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& TheWarForReality
Representation
BY WILLIAM
H. GASS
I
MATTER Suppose, witha relaxed mind,we examine any ordinary
object:thisor thatlamp or chair,piece of sweet cake, meltof custard;
or imagine we consider some sensation: odor of onion, glisten of
shellac, low mutterof thunder; or that we follow the ruminating
length of the digestive tract, travel the highwayfrom Nimes to
Nantes, studythe calamitouscourse of a seduction; in short,thatwe
take a lightlygeneralaccount of thingsand our varied experiencesof
them - survey,as theysay, the whole - will it not seem entirely
naturalthatour speech as we proceedshouldseem to be aboutall that;
should seem to serve all that;should be shaped, even iffromnothing
moresubstantialthana systemof fixedsounds, intoa hollowin which
we tryto hold our worldlike waterin leakinghands? since, indeed,
our worldis this or thatwet towelor wantonglance; it is the stupid
stonewe stumbleover, thedark starwe wonderat, the brutebulk of
Being; it is the Lambeth Walk, a sentimentalfeeling, shred of
cabbage, piece of bruisedfruit;it is lifelit bya neon lining;forwhat
are thewordssweetcake worthcomparedtothelayeredtorteour teeth
are gentlysublimating?and theglistenof shellac - whatwood would
want the wordas its protection?and whyshould we, like Whitman,
be enchantedby an aimless list? a hollowlitanyof names?
clothesline
dashboard
bloodstain
twitch
If consciousnessitselfseems strangelyvaporousand evanescentas near to nothingas we care to come, like the crumblingedge of a
steep cliff- it is neverthelessclearlyreferential;it is as insistently
intentional,as much made, like the zero, byits blank as byits circle,
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WILLIAM H. GASS
Dizzied by the spin of thingsout of all relation,the narratorRoquentin - throughthe cancellationof any sense of himselflike a
cashed check, by a total loss of footing, by an almost tropical
of life,as thoughhe were suddenlycaughtin a cloud of
proliferation
while
midges
takinga calm autumnwalk; thenarrator- Roquentin
- bytheslidingaway of everything,
like snowfroma warmingroof,
towardwho knowswhatit will be ... soon again won't be - never
quite wasn't - isn't ... becomingneithermorenorless so, but simply
is'Ungieating,sleeping,shitting,
fortuitously
findinga goldcoin in the
and cold as stone or
in
still
or
unhappiness honey, lying
garbage
as
a
bench
or,just likely,an upturneddead
rapturously
fucking,being
Roquentin donkey's bloated belly; the narrator to
self
and
self
to selves like
of thingto thing
noticingtheindifference
streetlessrows of the one same shutteredhouse di Chirico'd in the
silver glaze of a turning mirror; the narrator- Roquentin impressedby the completepointlessnessof lettinggo, of persisting,
gettingon, in Bouville to begin with - mudville - in the primeval
slimewhichBeckettwilllaterrenderso well in How It Is' thenarrator
- Roquentin - convincedof theabsolute adventitiousnessof every
event, the speciousness of everyvalue, the absurdityof the genital
spasm, spermlike a billionmidges,love an acid rain; thenarratorRoquentin - withsuch turnstaken,feelsa nausea whichsickensthe
sidewalk,theshoes, theclothes,thesoul, thecells, tilltheeyes vomit
theirperceptions,and the mind lies down in swillto thankan empty
heaven, author of all - like Roquentin - a dotard, knockabout,
anothernil among nillions:narrator.
Many Greek philosophersapparentlyfelt that existence was a
propertywhichthey,as human beings,had, but whichthe gods, for
example, as clan and familyfictions,did not.Hamlet has irresolution,
but notis ^ ness.Later,it became fashionableto describeexistenceas
a relationbetweenthings,and not a thingor propertyitself;it was a
condition,much like drunkennessor having the croup. If Hamlet
dies, he does not cease to breathe,because his breathingin the first
place was only say-so. His death means merelythatHamlet has no
more lines. As a character,thereare certainexistentialrelationshe
lacks, among thema kind of materialcausality.Hamlet cannotgive
(ftnt.3 continued)
and in thispositionimmediatelyfelthimselfso agreeablysupportedand so amply
reposed, thathe remained as he was. . . It was as thoughalmost imperceptible
vibrationswere passed intohim fromthe interiorof the tree. . . "Quoted in The
Duino Elegies,trans,by J. B. Leishman & Stephen Spender (Norton,New York,
1939), p. 124. The characterof the experience,for Rilke, is plainlybenevolent,
but this is not entirelythe case for Roquentin.
