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I II \ I I I ,'i on beckett alain badiou editors alberto toscano & nina power

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Copyright Clinamen Press 2003 Translation, introduction Postface Andrew published by Clinamen Unit B Aldow Enterprise Park Blackett Street Manchester M12 6AE www.clinamen.co.uk 'The Writing of the Genenc' publIshed in French in the work Conditions by Editions du Seuil as 'L' ecriture du generique: Samuel Beckett' Editions du Seuil, 1992 Editions du Seuil, 27 rue Jacob, Paris Tireless Desire published in French by Hachette as Beckett: L 'increvable desir Hachette, 1995 Hachette Livre, 43 quai de Grenelle, Paris 'Being, Existence, Thought: Prose and Concept' published in French in the work Petit manuel d'inesthetique by Editions du Seuil as , 'Etre, existence, pensee: prose et concept' First English translation Stanford University Press Stanford University Press, 1450 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto, California This book is supported by the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs as part of the Burgess Programme headed for the French Embassy in London by the Institnt Franyais du Royaurne-Uni All rights reserved. No part of this edition may be reproduced, stored in or int roduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mecha nical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written pennission of the publ ishers. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This book is dedicated to the memory of our friend Sam Gillespie hardback ISBN 1903083 26 5 paperback ISBN 1903083 30 3

Designed and typeset in Times New Roman with Verdana display by Ben Stebbing, Ma nchester Printed and bound in the UK by Biddies Ltd

Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Beckett . Contents Notes on References Note on the Contributors Acknowledgements Editors' Introduction -'Think, pig!' Author's Preface I The Writing of the Generic , 2 Tireless Desire I , I 3 Being, Existence, Thought: Prose and Concept 4 What Happens 5 Postface -Badiou, Beckett and Contemporary Criticism Andrew Gibson Notes Index Vlll

IX X

Xl xxxv I 37 79 113 119 137

161

Alain Badiou On

Note on the References The situation regarding Beckett translations is without doubt a complicated one, for a variety of oft-discussed authorial and editorial reasons. In order to allow the reader to n avigate Badiou's essays and refer to the Beckett texts when necessary, we have endeavoured to ren der the references in On Beckett as practicable as possible, opting for the insertion in brackets o f the British (Calder Publishers and Faber and Faber) and American (Grove Press) page references in th e main body of the text. Because of important terminological differences and due to the inte rest of Beckett's , own 'self-translations' we have placed the original French (Les Editions de Minu it) quotes in the endnotes. Any other comments made by the editors will appear in brackets. Pa ge references are to the editions currently in print by each publisher. The abbreviations used throughout the , texts for the British and American editions are as follows: I, ' I C -Company (Calder Publishers, 1996) CDW -The Complete Dramatic Works (Faber and Faber, 1990) CSP -Collected Shorter Prose 1945-1980 (Calder Publishers, 1986) , , E Endgame ( Grove Press, 1958) GSP The Complete Short Prose 1929-1989 (Grove Press, 1995) HD -Happy Days (Grove Press, 1983) HII-How It Is (Calder Publishers, 1996) HII US -How It Is (Grove Press, 1988) ISIS -III Seen III Said (Calder Publishers, 1997)

M -Murphy (Calder Publishers, 1997) MUS -Murphy (Grove Press, 1970) NO -Nohow On (Company, III Seen III Said, Worstward Ho) (Grove Press, 1996) SP -Collected Shorter Plays (Grove Press, 1984) T -Trilogy (Calder Publishers, 1994) TN -Three Novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable) (Grove Press, 1991) W -Watt (Calder Publishers, 1970) W US Watt (Grove Press, 1970) WG -Waiting/or Godot (Grove Press, 1954) WH -Worstward Ho (Calder Publishers, 1983) Note on the Contributors Andrew Gibson is Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Royal Holloway and is the author of Postmodernity, Ethics and the Novel: From Leavis to Levinas. He is currently preparing a book on Badiou's reading of Beckett. Nina Power is currently studying for a PhD in philosophy at Middlesex University, London. Alberto Toscano teaches at Goldsmiths College and is the author of several articles on Badiou, De1euze, Nietzsche and Schelling. He is the translator of Badiou's forthcoming Handbook of Inaesthetics and The Century.

Alain Badiou On Beckett 'Think, pig!' An Introduction to Badiou's Beckett

. I These writings on Samuel Beckett by Alain Badiou, assembled here for the I I , first time, comprise ten years of work by one of France's leading thinkers on one ofthe 20th century's most innovative and vital writers. This volume brings together translations of 'Samuel Beckett: L'ecriture du generique' (the concluding chapter of the collection Conditions (1992)); a short monograph entitled Beckett. L 'increvable desir (1995); a long chapter on Worstward Ho from the more recent Petit manuel d 'inesthetique (1998); and finally 'Ce qui arrive' , a brief conference intervention, also from 1998.1 Viewed as distinct moments in a prolonged intellectual encounter, these texts reveal a complex and rigorous reading of Beckett, but a Beckett quite distinct from those of other French thinkers such as Deleuze, Bataille, Blanchot or Derrida (to note some of the most obvious of Bad iou's 'rivals' in this enterprise), as well as from the majority of Anglo-American Beckett scholarship.2 This introduction will seek to develop two basic theses: Firstly, that Badiou's reading of Beckett , whilst in part a response to other currently more celebrated French interpretations, and, indeed, indebted to some of their key insights (such as, for example, Blanchot's insistence on the relationship between writing and i I ,i , , Alain Badiou On Acknowledgements The editors wish to thank Leslie Hill fo r his insightful comments and adviceon the original manuscript, Bill Ross at Clinamen fo r his patience, amiabilityand useful interventions, Peter Hallward and Ray Brassier for their vitalinsights in

to Badiou's thought, Dr Julian Garforth at the Beckett archive, University ofReading, for his assistance and generosity and Bruno Bosteelsfor ki ndly providing us with his original translation of 'The Writing of theGeneric' . Above all, our thanks go to Alain Badiou for his unflagging supportof this proj ect.

