Anton‘s Bark - Three

It is confirmed by the real Otto that as the muse Urania works her magic on him, Anton loses control of his novel. Her inspirations provoke Anton’s imagination in such a way as to make it impossible for him to write anything that makes sense; and because whatever he imagines comes true, the writer’s confusion spirals further out of control. He believes the only way forward is to imagine his future reader. His plan is to imagine meeting that person and asking about what happens in Otto in Flames. Thus, Anton is consumed by another inspired immersion. He is transported to a cave, where he ends up speaking to a statue of the pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus. Because the statue has read Otto in Flames to the last page, Anton assumes that this must be his future reader. But his attempts to speak to the statue are foiled. Having talked us through these strange events, the real Otto completes the episode with a reading of Chapter Two of Anton’s book, which concerns a one-way flight from London to Vienna, sitting next to passenger dressed as a priest.