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WILLIAM H. GASS
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WILLIAM H. GASS
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WILLIAM H. GASS
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WILLIAM H. GASS
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are littlemore than social criminalsin the pay of the saludes, the
police of chief.
Sartregrewup amongrationalists(as one in France must) theway
Nietzsche grewup among women, and his dislike of theirdesigns is
deep, as is the strengthof their hold on him. If you believe, as
rationalistsdo, thatthe structureof language reveals the structureof
thought,and that the structureof thoughtis in harmonywith the
structureof theworld(as it must be, iftheworldis to be an objectof
thinking);then, of course, to remove thatlanguage, as Roquentin
does, would uncorseteverything;but itdoes so onlyiftherationalists
is as essentialtothingsas language
are right,and if,in addition,thought
is essentialto thethought
of things.The sort of freedomSartre's hero
findsis terriblyiffy:he may have removedmy belt and leftme still
in handcuffs.Suppose I sweep out language like a dirtyroom (as I
earlier suggested),and all the furnitureof the universe remains in
place?
Furthermore we found (we claimed), that the kind of
whichis discoveredis one onlypossibleto particularize
indeterminacy
in language,in theexistentialproductivity
metaphors,wherewe may
imagine any outrageous image to have a literalreferent.Anything
that can be thought has Being, Parmenides said. Unicorns are
possible, and the left-handedhead.
Thereis onlyone reasonforbelievingin thiskindofunconditioned,
-crossingtychism- since experienceconfounds
universal,category
it everywhere and thatis because languagecan be so arrangedand
manipulated.Watchme liftlatticeout of a sentenceabout flowersand
putitdownso thesun lies like a latticeacrossBarbara'shuskybreasts.
There, the ... But we cannot linger to admire her nipples,justly
famous:how theyseem like the buds of flowers,and so forth.These
gloriesare movingon, anyway,intoa liveliercontext.In short,the
freedomSartrefindsforRoquentin is only made of words, like the
wordsof the rationalistshe despises. But it is truethata writer- an
artist- must be a rationalistwithinthework- just becauseit is not
the world.And Roquentin is allowed to perceive that.The formsof
fictionand the aims of art supportIdealism, whateverthe sentences
of any novel assert.Such worldsare worldsof thought,wherea kind
of Platonismreigns,and the veryfactthatit describes so well what
occursthereis good reason to believe thatfictional,too, is its account
of things. Nausea is a young man's book, even if it seems to be
Sartre's most enduring, purely literary,achievement.It was also
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2
MIND From the firstthe novel has been a fact infestedform,
almostas if it had been made fromtheiradhesion - this small bit
clingingto thatlike bees in a swarm- and ifthefactsweren'theaths
and hedges, streetnames and silken gowns, cows in a wet meadow
followinga storm, they were transportsand follies, love affairs
lingeredover morelovinglythantheloversever did theirown ardent
flesh. Unhurried,calm, as if the world would await its rape like a
whore, the novel has looted one Nature to compose another - in
nowas whenit
Richardson,Proust,Gide, Musil, Mann. As faithfully
trivial,
initiallyappeared,thenovel has been dedicatedto thetrifling,
minor,and minute,to the firstand second footstep,the half-smile,
the sneeze, the skin-tighttrouser,powderedbosom, littleoddityof
speech or dress. It has been and remainsa realm wherethe passing
of a thoughtis celebrated like a change of crowns; where a whim
receives the solicitudedue a desperate resolve.