-__ , .. Alain Badiou On Beckett ..,\ I l'\ IlllpiclcJy has this edict of 'timidity' subtended the 'post-humanist ' rules III (:oll1mentary about Beckett, that it is seemingly impossible to assert :lllything at all about Beckett; all one can do is acknowledge that every possib le assertion already becomes its negative within Beckett's work itself, so that allY criticism begins already from a position of inherent weakness, prefigured hy thc wry 'admission' that (Highlight) Beckett has stranded his critics in the position of having nothing left to do. From the outset Badiou's unusually strong reading thus upsets the (admittedly understandable) trepidation that has always accompanied the more careful readings of Beckett undertaken during the laller half of the 20th century. Badiou will thus engage in none ofthe rhetoric, so often manifested in thc scholarship, that finds in Beckett so many hypostases ofthe 'paralysing' imperative of language and silence, the opacity of the signifier, the end of 1l10dernity, etc. In fact, Badiou fails to even discuss the vast bulk of contemporary Anglo-American Beckett scholarship, as well as refusing any protracted engagement with any of his French predecessors. Indeed, he has 1. been explicitly criticised for failing to engage with either of these two strand s of Beckett study.3 Certainly this lack of dialogue is revealing, but arguably indicates more about the nature of our expectations when it comes to a critical , , , ,I reading of Beckett rather than demonstrating any outright omission or shortcoming on Badiou's part. It is, above all, Badiou's desire to read Beckett 'at his word' or 'to the letter' that indicates that what we are dealing with, quite simply, is Beckett's texts themselves, and not their critical reception. We are also a long way here from Derrida's half-humble, half-arrogant I" I , declaration: 'Beckett, whom I have always "avoided" as though I had always already read him and understood him too well.'4 In the first place, Badiou seems to say, we cannot 'avoid' Beckett, however much he seems to preempt us -the singularity and intellectual weight of his work is such as to demand an explicitly philosophical response and articulation (without, of ,

course, over-determining its 'literary' qualities; as we shall see below, this distinction is precisely at stake in Badiou's notion of 'inaesthetics'). Moreove r, the complexity ofthe categories and operations deployed in Beckett's work, as well as their transformations, is such that, without a stringent and systemat ic investigation, it is entirely fatuous to think that we have (always) already understood Beckett. Indeed, as with all thinking worthy of the name, (Highlight) Beckett's writing draws its force and urgency precisely from the way that it subtracts itself from our impressions and intuitions; in other words, from the manner XII XIII

I' I Alain Badiou On Beckett

(Highlight) in which it excavates our muddled and spontaneous phenomenologies to reveal a sparse but essential set of invariant functions that determine our 'generic humanity'. Where then, does Badiou find the critical resources to present us with a Beckett so vigorously opposed to many of the shared presumptions of contemporary scholarship and philosophical reception? Simply in order to orient the reader, we would like to point to one of the crucial instances in which these resources are to be found: The importance of the much-overlooked and, as Badiou puts it, 'worst understood' 1960s prose text How It Is, and the identification of a chronological break (corresponding to a real crisis in Beckett's thought) before and after this text. This will help us the better to discern the stakes of his approach and the challenge it poses to rival interpretations. We will then move on, in section two, to assess the consequences -both for his reading of Beckett and for his thinking as a whole -of Badiou's concern with Beckett's method and with the 'philosophical anthropology' that the latter implies. While the so-called 'Trilogy' (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable) has received copious and exacting attention for its exploration of the the writing itself. In the kind of ad hominem argument that would scandalise any good Derridean, Badiou argues that the incessant repetitions in Beckett's early works, what he refers to as an oscillation between the cogito and the 'grey black', led to a crisis for Beckett -both personally and as a writer.s That by the early 1960s he had, in some sense, reached a 'last' state; all that remained to be said is that there was nothing more to be said. 'Saying' had, for Beckett, reached its absolutely maximal degree of purification. As Badiou puts it: It was necessary to have done with the alternation of neutral being and vain reflection so that Beckett could escape the crisis, so that he could break with Cartesian terrorism. To do this, it was necessary to find some third terms, neither reducible to the place of being nor identical to the repetitions of the voice. (Highlight) It was important that the subject be opened up to an alterity and cease being folded upon itself in an interminable and torturous speech. Whence, beginning with How It Is (composed between 1959 and 1960), the growing importance ofthe event (whichadds itself to the grey black of being) and of the voice of the other (which interrupts solipsism). vicissitudes oflanguage, SUbjectivity and 'aporetics', and Watt and Murphy are seized upon as anticipation oflater problematics and for their characteristi

