it will be before the test terminates.
Tortoise: Very well-but what does "sufficiently assiduous" mean?
Achilles: It means that the reader must be on the lookout for some small
but telltale feature in the text which occurs at some point. That would
signal the end. And he must be ingenious enough to think up, and
hunt for, many such features until he finds the right one.
Tortoise: Such as a sudden shift of letter frequencies or word lengths? Or a
rash of grammatical mistakes?
Achilles: Possibly. Or a hidden message of some sort might reveal the true
end to a sufficiently assiduous reader. Who knows? One could even
throw in some extraneous characters or events which are inconsistent
with the spirit of the foregoing story. A naIve reader would swallow the
whole thing, whereas a sophisticated reader would be able to spot the
dividing line exactly.
Tortoise: That's a most original idea, Achilles. I'll relay it to my friend, and
perhaps he can incorporate it in his Dialogue.
Achilles: I would be highly honored.
Tortoise: Well, I am afraid that I myself am growing a little groggy,
Achilles. It would be well for me to take my leave, while I am still
capable of navigating my way home.
Achilles: I am most flattered that you have stayed up for so long, and at
such an odd hour of the night, just for my benefit. I assure you thatAria with Diverse Variations^403