Yet it is notsimplyparticulars- passions,people, daringdeeds whichthenovelseeks so greedily;but all thepropertiesofthese,their
clumsiestqualities - accidentsof everykind like a wet bed - the
blush of an embarrassmentnow growncold; no, it's not merelythe
treeand its scalingbarkwhichwritingwishesto immortalize,but the
clatterofcottonwoodsin a wind,thesilvermaple's glisteningleaflike
a happywhistle.It even wants to render in words the cake's moist
taste, the crazed surface of the serving plate, a look which
candle-lighthas blownacrossthedinnertable: itslongingdividedinto
onset, tyranny,despoilment,overthrow,release, as a doctormight
understandthe course of a disease, or a lease mightbe drawnby a
diligentattorney.
The telescope broughtwondersintotheworldwhichweren'teven
dreams - neitherof India northe dread edge of the ocean - before
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WILLIAM H. GASS
line. This line was divided into equal units in such a way that the
lengthof the line was like a runningsum of ones. Then velocitywas
conceived as another,vertical,coordinate.The formulaforthe area
of a rectangle,and the formulaby which we compute the distance
traveledalong a line bysomethingmovingat a uniformspeed are, of
course,thankstothesedesigns,seen tobe thesame. Ofcourse.We are
so accustomedto thismiracleit seems, now, neverto have been one.
It is necessaryto notice,at thispoint,a numberof things:first,that
our problemwas simplifiedbyconsideringonlyuniform,straight-line
change, already an abstraction;second, thatwe made a number of
forinstance,thattimeand velocitywere lines
rules of representation,
seen as sums themovingobjectwas a point,and its patha straight
line[
*]; thatnot only were our observationsstrippedof local
interestand excitement(the body in question is actuallya carriage
containingthe PrincessCassamassima en route to a rendevouswith
herSicilianlover,thedespicableCount Luciano) , so theobjectand its
motionbecamejust and onlythat;but theprocessof additionalso had
to leave its abstractcenterforthe suburbs, to become concreteand
containitselfin the line's littlevisualization [ ^^'
]. Galileo, in
short, had gone a long way toward establishingmechanics as the
geometryof matterin motion.
Continuing to foreshorten,we can next consider Descartes'
whichwas to elevate geometryintoalgebrabyfindinga
contribution,
to
way representany pointupon a line as a pair of numbers [as a, b
or x, y], a procedure already implicit in our earlier schema.14
Mathematics,havingdescended fora time like Hermes into Hades,
has now returnedto itsproperplace in theLight,draggingthescience
of mechanics with it by the so-called scruff.One abstract system
(algebra) has enveloped another (geometry), to findwith a certain
surprise,as perhapsthe whale did when it swallowedJonah,another
science in its stomach.The day of Descartes' discovery[November
10, 1619] may have been the day on which we determined,
fundamentally,one way in which science worked: by a series of
correlationsin which the particular,changing,concrete world of
clarified,complicated,
thingsis advanced intoa realm of increasingly
and independentlyproductivecalculations.In thisrarifiedarena (the
14. TanneryconsideredDescartes to have geometrizedalgebra,ratherthanthe other
way round, but in factit is the "higher" systemwhichalwaysworksits will upon
the "lower" one. Nevertheless,to mark the mutualityof the movementbetween
them is important,as my later suggestionsabout metaphorwill, I hope, show.
See S.V. Keeling, Descartes,2nd ed. (Oxford, London, 1968), p. 11 ff.
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WILLIAM H. GASS
broughttogetherin the same place. It, not the pineal, is the true
Cartesiangland.A pointmustbecome a dotbeforea bodycan be said
to be at one. Musical marks (notes, clefs, and staff)revolutionized
music, just as those new squiggles did logic. They aid the memory;
they facilitatecommunication; they let us think,they also lend
conviction.Afterall, who would believe in zero untilit was formed
as an 0, and infinity'sfallen suggests the endless curvilinear
entrapmentit representsin some theories.
"
"La thoriec'est bon, mais ca n'empchepas d'exister, Charcot is
supposed to have said, but what do thingswithouttheorybecome?