c Badiou thus argues that there is a break with two key early positions: I I humour, How It Is (published as Comment c 'est by Minuit in 1961, with the schemata of predestination that emerge in Watt and Murphy and the , , , I " Beckett's English version published by Calder in 1964) seems most often to be filed under the category of ' anomaly' for many Beckett scholars (although there are indications that this is increasingly no longer the case). For Badiou, however, the text occupies an absolutely crucial role in Beckett's oeuvre, indicating a decisive shift in both the themes and the style ofhis prose. Badiou nevertheless professes to agree with all those who see impasse and the torture of language in the prose works up to and including the Trilogy and Texts for Nothing. But this is not the end of the matter, and Badiou chastises himself for having originally accepted this vision of Beckett as manifesting 'the (ultimately inconsistent) alliance between nihilism and the imperative of language, between vital existentialism and the metaphysics of the word, between Sartre and Blanchot.' In this respect, we should note that Badiou wishes to evacuate the defeatist pathos accorded to the impasse, together with any intimation that we are here faced with the linguistic 'truth' of human finitude or with an episode in the genealogy of nihilism; rather, he intends to approach it as a problem that demands resolution from Beckett at the level of XIV oscillation between the solipsist cogito and the 'grey black' of the 'Trilogy'. In order, therefore, to understand Badiou's seemingly indefensible claim regarding the affirmation and hope present in Beckett's work, we must now refer to the key concept that sustains this view ofthe later Beckett: the event or encounter. What exactly happens with How It Is for Badiou to find these 'third terms' so crucial? In How It Is the prose is grounded in different categories: the category of 'what-comes-to-pass' [ce-qui-se-passe] and, above all, the category of alterity -of the encounter and the figure of the Other, fissuring and displacing the solipsistic internment of the cogito. In order to shed some light on this transformation we will need to shift our focus onto the philosophical armature that subtends Badiou's various readings. As we shall argue, the constellation of concepts employed in these texts is neither (explicitly) Beckett's nor (entirely) Badiou's, but is rather the product of a

philosophical or 'inaesthetic' capture of a literary work which does not leave philosophical doctrine untouched. The aforementioned division ofBeckett's oeuvre into two distinct periods, before and after How It Is is crucial to XV

, I II I, Alain Bad i0u On Beckett understanding the role of the 'event', both for Badiou's reading of Beckett, and indeed, for Badiou's own work as a whole. Bearing in mind this 'shift', the notion of an unforeseen event or encounter that constitutes subjectivity in the meeting of an other, radically separates Badiou's 'affirmative' reading from any interpretations centred on the notion of a human condition, as in Martin Esslin's work on the absurd, for example. This is partly because there is nothing inevitable about the event, only that 'something happens to us', and partly because what follows from the event is absolutely singular, though ( crucially) universalisable. The encounter, if it happens at all, is absolutely not pre-determined. Encounters in Beckett always arise by chance: Prior to a meeting there is only solitude. One consequence of this state of solitude is the lack of any essential or substantial sexual difference. It is true that Beckett's characters often seem without sex or androgynous. It is only as a consequence, therefore, as an effect of the encounter, that sexuation becomes possible. As Badiou writes: 'In the figure oflove ... the Two occurs, together with the Two of the sexes or sexualised figures. ' The numericality of this newly arisen pair is crucial. Prior to the encounter, the solipsistic One has no resources to escape its One-ness. The encounter, the absolute novelty of the event oflove, from whence arises the Two, does not lead back to a new One, the love which would be denigrated as 'fusion' in the Freudian sense, or even in a banal, romantic, popular-cultural sense, but to infinity. One, Two, infinity: For the voice of How ItIs, there is: 'before Pim with Pim after Pim'. This 'exponential curve' to infinity derives from the fact that the Two of love, of the pure encounter is a passage. But to what? Badiou replies: to 'the infinity ofbeings, and experience'. The Two oflove introduces a new opening onto the sensible world, away from the endless circuits of language. Love permits 'beauty, nuance, colour'. It also permits -in fact, it is the only event to do so happiness. Perhaps we are now in a better position to see where the 'hope' and potential in Beckett's work ultimately lies for Badiou -not, as a reading that would wish to re-inscribe him into the long wave of humanism, in the commonality of human properties, but, on the contrary, in the absolute' singularity of an unforeseen encounter. What How It Is indicates, then, is a movement beyond the impasse in the prose itself, and the revelation that, indeed, 'the narrative model is not enough', that something else can happen, within the prose, that is not itself limited to it (here we are obliged to bracket the -always ironic -question: XVI Alain Badiou On Beckett what else is there 'besides' the prose?). What does this 'lack of limitation'

mean? Simply that, amidst the Dante-esque crawling and drowning in the mud ofHow It Is, the violent tussles involving can-openers and bashed skulls, the darkness and silence, there is possibility of an existence that is wholly other, wholly new, not only in the life of memory and images, but in the present, with and through another: 'two strangers uniting in the interests of torment'. The encounter, however temporary, however sadistic, smashes apart the solipsistic linguistic oscillation, such that the speaker of How It Is can recognise that 'with someone to keep me company I would have been a different man more universal'. What the temporary, non-fusional, conjunction ofthe Two allows is an opening onto infinity, onto universality; 'that for the likes of us and no matter how we are recounted there is more nourishment in a cry nay a sigh tom from one whose only good is silence or in speech extorted from one at last delivered from its use than sardines can ever offer. ' II. If anything marks out Badiou's approach to the literary and stage works of Samuel Beckett, it is the steadfast conviction that in order to really think through their uniqueness, a thorough and unapologetic operation of formalisation is in order, one demonstrating the ultimately unequivocal character of Beckett's thought, even (or especially) in what concerns its oscillations and aporias. This position, which can be expediently summarised as a concern with method-and which does not exclude careful considerations of both the methods of failure and the failures of method -is undoubtedly what makes these commentaries so alien to the more or less pervasive vision of Beckett as a relentlessly elusive and anti-systematic writer. Whether the reader of these pages will recoil in horror at such an unwavering Beckett or assent with enthusiasm to their formal systematicity will depend to a considerable degree on the manner in which he or she responds to the claims made herein about the existence and nature of a rationally re-constructible and rigorously actualised method. Indeed, it is only by confronting this question that we can come to terms with what constitutes, for better or worse, the uniqueness of Badiou's reading, and what sets it apart drastically from the interpretations of most, if not all, his contemporaries when it comes to the writings of Beckett.6 XVII

