Nothing that would not be all (Viaticum, Books VIII and IX)

Having reached heights in the previous book, this one reveals a kind of slowing. Book VIII is short, dispersed and less convincing. Book IX, which deals entirely with the question of laugh, is a little bit cynical. More than a feature of the reporting period of 1926, we rather see an age effect on an author who, from that time on, experiences difficulties in writing. His widowhood makes them worse: Lanza cannot manage to publish his Viaticums. At most, he prepares in part the Viaticum X edition. From that time on, he does not work anymore from memory but on texts he had retained and seems to think other people would complete the task.