From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gwi.net>
To: <bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: Re: BHA: An Interpretive Problem
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 14:35:32 +0200


Gary--

Your proposed strategy for analyzing Nash's poem via the different senses of
non-being is quite interesting.  But on the whole I tend to view the poem
from another direction--rather than treat it as an expression of the
speaker's mental disorder, I think it is better to understand it as
concerning a *real* problem that lies *outside* the speaker; a reading which
I think renders the poem both funnier and more serious at the same time.
But your argument goes some distance for me in clarifying why I think that.

You suggest that the sense of non-being employed in the poem is "that of an
entity which has never existed."  On one level, perhaps so, but I don't
think this captures the complexity of the man's (non)presence.  I think the
reference here is more on a par with Gertrude Stein's comment, "There's no
'there' there."  Taken by itself, the comment is basically just odd, but
actually in that instance there *is* a real referent: Stein was speaking of
Oakland, California.  (The comment's humor, not to mention mordant critique,
should be much sharper now.)  Now, to my knowledge Nash did not have someone
particular in mind, though then again, he might have.  In either case,
however, the man on the stair is depicted as a contradiction, or perhaps
more accurately, a paradox.  (Compare "a red green," "military
intelligence," and perhaps more tendentiously, "Stalinist marxism": in any
case, sometimes contradictions and paradoxes do occur in reality, and so I
tentatively suggest this form of a present absence is not adequately covered
by Bhaskar's three senses of non-being.)

In short, the man on the stair is a *problem*--a problem the speaker wishes
would go away, but evidently can do little about.  A problem not in the
speaker, but for the speaker.  It's the sort of problem which makes one
think, wishfully, "Ignore it and maybe it'll go away by itself!"  But as I
think about it, maybe that's exactly the point.  On the one hand, the fact
is, some problems when ignored long enough *do* go away by themselves (not
many, to be sure!).  On the other hand, this is a *nonsense* poem, and for
most people, the best response when someone blathers nonsense or behaves
irrationally (and the awkward and annoying man on the stair might be taken
as *enacted* nonsense) is to laugh, shake one's head, and walk away.  (Well,
at least that's what I generally do: "Don't kick against the pricks," as
they say.)  By this reading, Nash's poem is *logically* un-true (incapable
of validity), but *performatively* quite pointed.

I suppose in making this interpretation I am just rehearsing my own bad
habits, namely attempting a performative analysis, taking humor seriously,
and probably laughing at the all-too-serious.  (Such utter nonsense!  Maybe
if I ignore myself, I'll go awa






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