. , I ' II , , ", I I Alain Bad iou On Beckett In this respect, to focus on analogous identifications of recurrent Beckettian 'themes' that Badiou may share with other writers, or upon apparently convergent assessments of certain characters or texts would in the end divert us from a lucid appraisal of Badiou's challenge. For Badiou, it is only by confronting the characteristic operations or procedures defining Beckett's work that we can really come to terms with the singularity and force of Beckett's contribution to thought. In 'Tireless Desire' these are enumerated as follows: Rectification, or the work on the isolation of tenns. Expansion, or the poetic incision of memory. Declaration, or the function of emergence of prose. Declension, or the tender cadence of disaster. Interruption, or the maxims of comedy. Elongation, or the phrased embodiment of variants. It could not be any clearer that what captivates Badiou is not the equivocity or impotence claimed for Beckett's writing, but rather the relentlessness and precision that mark its fundamental moves, those formal aesthetic inventions which are both technical discoveries and new postures for thinking.7 This is, after all, the crux of the problem: What is thought in Beckett's work? This question needs to be understood in both senses. Firstly, what do Beckett's many texts allow us to think which was previously unthought, whether in literature or philosophy? Secondly, what place does thought (la pensee, an insistent presence in these pages) have in Beckett's work? Rather than, more or less explicitly, according to writing the dubious privileges of expressive imprecision and fleeting affect, Badiou's uncompromising penchant for formalisation is designed to affirm the rigour ofwriting as a discipline of thought, a rigour that the seriousness of Beckett's impasses (especially the one sealed by Texts for Nothing) bears witness to. The comparisons with Kant and Husserl, as well as the more sustained consideration of Beckett's Cartesianism, should therefore be taken at their word. Leaving aside for the moment the vexed question of the demarcation of the literary (or aesthetic) from the philosophical, it is worth spending a brief moment to elucidate this method of Beckett's, and to do so through the problematic, absolutely central to Badiou's approach, of 'thinking humanity'. The first approach to the question of method is couched in explicitly philosophical parameters. Tracing a lineage from Descartes to Husserl in terms of a postulate of suspension, Badiou argues that Beckett's method of

XVIII Alain Badiou On Beckett suhtractive paring-down-or 'leastening' in the vocabulary of WorstwardHo is akin to Husserl's epoch?! 'turned upside down'. By this Badiou means that rather than 'bracketing' or suspending the world in order to examine the purciy formal conditions of that world in and for consciousness, Beckett slIsfiends the subject in order to see what then happens to being per se. This is an intriguing reversal, and links back to Badiou's initial formulation for the condition of possibility for the encounter, for the Two. Before this event, there is only the solipsistic 'torture' of the cogito. In other words, we have a tormented subject oflanguage, on the one hand, and a non-intentional analysis of the 'landscape' of being, on the other. Badiou, via Beckett, links the circularity of the cogito to the 'nothing' beyond it -this is the noir gris, the 'grey black' of being. It is in this space that the language ofthecogito attempt s to approach its Qwn origin, but necessarily always falls short of its object. The grey black of being is precisely 'nothing', but as Molloy points out, following the Atomists: 'Nothing is more real than nothing'. The 'torture' of the cogito is precisely the imperative or 'pensum', as Hugh Kenner would argue, to commence again, to say again. Because ofthe necessary interiority of the cogito, its self-supporting persistence, 'It is necessary that the subject literally twist itself towards its own enunciation'. We are thus left only with a voice that oscillates, struggling relentlessly between temporary self-affirmation and the 'beyond' of being, which is precisely void. For the cogito, all saying is precisely 'ill saying' because it can never come close to touching the void from out of which language speaks. The desire for silence cannot, therefore, succeed, for the imperative to repeat, to begin again, cannot be matched by the desire for cessation. In this reading ofthe 'void' and the impossibility of silence, we can see an implicit criticism of those commentators who stay with the aporia, who see in Beckett only the problem of language and its impossible constraint. Beckett himself, as if realising the temptation of following the 'pathless path', begins The Unnamable with an aporetic joke: 'I should mention before going any further, that I say aporia without knowing what it means.' As a second approximation to this delicate question of method, let us contrast it with the explicit discussion of method through which Badiou elsewhere approaches the works of Rimbaud and Mallarme.8 For Badiou, Rimbaud's work, despite its formidable inventive capacity and unmatched vigour, is ultimately incapable of accepting the conditions imposed by the undecidable character ofthe event, the fact that the latter can never be transit ive XIX

c Alain Badiou On I I I I!i I , " " '" , to, or coincide with, the situation that it affects. In brief, that being and th e event can never enter into any sort of communion. Hence the tendency of Rimbaud's poetry, when faced with the non-or extra-ontological demand of the event's emergence, to resort to the operation ofinterruption, which in the end denies the 'now' of an event that can itself never be identified with the situation -thereby signalling both the denial of novelty and the defeat of language. Given over as it is to what Badiou regards as the 'mirage' of a complete possession of truth, Rimbaud's poetry manifests the incapacity of assuming the hardships of subjectivation, the painstaking work of a truth that can never be immediately present as the truth of things, or as the linguistic celebration of the appearance of the world. With Mallarme's method, we move instead to a writing that is entirely positioned 'after' the event , or rather, a writing that wholly affirms the undecidability proper to an event that can never be attested in or by the situat ion without a long labour of detection and reconfiguration. This is why Mallarme's method is concerned with the isolation of an event that is constitutively evanescent, that must be wagered upon in order then to register its traces and effects upon a situation. These traces and effects are to be considered in terms of how the event both inscribes and subtracts itselffrom an ontological state of affairs, being as such neither present nor non-problematically individuated in the realm of appearances. Mallarme's method thus establishes something like an intrigue of the event's disappearance, a syntactically driven investigation into the potentially determinate but inapparent effects of something that can never exactly be said to be. How, in the absence of any normal 'evidence', can we affirm in a given situation that something has happened, and, on the basis of this wager (this dice-throw) deduce its consequences for the situation? Such is the axis of Mallarme's method, conferring upon it its singular place as a reference for Badiou's work, as 'the thought of the pure event on the basis of its decided trace. ' Forcing our schematisation somewhat, we could say that if Rimbaud shows us the abdication oflanguage in the face ofthe present demands of the undecidable, and Mallarme the retrospective detection of the traces of a vanished novelty, Badiou's Beckett is almost (and this 'almost' marks the very place of the event in Beckett's work) wholly devoted to delineating the conditions demanded for the emergence of truth and novelty -including those