Nausea containssome suggestions;stillit is difficultto knowhow to
assess these mystical"states of nature." The mind makes mistakes
with such joy. Its errorscannot be erased withoutrubbinga hole
throughthe paper.When Hume removednecessaryconnectionfrom
causality merely by observing its rather absolute absence, he
neverthelesspresumedthatwiththatglue gone,all would fallapartin
pieces of pure sensation,simplybecause therewere no otherkindsof
ties, and he was leftwithmeaninglessjuxtapositionlike the postage
stamps in those Mission Mixtures. He was still so much under the
spell of the spell he had dispelled,it neveroccurredto him thatthere
mightbe physicalembraces weaker than logical ones, yet stronger
thanthose betweendistantstrangers,the way thosejumbled stamps
remainstuckto theirpaper. He was in theconditionof the man who,
living in a haunted house, feels he has driven his ghosts away by
oftheirexistence.In anycase, Hume leftthe
provingtheimpossibility
continuities of experience in ruins, replacing the stream of
consciousnesswitha steadyspillof discretesensationslikejellybeans
pouringfrom a jar, and these fell straightinto the mouths of the
mathematicians,the only people prepared to believe him, his
impressionswere so suitablycolorful,fragrant,and ideal.
The novel, whichI earliersaid was a factinfestedform,was able,
also fromthe first,to forecastthe futureof those facts,because so
many novels were epistolarythen, which meant we were already
one-mind-removedfrom events when we read them; it meant we
were clearlyconscious of reading words,ratherthan seeing directly
throughthosewordstotheirreferents,as ifwe wereeyeingthatguilty
group of shoes in the hotel hallwaywhich Max Beerbohmdrew for
HenryJamesto peer at, his huge head at the heightof the keyhole.
Later on, mostnovels would pretendnot to have been writtenat all,
but to be lifeitself,thereas soon as you faced the text,ifyou could
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summon the spunk for it; but in the pages of Pamela, Richardson
and howthose
allows us to recognizehowwhollyitswordsare written,
wordsreveal theirwriteras well as the world; even, forinstance,in
thatmoistmomentwhenPamela, deceived, permitsthelustfulMr. B
intoher bed, believinghim a maid-servantbecause of his disguise.
Whatwordsshall I find,my dear mother(formyfathershould
not see this shocking part), to describe the rest, and my
confusion,whenthe guiltywretchtookmyleftarm, and laid it
under his neck,and the vile procuressheld myright;and then
he clasped me round the waist!21
Whatwordsshall I find,Pamela wonders,but she does notsay her
fathershould not read them,ratherthathe should not see them; and
thiswas the transitionthatshortlytookplace in much of fiction,just
as I am sure itdid forRichardson'sreadersas well: to read was to see,
and tosee was towatchMr. B puthis handin Pamela's bosom. Dream
to thattune, ladies! Who wants to read words when one can watch
such hillious hanky-panky?However, as the novelist's art became
artful,the novel's previous attentionto detail, its love of ethical,
and sociologicalanalysis,itssimperingsentimentalities
psychological,
and lubriciousteasing,itsdrearydaring-doand wild-eyedrunningup
and down on roads, was replaced,withoutalteringanythingbut the
aim of our attention,by words- neverbymerewords,forwordsare
never mere - in the same radical yet simple way in which Pierre
Menard rewritesQuixote,so thatthis brilliantpassage
A woman reachedherbare arm out of thewindowto theparrot
and gave him a rotten-ripebanana. The parrot,with a little
croak of thanks, took it in one claw and ate, fixinga hard
dangerous eye on the monkey,who chatteredwithgreed and
fear. The cat, who despised them both and feared neither
because he was free to fightor run as he chose, was roused by
thesmellof theraw,taintedmeathangingin chunksin thesmall
butcher'sstand below him. Presentlyhe slid over the sill and
droppedin silenceupon theoffalat thebutcher'sfeet.A mangy
dog leaped snarlingat the cat, and there was a fine, yelping,
hissing race between them to the nearest tree in the square,
21. Pamela, or VirtueRewarded,Vol. 1. Tuesday night during the fortiethday of
Pamela's imprisonmentin the house of Mr. B.
