Yeeeeah. As soon as I started writing I knew he was going to be in there at least implicitly (I mean, weird cityscaping and quote-splicing and mechanical reproduction - I came to a lot of that sort of thing through Benjamin, so, yeah).

So I thought the least I could do was give him the final word, at least in terms of the quoted excerpts. But I'm still pretty *wince* about it myself - I certainly didn't do it unthinkingly, I hope. But if this does read as rather bleak, then, yes, that would be one reason.