Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 16:22:15 -0500 From: allen scult <allen.scult-AT-drake.edu> Subject: Re: Poesis II: hiding from big bird --Boundary_(ID_WIPhoiwMmHyJDilBTz/tTQ) Dear Gulio, At 2:20 PM -0400 9/30/01, Blank wrote: >Dear Allen, > >You were asking what if the hidden doen't show itself in words? I >started reading reading Beckett and what impresses me about reading >Malone Meurt for instance is _how_ he uses words in such a way that >their sense are taken away in a sort of art of disappearnace, a >purifying abstraction that shows the nothing that 'is' there. How reassuring in its way! Even though there's nothing ( or almost nothing) there, nonetheless Beckett's words can show it. In this most minimal showing, I find a very rich sense of being-with. I want to call it "authentic." I think it's what I was alluding to when I spoke of the trustworthiness of Beckett's words. > A kind of literary suicide perhaps, or the "old shipwreck" which is >an expression that comes up in this novel, a disaster showing >nothing but the dust and debris of twisted metal and broken glass... >What is left of words but their own ruin, their failure to express >some tragedy, some terror? I picture Beckett rustling around amongst the word-ruin ( Ruins of what? Towers of Babel I think. Where words tried to do too much, and so imploded)looking for some sign of life. >That seems to me the challenge but the truly macabre and comical is >that one could just as much be speaking of love, especially >unrequited love, the terror of falling in love. A heart is broken >because something precious is taken away, say, the subtance of words >as their meaning or legibility. The writer or reader is left without >a voice, speechless, with an impossibly weak and poor expression. If >something is taken away then it's effect is like that of something >being interdicted and prohibited, a limit is impossed on expression >which takes away the power of speaking about anything. It could only >be a strange kind of possibility, of a caring that borders more on >insensibility and indifference than anything else. I agree. What is lost is a "possibility." Which we despair of "reconstructing." How did we construct it in the first place? We didn't. It happened; we thought something of it; and put some words to it, hoping the words would preserve the possibility. Like Abraham building alters all over the place to mark the places where he thought he found Yahweh. Those places are still in dispute ( Hevron, for example)--have been for thousands of years. Disputed patches of earth; disputed words; they're fragments we take for something, lay claim to. But not Beckett. He insists on interrupting himself before he gets to whatever claim he seems on his way to making. It is a deep caring, bordering on indifference. > You say we shouldn't be too trusting. That is an interesting, >ordinary topic. The word "trust" is so used up we hardly know how to >discuss trust. I know I'm not sure what to say. Is it not the same >as saying, for instance, that we should love, or be attached as >little as possible? Love is perhaps a useless human emotion? Perhaps as Heidegger says of philo-sophia: . We must therefore say philosophy is the immediately useless, though sovereign knowledge of the essence of things. That last connection came to mind because of the power of the word " useless" in each case. I'm not sure it means anything. Allen -- Allen Scult Dept. of Philosophy HOMEPAGE: " Heidegger on Rhetoric and Hermeneutics": Drake University http://www.multimedia2.drake.edu/s/scult/scult.html Des Moines, Iowa 50311 PHONE: 515 271 2869 FAX: 515 271 3826 --Boundary_(ID_WIPhoiwMmHyJDilBTz/tTQ)
HTML VERSION:
Dear Allen,
You were asking what if the hidden doen't show itself in words? I started reading reading Beckett and what impresses me about reading Malone Meurt for instance is _how_ he uses words in such a way that their sense are taken away in a sort of art of disappearnace, a purifying abstraction that shows the nothing that 'is' there.
A kind of literary suicide perhaps, or the "old shipwreck" which is an expression that comes up in this novel, a disaster showing nothing but the dust and debris of twisted metal and broken glass... What is left of words but their own ruin, their failure to express some tragedy, some terror?
That seems to me the challenge but the truly macabre and comical is that one could just as much be speaking of love, especially unrequited love, the terror of falling in love. A heart is broken because something precious is taken away, say, the subtance of words as their meaning or legibility. The writer or reader is left without a voice, speechless, with an impossibly weak and poor expression. If something is taken away then it's effect is like that of something being interdicted and prohibited, a limit is impossed on expression which takes away the power of speaking about anything. It could only be a strange kind of possibility, of a caring that borders more on insensibility and indifference than anything else.
You say we shouldn't be too trusting. That is an interesting, ordinary topic. The word "trust" is so used up we hardly know how to discuss trust. I know I'm not sure what to say. Is it not the same as saying, for instance, that we should love, or be attached as little as possible? Love is perhaps a useless human emotion?
--