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WILLIAM H. GASS
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wherethe cat clawed his way out of dangerand the dog, in his
blindnessof fury,stumbledacross theabused feetof theIndian
on the bench. The Indian seemed hardlyto move, yet with
perfectswiftnessand economyswunghis leg fromtheknee and
planteda kickwiththe hardedge of his sandal in thedog's lean
ribs.The dog, howlingall the way,rushedback to thebutcher's
stand.22
can be seen as cinema, withits vivid portrayalof animals in action;
or as sensualityand decay, not simplybecause of the characterof its
objects,but throughitsregulatedpace and heavymusic; or as system,
withits referenceto the stick/stick-beat-dog
nurseryrhymesof our
its
order
and
its
childhood, pecking
allegory,
foreshadowingof the
structureof Ship of Fools itself;or finally,as I should hope, as the
tense and totalinterplay,in any fictionalmodel,of all theelementsof
ontologicalconstruction:things,meanings,feelings.Such a turnof
attentionrequires that we focus on the functionalcomponentsof
wordsand whatis done withthemwhen words,themselves,are the
very medium of our imagination:when we exploit every aspect of
inscription,enlist every scrap of significance,enroll each object or
event or property,always in theircompetitiveunity,locked in their
relationshiplike felons, the way members of a familywere before
divorce was legal, and consequentlyconcernedonly with survival,
domination,and theirsuccess in supplantingall rival realitieswith
theirown.
3
It is Act IV, Scene XII of Antonyand Cleopatra.
METAPHOR
Enobarbus is dead. The fleetsof Caesar and of Antonyare engaged,
but Antony's Egyptianallies have again turnedtail, as theydid at
Actium. Antonyhas gone where a pine tree tops a hill to watch his
galleyscome torestlike logs in thewater,and his warwithCaesar sink
out of sightlike one of his ships. His men deserthis cause. Enemies
a momentbefore,the sailors now cast theircaps up and carouse like
friendslong lost. Alone, Antony's embitteredsoul is speaking to
itself:
22. KatherineAnne Porter,Ship ofFools (Atlantic,Little-Brown,Boston, 1962), pp.
5-6.
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trees and men, are fused - fused the only way they can be conceptually,by a process of interpenetrating
meanings; and each
relation which is established with that interpntrationis itself
metaphorical(the courtiersask forfavorsthe way dogs beg), hence
anotherpenetrationof one meaningbyanother,and so on (Philo put
up an imploringpaw). The totalresultis an understandingfounded
on feeling, not on fact. The fact is that followersare frequently
self-servingand treacherous;thefeelingis thattheyare pissy-nervous
littleyaps.
Like scientificmodels, everymetaphorhas a range or scope. The
spaniel image controlseach word in thisspeech of Antony's,but the
moment Antony begins to think specificallyof Cleopatra, its
boundariesare overstepped,its influenceceases, otheremblems are
invoked, other comparisonsrule. O thisfalse soul of Egypt,Antony
cries,
this grave charm,
Whose eye beck'd forthmy wars and calFd themhome,
Whose bosom was my crownet,my chiefend,
Like a rightgypsyhathat fastand loose
Beguiled me to the veryheartof loss.
Cleopatra has been called a gypsyby othersbeside Antony,and we
must understandher under this headingforthe entirecourse of the
action.Philo's openinglinesdescribeheras a gypsywhose lustis first
aroused (fanned) and then cooled (again, fanned) by Antony's
bellows-breathingheart. At the end of the passage which is our
presentconcern,thatword heart,withwhichit began, pops up once
morein thepoet's playon thephrase loss ofheart.Antony'sfollowers
have donejust that- lost heart- and Antonyhas done just thatlost his heartto Cleopatra - so thatnow he is leftalone in the very
heartof loss itself.It is a brilliantbut characteristic
turnaroundin the
writing.
A metaphor,as we've just seen, may rule openlyor serve quietly
for the durationof its life, invisiblysometimes,even behind those
who are behind the throne,as heart,here, begins withconsiderable
of the spaniel
prominence,
gives itselfover to the transformations
image, and then reappears, its meaning ironicallyaltered, in the
conclusion.We should expect this, because thatis the nature of its
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