Folks still inquire about my stacks of books that accompany me everywhere and the tattoos that enscript my flesh and I recently stumbled upon this old post of mine that still feels as accurate as I could express presently…
the knowledge of most worth, whatever it may be, is not something one has: it is something one is… The end of criticism and teaching, in any case, is not an aesthetic but an ethical and participating end: for it, ultimately, works of literature are not things to be contemplated but powers to be absorbed.
Northrop Frye, The Stubborn Structure
As the Fall semester begins, with all its anticipation, energy, trepidation, and more… so many cultural and technological changes and experimentations upon humans and their learning, directing, and doings… I find more and more that we may be entering a kind of “dark ages” for reading and writing – a time when few, specialized alchemical, spiritual, learned enclaves (monasteries mostly) preserved the materiality of human learning and culture for hundreds and hundreds of years… that otherwise would have vanished to our access.
Following are some sections of Robert Bringhurst’s wonderful small beautiful printing of an incredible talk delivered orally – “What is Reading for?” – which I fervently recommend you borrow or find for the whole river of its beautiful pathway of winding deep riches and reflection. https://scottboms.com/library/what-is-reading-for
Now some samples from Bringhurst…
“In the narrow sense, as we all know, writing and reading refer to something done only by highly organized, agricultural, and management-oriented groups of human beings: making and deciphering visible signs for this normally invisible and almost intangible but nevertheless exceedingly dangerous stuff called human language. After that kind of reading and writing gets going, it’s borrowed by people who aren’t so management-oriented: oddballs like me, who want to use it to give stories and poems and ideas and musical compositions an independent, semipermanent material existence: to let them speak for themselves, like paintings and statues.
“That kind of reading and writing is usually called artificial. It only exists where highly organized groups of humans go to a lot of expense and trouble to sustain it. But some of the things that are done with it, and some of the things it is used for, are not artificial at all. Margaret Atwood, you might remember, spoke about that crucial shift, from the writing of quartermasters and clerks, wanting to keep control of what they possess, to the writing of thinkers and listeners, wanting to keep in touch with what they’ve heard. Both kinds of writing are, of course, still with us, but it is the latter kind of writing that we associate with writers, and so with readers too…
“…If it sounds like writing loves rivers [he’s just spoken of the earliest traces we have of places we have evidence of inventions of writing, all which occurred along rivers], that’s because writing loves agriculture, and that’s because writing is, itself, an advanced form of linguistic agriculture. “Writing is planting,” it says in a poem I remember from somewhere – and reading is harvesting. Harvest time, you’ll remember used to be a time of celebration, but harvesting was work. There are actually places where humans still do it themselves, and where they remember that it leads, in turn, to more work – threshing and milling, peeling an cooking, pitting and drying – and then to still more celebration. In industrial societies, all of these crucial activities are now mechanized. I have a strong hunch that the urge to digitize books and distribute them over the internet to reading machines grows out of a similar dream: a desire to build machines that will write and edit and print and read the books for us, so we can go upstairs and watch our screens…
[here he spends a few sections tracing the evolution of the materiality of oral language to script and then to printing – to scribal cultures to typography – to preservation and dissemination methods and technologies, concluding with]: “You see what I’m getting at. Reading could have a rich and interesting future, because it does have a rich and interesting past. But if no one remembers that past, it may not mean much to the future…What I think is that a great work of literature deserves fine typography and printing, just as a great theatrical script or a great piece of music deserves a great performance. The idea, of course, is that these things can add up – and ought to add up, at least once in awhile, as a form of celebration. If reading good books is physically pleasant, people just might spend more time reading those kinds of books, and might want their friends and neighbors and children to do the same. And reading good books just might make some of them into wiser, healthier people. That, as I recall, is how education is supposed to work. It’s not necessarily supposed to raise the GNP or make everybody rich, but to make every life more likely to be a life worth living, whatever life it is…with a reasonable degree of intellectual and spiritual independence…”
Decide to write the book-that-turns-to-water, as speech-that-turns-to-air. All that rippling silence, even without language.
Someone asking: what is gesture? movement? expression-in-its-being?
Signification the silent razor.
Someone mentions music, which it claims “represents nothing at all,” (Michel Seuphor) and I doubt that: is there not expression? confession? some sonorous and vibratory friction or exhalation? A “constant inscription of birth in innumerable ways…language is metaphor and metonymy, one cannot avoid it.” (Helene Cixous)
[“where trace becomes existence” (Seuphor)]
I am tracing letters without a model, refusing to hub any wheel…
.