conditions of a cognitive or linguistic order that threaten to forestall any suc h emergence, consigning the subject to the infinite ordeal of solipsism, to that xx Alain Badiou On Beckett ( 'artesian torture which so preoccupies Badiou in these pages. The identification of the functions of the human on the basis of the torsion of the cogito onto the imperative oflanguage, together with the cartography of the places and inscriptions of being, all seem to indicate, in Badiou's reading, an attempt to 'prepare' for an event that is only liminally introduced through the ligures of the Two and the Other. It could therefore be said that Beckett's method partly inverts the methods of the two other writers considered by Badiou. In it, the event functions as an interruption of torture (rather than an interruption of joy in defeat, as in Rimbaud) and prose lays out the ontological groundwork prior to an event (rather than thinking it in its disappearance, as in Mallarme). In sum, we have Beckett as the courageous preparation for the event (,before'), Rimbaud as the defeatist decision against the undecidable of the event ('during'), and Mallarme as the protocol of fidelity in its subtractive 'relationship'to a disappearance and to the isolation of a pure multiple (' afte r'). Lest this partition appear all too tidy, it is worth turning now to the peculiar and problematic effects that this preparatory or anticipatory character of Beckett's method has with regard. to the elaborate doctrinal apparatus, principally set out in L 'etre et I' evenement, that allows Badiou to isolate th is method in the first place. To emphasize this more conflictive dimension of Badiou's encounter with Beckett, we will now look at the role of appearance, subjectivity and language in these essays on Beckett, focussing throughout on how these notions determine a certain perspective on thinking humanity, that is, on humanity as a pure capacity to be affected by the irruption of novelty and to decide upon the event. We have grown accustomed to (and accustomed to criticising) claims that Beckett's work offers us a disquisition on the 'human condition', that it is the bearer of universal formulations regarding 'human nature'. Exemplary of this position is Esslin who, writing in the late fifties and early sixties, sought to extract from the dramatic works a Beckett absolutely existentialist in his proclamations and scope. As he put it: '[Beckett's] creative intuition explores the elements of experience and shows to what extent all human beings carry the seeds of such depression and disintegration within the deeper layers of their personality. '9 Badiou's take, whilst seemingly sharing the universalising impetus of Esslin's reading, sees in Beckett not so much a delving into deeper and deeper layers of humanity (and the subsequent 'redemptive' conclusion that always follows these humanist attempts via the XXI

Alain Badiou On

isolation of some unalienable qualities orproperties that sum up what it is to be 'human'), but rather proposes that in Beckett's work we encounter an absolutely formal reduction of 'thinking humanity' to its indestructible functions, to its atemporal determinants. It is in this respect that Beckett is compared to Descartes -suspending all that is inessential and doubtful before beginning his 'serious enquiry' into humanity. Certain ofBeckett's prose works (Texts for Nothing among them) can therefore be read as asking the following question: What is the composition of thought, if it is reduced to its absolutely primordial constituents? With explicit reference to Plato's ,Sophist, Badiou isolates certain generic function s of Beckett's characters in the early texts: movement and rest, being and language.1o Just as Kant and Husserl vehemently refused any form of 'psychologism' in their work, so Beckett can be read, in a similar way, as proposing, within a literary set-up, the same move away from personal descriptions of 'states ofmind'. Rather than witnessing in Beckett the essential , 'miseries', the inevitable and ultimately 'absurd' 'predicament' that Esslin, for one, argues universally underlies 'personality' and 'culture', Badiou views Ii''I , , Alain Badiou On Beckett in his philosophy, of philosophical anthropology. What weight are we to give to this attempt to delineate the pre-evental 'ethical substance' of fidelity and subjectivation, and what importance must be ascribed to the fact that this is done in language? The hypotheses on humanity that Beckett sets out through his derelict figures and desolate landscapes are initially staged by Badiou, as we have already noted, in the confrontation between the tortured cogito and the indifferent cartography of the places of being. The first thing to note, if we wish to measure the distance between Badiou's own doctrine and how it responds to Beckett's art, is that the 'Cartesian' concerns in the latter's work introduce the problem -which is otherwise alien, if not contrary, to Badiou's stance -of a subject before or without the event. Though Beckett's epoche subtracts the subject in order to lay out the place of being (or rather, of its appearance), it turns out that the resolute annihilation of all subjectivity is simply impossible -language and its subject abide even (or especially) in the most extreme moment of their destitution. As Badiou states: 'all fiction, as devoted as it may beto establishing the place of being -in closure, openness this suspension ofcultural and individuating traits in Beckett as anabsolutely o r the grey black -presupposes or connects to a subject. This subject in turn

