Des oiseaux rares sur la mince pellicule de l’écrit

The author of this article pleads for a "superficial comparatism", by asking the question: what is this depth, in the form of a possible text, which appears on the surface of any comparison? Or more precisely: what is the absent third of any comparison of texts (if we take the minimal configuration of the comparison of two texts)? What is this phantom third book that the juxtaposition of two books in the library of a comparativist inevitably provokes?