Out of its mouth: communication sounds. The body moved likewise. Undulant, suggesting. only sounds, no discernible words.
Signification, perception, emotion, feeling, sensation… and then translations: prefrontal cortex: “meaning”?
A blockage. Refusal.
Andre Malraux: “You are human when you can say no.” Remembers Bartleby.
A man stumbles into a bar… (perhaps you’ve heard this one before)… truly more of a sauntering in seeming need of assistance… must be no stranger here, his drinks await him wherever he finds or chooses or results in sitting: a something-with-vodka, large glass of water, and occasionally a cup filled with coffee.
“You’re the one that always has books,” some say, “you some kind of writer or something?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he mumbles. “I’m always tired, I feel ugly and old, I don’t like my body but don’t desire doing anything about it, perhaps I should, I’m sure to lose it someday…” (he isn’t talking to anyone). “Thank you, always, you’re ever so kind,” he says.
He says “My children seem to remember me,” shifting in his chair as if to leave, or relocate tables, “my children they seem to remember, and they hurt me, they have hurt me, my body hurts, mostly in sport, and what they do and don’t remember.” He opens a book, looks as if he’s reading, another round of drinks appears.
He writes and marks in many colors. He is dirty. He wears overalls and moccasins. He never seems cold. It is cold.
“I decided to shower today,” he mutters. “Some ladies still talk to me,” something-and-vodka drips through his beard, “some will even hug or hold me yet, even this way” (patting his belly, grimacing) “I guess I didn’t like my smell or simply thought it might change me, it’s awful hard to be alone with my body.” He moves, his drinks are waiting at another table, both fresh fills and half-drunks, and a sandwich of some kind. The cook passes and pats him on the shoulder, smiles, asks of how he’s doing. They hug. The man praises him and his eyes are moist. The man isn’t anyone in particular. He isn’t anyone.
“What you doing with all those books?” she asks, he thinks. Pretends that someone’s interested. “Not the young ones much anymore,” he says, “they are needing something else, they can tell I’m aged and tired, carrying the trouble of experiences, but a few, a few older ones will let me hug them, touch, perhaps a kiss, perhaps an accidental overnight, that strange collapse.”
“I have them to read,” he replies, “there’s always more to read,” he whimpers, “so much, so many, to read,” he sighs and smiles like a boy receiving toys, “if only people, my children, if, if they felt read this way by me, some women, some wonderful women, if I could delve, could attend, if others felt read this way, these books, I love them, I love and need them, their words, I love and need and want them…if others felt that way, I’d like to feel that way – loved, wanted, needed… sometimes my children…”
“Another?” she says so warmly with her tight and fast-moving body, lithe and breasted, friendly with its clothes. She has a fresh vodka-with-something, he says “no I shouldn’t, but sure, I guess, you’re so kind to me, why not? I will, yes” (wanting, loving, needing.. books scattered over the tabletop, all closed). He drinks.
“My children, my friends – so smart, so beautiful, with verve… so helpful… I did shower today,” he thinks, “maybe I’ll be useful to one or some of them, but probably not, what could they need or want of me,” he drinks. “Not the young ones, though, not anymore,” he thinks, “what could I offer – these worn experiences, these words and doubts, these lacks of memories, confusions, waking dreams, these wonders.”
“You’ll need to go soon,” she chides, “you can’t be staying here.” “But he’s the writer,” a boisterous drinker shouts, “he oughta tell a story, oughta earn his keep!” Drunk old friendly at two in the morning (bar time – it’s actually 1:35).
“Tell us something,” they gather, they prompt. “Say some of those words,” they prod.
So he opens his notebook and begins to write…
“…the contradiction which awaits the writer is great. There is no mission, he cannot undertake it and nobody has sent him on it, that is to say he will have to become nobody to accept it; a contradiction which he cannot survive. That is why no writer can hope to preserve his life’s freedom for the benefit of the work… everything takes place between the artist and himself; no one else can do anything about it; it is a mystery like love that no extraneous authority may judge or understand.”
Don’t start reading. The writing always stops when there’s something to read.
There’s always something to read.
Somethings you really, really want to read.
Avoiding frustration.
–
Urges.
You want, gutturally – in the stomach of your heart – she’s ill, she’s suffering, the phone, to text, just text, “still love you”, like that, she must need care, she must (perhaps not, perhaps she’s been more than cared for, is ecstatically happy, relieved, content, unbothered – it was she who chose to leave, who left, after all).