I positive procedure, because it allows one, he argues, to go 'straight to the exc ludes itself from the place simply by the act of naming it, whilst at the , , I i I ,I I 'I ,I'" " only questions that matter'. What's more: 'Thus reduced to a few functions, humanity is only more admirable, more energetic, more immortal' . However, aside from texts that lie somewhat outside the speculative core of Badiou's philosophy (namely the Ethics and its discussion of the immortal, and the defence of universalism in the Saint Paul), it is hard to say that the notion of humanity receives any sustained formal treatment in Badiou -something that should not elicit surprise, given both Badiou's fidelity to the tradition of philosophical anti-humanism and his 'post-Marxist' decision for a theory of the subject that regards it as predicated upon the irruption of an event. But as it arises in his readings of Beckett, this attempt to determine an 'atemporal' humanity in its basic functions arguably involves certain deviations from the mainstays of Badiou's philosophy. For instance, it demands an interrogation of subjects that come 'before' the event (something seemingly written out of his major works). It also requires a consideration of the relationship between the human as capacity and the imperative oflanguage. Lastly, it demands the introduction of the crucial concept of Bad iou's recent work, appearance. Something in the critical and ascetic approach of Beckett can thus be said to lead Badiou to an interrogation, otherwise absent or latent XXII same time holding itself at a distance from this name:ll In other words, the very attempt to establish a literary or fictional ontology (as opposed to a neutral mathematical ontology) cannot do without the supplementation provided by a subject; to borrow from Badiou's friend Natacha Michel, it , can never evade theproblem of enunciation: 'Who speaks?12 This subject of fiction or subject oflanguage, as acogito constitutively determined by the imperative to speak and name being, is itself not a simple or point-like instance, but rather a tom figure, thrice divided into a subject o f

enunciation, a passive body of subjectivation and a subject of the question. On this 'third' subject, it is worth quoting Badiou at length. 'Question' can be taken here in its judicial sense, as when we speak of a subject being questioned. For what is in fact this torture of thought? As we've already said, the dim -the grey-black that localises being -is ultimately nothing but an empty scene. To fill it, it is necessary to tum towards this irreducible region of existence constituted by speech -the third universal function of humanity, along with movement and immobility. But what is the being of speech, if it is not the speaking subject? It is XXIII

I , I , ,, , , , Alain Badiou On therefore necessary that the subject literally twist itself towards its own utterance. This time, it is the expression 'writhing in pain' that must be interpreted literally. Once one perceives that the identity of the subject is triple, and not just double, the subject appears as tom. It is the tension within this subject of language, and its incapacity to twist free ofthe equivocity that defines its triplicate composition, which will lead Beckett into the notorious impasses, and chiefly to the crisis which we've already seen is punctuated by and surpassed in How ItIs. What is of interest for our purposes is the realisation that this subject of language is in no way that subject ofthe event whose theorisation has abidingly occupied Badiou's speculative energies at least from the Peut-on penser fa politique? (1 985) onwards. Unlike the subject of the event, the torsion of this triple subject of language is transitive to the situation, to the place of being, that it names an d configures in fiction. In this sense, it is not rare and dependent on chance, decision and fidelity; rather, it is an inescapable and constitutive feature of the fictional set-up, or, if one will allow the expression, it functions as its intrinsic supplement. Beckett's 'misuse' oflanguage is in this respect initially aimed, via the aforementioned operations, at the stepwise elimination of this subjective excess; its anti-humanist drive amounting to an attempt to efface the torture of speech into the grey black of being. Badiou's reconstruction of the impasse thereby amounts to the thesis that it is only in the introduction of another supplement (as testified by the figures of the Other, the Two, the Event), a supplement which is entirely incalculable and which is only glimpsed at the far edge of Beckett's work (namely in the conclusion ofWorstward Ho), that the linguistic and ontological ordeal ofthe subject oflanguage can be alleviated or interrupted. The mutation signalled by the works after Texts for Nothing can thus be conceived as the passage from a nihilist solution to the problem ofa subject oflanguage (the attempt to perpetrate its demise, to destroy even the voice) to a hazardous but ultimately productive one (the conversion of the subject by the event of alterity). In this sense the subject of Beckett's ar t -which according to Badiou s ina esthetics is not the author but the work-is defined by the movement beyond the tormenting excess of a subject of language towards the futural fidelity of a subject of the event. Where does this leave the problem of language, which had initially attracted our young Sartrean cretin (as Badiou portrays his former self) to the XXIV Alain Badiou On Beckett works of Beckett? Surely, Beckett's Cartesian scenarios preclude any cryptoI{ omantic dissolution of human subjectivity into the One of language. But l..qually, they forestall any thanatological abdications of the obstinate courag e that so insistently marks his figures and voices, even and especially at their most ragged and risible. In this respect, and to the very extent that most ofhis work is driven by the wish to 'ill say', to puncture speech and corrode its authority, Beckett does demand from Badiou the recognition, otherwise I(u'cign to his doctrine, of an irreducibility proper to language or speech as a 'rcgion of existence'. Moreover, though language is not itself an object of spcculation (whether structural or hermeneutic) or adulation (it is the very stuff of our earthly ordeals), it is nevertheless identified as an ineluctable a

