From: "Edward Moore" <monsieurtexteem-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: completeness
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 16:53:32 PDT




Greetings Michael, and thank you for your comments.  

You wrote:
>
>	You are right to be wary of any notion of a 'complete reality.'  The 
sur-
>in surreality apparently is best translated as over-."  

Sure, just like Nietzsche's "Overman."  Bataille wrote an essay _The 
"Old Mole" and the Prefix Sur-_ in which he made use of the implications 
of the "over-" prefix to critique Breton's (and the Surrealist's) 
theories.

>It has been suggested
>many a time by some academics that surrealism sought exclusively (or 
ultimately)
>for an 'absolute,' which thus defined surrealism in terms of a 'higher 
reality.'
>I disagree with this assumption. 

So do I.  But only with the part of it that you did not put in 
parentheses.  Surrealism never sought _exclusively_ for an absolute 
higher reality; many Surrealists were, and still are, quite active on 
the "mundane" level of the everyday.  The "higher reality" was, in my 
view, always the "ideal," if you will.  This was a quest which involved 
what Bataille called an "Icarian" reflex or movement: to soar high above 
the earth, and shake off the shackles of mundane existence; always, 
however, by way of an earthly ideal -- beauty, and all its supplements.  
So Surrealism's "ultimate" goal was (is) always that higher level of 
existence: an "over-reality."  I metaphorized this state with the term 
"godhead" -- although I hasten to say that I meant it in no religous 
sense.  I rather intend it to signify the huge "text" in which we are 
all "signifiers"... "brain-cells" was the term I used (in my text, _Soul 
and Body Two_).

>The notion of completeness does, however,
>struggle - but I would welcome such a struggle.  For completeness here 
refers to
>the transitory nature of life itself.  Surrealism is first and foremost 
'of the
>lived world.' 

If Surrealism were truly "first and foremost 'of the lived world,'" then 
that "ideal" I spoke of would merely be a supplement to its original 
endeavor -- thus linking it, by way of similarity, with pretty much 
every movement or school in the arts since Romanticism.  Surrealism is 
first and foremost of those "lofty spiritual heights, in which one 
shakes off the shackles of the material world and soars..." (Huysmans, 
_La-Bas_).  I think it is safe to say that the origin of Surrealism was 
a kind of soaring, a birth in the aether, if you will. The "man cut in 
two by a window" who pranced across Magnetic Fields was certainly not of 
the "lived world."

>Does this explanation 'cry out for guardians?' 

It certainly does... at least for a Surrealist.  What is to prevent the 
noble ideal from being "dipped in the liquid shit of a drainage ditch."  
Of course the ideal would still be an ideal, but it would be sticky with 
the filth of the material world.

>I have for quite
>some time made the subtle yet crucial distinction between Surrealism 
and
>surrealism.  I would ask, initially, if you acknowledge such a 
distinction, and
>why or why not.  

"If a distinction cannot be made rigorous and precise, it is not a 
distinction at all" (Jacques Derrida).  And I simply cannot make a 
rigorous and precise distinction between Surrealism and surrealism.  I 
do, however, acknowledge the value of the possibility of such a 
distinction.  Therefore, I will say that surrealism is, for me (this is 
necessarily subjective), the more valuable, or -- I cringe to use the 
term -- _useful_ of the two.  surrealism is best summed up in those 
passages in the First Manifesto beginning with "Language has been given 
to man so that he may make Surrealist use of it."  When one trusts in 
the "inexhaustibility of the murmur," one's ideas most definitely gain a 
greater "lucidity."  Such trust, to me, is surrealism.  On the other 
hand, Surrealism is the quest for that ideal... a quest that sort of 
spills over off the page, in a way.  I don't know how to describe it.  
I'll just say that Artaud was Surrealist in Surrealism.... and 
surrealism.  

Please add to this in any way you can.  Again, thanks for your insights.

Edward Moore
<monsieurtexteEM-AT-hotmail.com>




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