From: "Lydia Perovich" <fauxprophete-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Badiou's Beckett II
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 23:10:19 -0400


...In the period leading up to *Textes pour rien* Beckett was at an impasse, 
writes Badiou, between the noir-gris of the being (its neutrality), and the 
endlessly torturous solipsism of the cogito (reflection in vain).  There was 
a need to find a different tier, one that would not be reduced to the locus 
of being, and would not be identical to the reiteration of the voice.  It 
was important that the subject open itself to an alterity and stops 
'doubling up' (plier) upon itself in an endless uttering. From *Comment 
c'est* on, the Event (as a *supplement* to the pénombre of being) and the 
voice of the other (that interrupts solipsism) become increasingly important 
for Beckett.

Little by little, not without hesitations, Beckett's oeuvre opens up to 
contingency, the incidental, sudden modifications of the given, and also to 
the idea of happiness.  Concluding words of *Mal vu, mal dit* are not 
without reason 'To get to know happiness'.  Sources of happiness are much 
more abundant when we turn towards the Event, than when we remain looking 
for the sense of being.  Beckett's trajectory is the one from the blind 
belief in predestination towards the examination of possible conditions, 
albeit alleatory and minimal, of a freedom.

It begins with *Watt*, and it continues on the right track with *Mal vu, mal 
dit* and *Cap au pire* – the discovery of the proper functioning of the 
Event.  The Event is necessarily mal vu because it is exactly what is 
excepted from the established rules of visibility and presentation.  The 
bien vu returns us to the indifference of the background, to the black-gray 
of being. That which ‘happens’ thwarts seeing and correct-seeing.  The Event 
is also mal dit for the bien dit repeats the established signification. Mal 
vu must correspond to a verbal invention, an unknown nomination, an 
out-of-law poetics.

The onus is on the harmony between the Event and the poetic break-through of 
its name.

What kind of force enables a precarious accord between the outburst of the 
new and a poetic invention of its name? We do not hesitate to say that it is 
the force of a Truth.

[last installment on its way]

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