nd incliminable 'function' of the human, an essential component of that capacity /()r thought that determines the existence of humanity. It is this role oflangua ge that Badiou is obliged to assume and, in a qualified manner, affirm. What his rcconstruction of Beckett does not involve however, is any specific attention to the 'texture' oflanguage itself-to the operations undergone in Beckett by grammar, to the usage of certain tropes, etc. Whilst the linguistic dimension is indeed ineliminable, what captivates Badiou when it comes to Beckett as a thinker is precisely what emerges from a subtraction ofand, of course, through language (though this does not stop Badiou, himself a novelist and playwrigh.w from indicating, on a number of occasions, fertile grounds for discussions of style and technique). The same impossibility of outright destruction, coupled with the requirement to subtract and supplement, marks that category which is not simply a 'dimension' but the defining name for existence (as opposed to being) in Badiou: appearance. The doctrine of appearance, which has been a chief preoccupation ofBadiou in recent years, finds one of its most elaborate accounts to date in the painstaking theoretical reconstruction of Worstward Ho. Whereas the first two of our essays find the counterpart of the cogito in an ontology oflocalisation (the theme ofthe 'place of being' , or 'grey black'), in 'Being, Existence, Thought: Prose and Concept' we are presented with a far more systematic distinction between being ('the void') and appearance ('the dim'). What is at stake is once again the notion that what 'lies behind' can only 'seep through' (to use Beckett's expressions from his letter to Axel Kaun) if we begin from the inscription of being in language and things, in other words, if we begin from existence. The purity of the void can only be attained in the intervals of appearance, through those operations that 'worsen' XXV " I I , I I,,, I' , ,I, ,i , I' ,

," ", , ," ", , " Alain Badiou On existence, divesting it of (almost) all order and ornament. Ultimately, however, the simplification that defines Beckett's confrontation with appearances with the 'shades', with 'visible humanity', with all that Badiou classes under the rubric of 'phenomenology' -needs to be supplemented by the only thing which, in Badiou's eyes, can truly announce an upsurge of the void that would not be founded on the pure and simple annihilation oflanguage and existence: the event. It is with the event that for Badiou we attain the maximal purificati on (but not destruction) of language, the 'last state' of saying, when we can rejoice at the poverty of words. It is also with the event -with beauty, love and the Other -that a novelty beyond the ordeal of speech can make itself known. III. The fact that Badiou's reading of Beckett does not result in any straightforward illustration or ventriloquist application of the former's philosophical doctrines, but on the contrary introduces themes otherwise not prominent in Badiou's work (from the positive characterisation of the Other to the idea ofthe atemporal determinants of humanity), opens the question of how such an encounter may reconfigure the relationship between philosophy and literature as separate, if interacting, disciplines of thought. Badiou's 'official' position, whilst not the object of a thoroughgoing deduction, is clea r enough. Against any deconstructionist or postmodernist penchant for disciplinary hybridisation, or worse, for the abdication of speculative rationalism at the altar of some supposed literary intuition, Badiou has been proposing for some time a steadfast distinction between the thinking of philosophy and the thinking of art. This proposal is driven by his identificatio n of the four intellectual disciplines (or generic procedures, in the technical vocabulary) that serve as the 'conditions' of philosophy: art, science, politics and love. It is these conditions, and not philosophy, that are responsible for the subjectivating capture of events and the production of multiple truths (though questions about the number and nature of the 'conditions' remain open). This is why Badiou provocatively describes philosophy as the 'gobetween' or 'procuress' in our encounters with truth. Philosophy itself therefore has no 'truths' of its own, and art, for one, remains entirely irreducible to philosophy. Under what Badiou calls the XXVI Alain Badiou On Beckett J'()l11antic schema (the key figure here is Heidegger, though neither Nietzsche hefore him, nor Nancy after, for example, are exempt from the appellation) art alone is capable of truth, and particularly in the form of the poem. In this

schema, philosophy has been ' sutured' to one of its conditions, and no longer possesses the ability to operate as the formal (and empty) mediator between one specific condition and the others, as well as between each condition and the abstract indifferent discourse which is set-theoretical ontology. Conversely , Hadiou's schematic presentation ofthe so-called classical view of art indicates that, for classical thought, art is 'innocent' of all truth. For such a classica l stance, whose primary impetus is didactic, art cannot do the work that philosophy does, and there are thus no meaningful parallels to be drawn between what philosophy says about 'being', for example, and what art says about 'being'. Badiou takes a somewhat different tack. For him, art is not 'innocent' of truth; there are truths specific to art, and they are always immanent and singular. Art is not blind to its own truth-content, rather, it is 'the thinking of the thought that it is', though this thought of thought is predicated upon the production of works (otherwise, art w'J:ld be surreptitiously sutured to philosophy as an ultimately speculative or reflexive pursuit). Philosophy as the 'go-between' is thus duty-bound to make the truths ofart apparent and consistent with the abstract discourse of ontology, but not to assimilate them to itself and claim them as its own 'property' (after all, philosophy itself strictly speaking possesses no truths of its own). It is this 'relation' between philosophy and art that Badiou has baptised as 'inaesthetics' , defining it as 'a relation of philosophy to art which, maintain ing that art is itself a producer of truths, makes no claim to tum it into an object forphilosophy. Against aesthetic speculation, inaesthetics describes the strictl y intra-philosophical effects produced by the independent existence of some works of art.' 13 How then are we to square this inaesthetic protocol of demarcation and vigilant commerce between philosophy and art (literature) with what appear as the invasively philosophical claims made for Beckett's thought, not to mention the concepts that his writing seems to suggest or add to Badiou's own approach? After all, there is nothing in the least ironic about the methodological parallels drawn with Plato, Descartes and Husserl -ifnothing else, these essays wish to convince us that there is as much rigour and as much thought in How It Is as in the Meditations, in The Un namable as in the Parmenides. The formalising tour de force which generates the systematic XXVII

