21.

Zoom out. John Trimbur claims that the page constitutes the minimal element of writing — what he calls the “unit of discourse” (i.e., “the fundamental feature of print culture,” its structural uniformity providing a metric for the length, if not the labour, of writing itself).³³ The page of the modern moment constitutes a kind of terra nullius, overwritten with the features of a grid, otherwise invisible, but rule-bound by industrialized typographical norms, complete with uniform fonts in uniform lines, all arrayed in ranks on a sheet of paper, fixed in scale throughout the depth of a sheaf. The page represents a measure for the text, providing countable intervals for the routine of writing, with each turn of the page leading a person not only deeper into the dimensions of the book but also deeper into the dimensions of the self, cultivating an “inwardness” of escape.³⁴