Divert.
Text someone else, another, one who maybe wants you to love her, who misses. Avoid frustration.
No. Write it. Write about the urges, the diversion, the avoidance. Read a little first, get a taste, a feel for what letters, what language, might do…
Avoid frustration.
Write.
Take a drink (an attempt to frustrate frustration, avoiding satisfactions, short-circuiting risks with another), no texting, follow your fears, note your diversions, attend your avoidance, but act elsewhere. Write.
Fear.
–
Could start anywhere, and none a satisfaction, only inscriptions or actions of frustration – to read, to write, to love the one who doesn’t want it, who’s trying to get away (has gotten away, but also wants to leave it behind), to contact one who might or who does want to hear from you (but you don’t, don’t know, just want love, some response) – want to write…
…for ANYone, any SOMEone, perhaps yourself, perhaps all the opportunities lying about you wanting to be read – no, you want to read them…
Avoid frustration, settle for imagined response, even address, to be called – the words in the books rarely fail in calling you, addressing you, which for you feels like response, like being wanted, almost needed, like a text from ANYone, any SOMEone, who invites your love.
Take a drink, frustrate frustration, move into fear, toward satisfaction (or one of its bastard offspring).
Just write.
Don’t check that phone. Don’t even touch it. Leave it in another room. Turn it off, power it down.
See the words come easy when you simply write them out instead of fracturing them, spreading them thin through a network, splaying them across pages and phones and emails and…
…Deviser of the voice and of its hearer and of himself. Deviser of himself for company. Leave it at that. He speaks of himself as of another. He says speaking of himself, He speaks of himself as of another. Himself he devises too for company. Leave it at that. Confusion too is company up to a point. Better hope deferred than none. Up to a point. Till the heart starts to sicken. Company too up to a point. Better a sick heart than none. Till it starts to break. So speaking of himself he concludes for the time being, For the time being leave it at that” – Samuel Beckett, Company
“The words spoke by themselves. The silence entered them, an excellent refuge, since I was the only one who noticed it.” – Maurice Blanchot, The Madness of the Day
So, speaking of himself, I only noticed it.
The small furry animal, almost humming in its purr, he had chance, so he thought, to please, to comfort, with a pet, a scratch, an acknowledgment, tender, while it butted and marked itself against him. The illusion. A kind of company in itself (or to).
The ungrammaticality of occurrences. Of happening. What happens to be. Or is not. When speaking to himself. Without voice. I was the only one, as far as I am able to tell – if in fact this is telling – who noticed it. It seems words speak of themselves. From elsewise and through whom. He says, speaking of himself (or to). Without voice.
Devising. Illusion. I devise, he says, speaking to himself, of himself, without voice. Seeking – is he? – Am I? – Seeking…company?
A small child (another illusion, devised) passes by, walking a young dog and waving a nod of sorts – I don’t remember which, he says, but I returned a gesture and obtained a moment of calm in the chilly Autumn breeze. There was a sun full of color due to the leaves in their change, and fall, and flutter (due to the nothing-shaped wind). But what seemed a moment of warmth, of calm, devised by a child with a dog and a friendly (fearful) gesture, he thought (speaking of himself without voice), I was the only one who noticed it.
I take to reading then – others speaking of themselves without voice (or beyond it) – in order to devise… company? he wonders of himself, to himself. For when reading, it surely seems the words are speaking only of themselves, no matter who pens them. Such the character of the texts he chooses (I thought of myself, to myself, or an other I devised as myself, like puppets). And in part read and read for the experience or feeling that I alone notice it. That I might in fact provide the company I devise, yet hardly able to tell since I have not penned the words but merely notice – borrow, listen? (there are no voices) – the words seem to speak of themselves. Without voice. (He said of himself, devising). Something like company. Perhaps.
Even in the color-filled sunlight of Autumn days, I at times experience myself as being quite deeply in dark, he says speaking of himself, myself, devising voices, soundless, out of words that seem to be speaking only of themselves and their variegated histories and usages, and billions of potential speakers and hearers and interpreters – creators and devisers – filled with ambiguity and application. Here with me on shavings of dead trees, providing stark living contrast to Winter’s day-night. I get confused, he says speaking of himself. Confusion too is company devised, up to a point, I suppose. Obviously “fusion-with” implies an other, perhaps enough, I said, speaking to myself, without voice, here on dead leaves in black scars. In mutilation. Transgression. Inscription. Perhaps the words will speak of themselves and some other “I” will claim to be the only one that notices.
A strange delusion of company indeed. He says speaking of himself, devising a voice, its hearer, and an himself as participant and therefore a company to keep.
Reading: “only a detour is adequate” (Agamben), and “in pursuing meaning we are pursuing our limits” (Allen), and was perhaps meaning a synonym or metaphor, simile or metonymy for company he thought, speaking to himself, without voice. But with an illness, diagnosed by doctors – those scientific political powers responsible for providing facts or devising happenings, pronouncing occurrences – so in any case he is not alone, being-with his illness, I thought, speaking to myself in an absence of sound. The words spoke by themselves.
Other things as well: the furry animal, its humming purr, its actions; the trees, the leaves, the wind, the light. The child, the dog, the gestures. The books, the authors, the words themselves. Divisors of voices, of hearers, of selves. Sick hearts, confusion, and company. Am I the only one who notices? he says speaking of himself, speaking of himself as another.
So speaking of himself he concludes for the time being, For the time being leave it at that.” – Samuel Beckett
A “Book Review” – complements The Whole Hurly-Burly
Dublinesque
By Enrique Vila-Matas
We are able to “keep up appearances” – some habitual collage of identities – for quite a long time.
I don’t have ANYthing to say, to speak of, when I encounter – READ – the work of a great writer / a great written work [or writerS – the book above is in translation, and that by two others]. Alas.
Broken. Spellbound. With nothing to add, say, profess, testify – unable to stop speaking.
: Literature, no?
The frozen sea within me (fraud, image, appearance, presentation, mis-representation) AXED?
It feels that way: like being stumped in a crucial interview by a question one never expected – exposed – somewhere beyond your bones – on into some uncanny…
Like that.
So I read, with the feeling of partaking of fine food outstripping my station. So tasteful, delicious and exquisite that the experience teeters at throw-up or orgasm…nearly too much pleasure…too much exposure…too much experience.
And the concomitant deflation, flattened, realizing that I am none of something, perhaps too many of somethings,
disordered, disorganized, confused.
Undone.
Vulnerable and laid bare – with nothing showing.
I am not that
Frightening (terrifying even, at some level) and freeing (or, unknown, unpredictable, possible).
Potential, unlikely, impossible to prove or ascertain – uncertainty – unknowable
to my ‘self’ in my body, as a name, or a father, a partner, a person, a friend.
A cipher. Undeserving of accolades or attributions, unaware of facts or characteristics –
just a long train of habits,
histories, perceptions and behaviors. A long, long trail of showing up…taking space…acting…AS.
With nothing else: not more-than or without, not subterfuge or false, no accomplishments or occurrences in lieu of AS.
The residue of NOTHING.
Bereft then, but not of substance. Empty, but not of force. Simply laid bare, examined, investigated…
…and found wanting.
I stare.
There are things I can perform, ways I interact, roles fulfilled, tasks achieved, conversations replete with reactions and response,
but that is all.
I have a shape, I’ve garnered knowledge, mastered speech and comprehension, can use my cock, can analyze, interpret and produce. Can keep alive and support others, draft language and record. Able to run, walk, sit, stand. To do, make, say and think. In other words – TO BE – and be HUMAN (passably), but undefined, unqualified, ephemerally labeled, nothing “sticking,” “fitted,” by which I might be “called.”
Just a human lacking content, wriggling survival as a beast. An educated beast. And unwitting, unaware and unforeseen.
AN EMPTY ‘I’. (Replace with senses – it means the same). A processing thing, operative organism – a complex or compound of certain circumstances, situations, affordances, of contexts. But nothing special, just unique. An additional example of a being.
Being false. In sense of veiled, covered over, costumed and behaved. Or misbehaved, rankly naked, shown-up short, struggling by.
It doesn’t matter as a seem or even category, division, or multi-ply. Can’t reach zero, can’t be counted, a kind of circumstance of pi. A virtual reality that’s not quite real, not loved quite right to rub it so.
A becoming, misshapen, and clumsily adorned, fooling-no-one. There is no one. Only you. Me. Us.
“an unleashing of erroneous energy”
Derivative and fake. A mistake, mistake uncalled-for and unnecessary, and untoward. A simple “me.” Empty. Formed.
All my Words are Silent 