, 1 , , , , , ,

I' I 'I: , .. ' i ' ,I' , Alain Badiou On reading of Worstward Ho as a distilled ontology, whilst obviously indebted to much of the work undertaken by Badiou in L'etre et l'evenement and the forthcoming Logiques des mondes, is also an attempt to show, in considerable detail, how literature has nothing to envy philosophy in matters of complex thought. Indeed, Badiou, as he does elsewhere with regard to that great French dialectician, Mallarme, avows that in the case of Beckett the practice of inaesthetic demarcation might find itself stretched, that we might be in the presence of a thinking transversal to those disciplinary borders that Badiou himself sets up to avert the disaster of suture -that reciprocal parasitism of philosophy and its conditions which periodically announces the weakening or abdication of thinking. This is what Badiou writes in the Petit manuel by way of introduction to his formally exacting reconstruction of Worstward Ho: Samuel Beckett [. . . ] loved to gnaw at the edges ofthat peril which all high literature exposes itself to: No longer to produce unheard-of impurities, but to wallow in the apparent purity of the concept. To philosophise, in short. And therefore: To register truths, rather than producing them. Of this wandering at the edges, Worstward Ho remains the most accomplished witness.14 This effort toward purification, Beckett's characteristic ascesis, is therefore revealed both as the singular resource of his writing (its capacity to vie with the great philosophers in a delineation of both the parameters of appearance and the determinants of humanity) and as the specific threat it incurs (that it might tum into an amphibious entity of suture: neither art nor philosophy; neither the empty capture of evental truths nor their production in a generic procedure). So that Beckett's work is indeed a specifically artisti c or literary confrontation with the resources of language and the power of fiction, but it is also an attempt to think through and beyond the limitations imposed by the linguistic set-up and -in operations ofleastening, worsening, subtraction -to attain something other than language, something other than fiction. This at least seems to be the 'programme' laid out in the famous letter to Axel Kaun of 1937, the very same that Beckett later dismissed as 'German bilge': [. . . ] more and more my own language appears to me like a veil that must XXVIII I' I 'I: , .. ' i ' ,I' , Alain Badiou On reading of Worstward Ho as a distilled ontology, whilst obviously indebted to much of the work undertaken by Badiou in L'etre et l'evenement and the forthcoming Logiques des mondes, is also an attempt to show, in considerable detail, how literature has nothing to envy philosophy in matters of complex thought. Indeed, Badiou, as he does elsewhere with regard to that great French dialectician, Mallarme, avows that in the case of Beckett the practice of inaesthetic demarcation might find itself stretched, that we might be in the presence of a thinking transversal to those disciplinary borders that Badiou himself sets up to avert the disaster of suture -that reciprocal parasitism of philosophy and its conditions which periodically announces the weakening or abdication of thinking. This is what Badiou writes in the Petit manuel by way of introduction to his formally exacting reconstruction of Worstward Ho:

Samuel Beckett [. . . ] loved to gnaw at the edges ofthat peril which all high literature exposes itself to: No longer to produce unheard-of impurities, but to wallow in the apparent purity of the concept. To philosophise, in short. And therefore: To register truths, rather than producing them. Of this wandering at the edges, Worstward Ho remains the most accomplished witness.14 This effort toward purification, Beckett's characteristic ascesis, is therefore revealed both as the singular resource of his writing (its capacity to vie with the great philosophers in a delineation of both the parameters of appearance and the determinants of humanity) and as the specific threat it incurs (that it might tum into an amphibious entity of suture: neither art nor philosophy; neither the empty capture of evental truths nor their production in a generic procedure). So that Beckett's work is indeed a specifically artisti c or literary confrontation with the resources of language and the power of fiction, but it is also an attempt to think through and beyond the limitations imposed by the linguistic set-up and -in operations ofleastening, worsening, subtraction -to attain something other than language, something other than fiction. This at least seems to be the 'programme' laid out in the famous letter to Axel Kaun of 1937, the very same that Beckett later dismissed as 'German bilge': [. . . ] more and more my own language appears to me like a veil that must XXVIII Alain be torn apart in order to get at the things (or the No."ngness) behind it. I ... ] Let us hope that time will come, thank God that m ..ain circles it has already come, when language is most efficiently used when it is most efficiently misused. As we cannot eliminate language all at once, we should at least leave nothing undone that might contribute to its falling into disrepute. To bore one hole after another in it, until what lurks, behind it be it something or nothing -begins to seep through, I cannot imagine a Beckett higher goal for a writer todayY If only that, as Badiou is adamant to point out, since the dim can never go -since appearance or inscription is ineluctable -it is not in the destruction orlanguage (which would amount to the annihilation of humanity and the imperative to speak that defines it) but in its subtraction and supplementation that 'the things (or the Nothingness) behind it' can see the light. It is thus in its very drive to purity -in its wish to purge language of itsclf-that Beckett's thought remains impure -never able or willing to fully abandon the injunction and the constraints of utterance, nor to do without its speculative, universalising desideratum, however corroded by comedy it may be. Following Jacques Ranciere, we could appropriate the case of Beckett I(lr a critique of the demarcationist purism and philosophical sovereignty potentially evinced by Badiou's 'conditional' schema. Or we could enlist it in an appraisal of Beckett as a thinker for whom the category of 'art' or 'literature' is far too narrow. Whilst these are both valid pursuits, and the questions raised by Badiou's Beckett are perhaps not ultimately capable of doctrinal resolution, in light of the very themes raised in these essays there i s perhaps another avenue worth considering. This consists in seeing Beckett's

writing as centred around the notion of a capacity for thought, and specifically around the capacity for thinking through the radical consequences of cncounters and events that defines the very being of thinking humanity. Whilst Badiou is explicit in his affirmation of the multiplicity of cognitive disciplines and generic procedures,16 and wary of any overdeterminatio n ofthought either by philosophy or by any one of its conditions, his own encounter with Beckett seems to push us towards the recognition that there is a place for thinking thought itself, or the capacity thereof, in a manner both transversal to the multiplicity of disciplines and anterior to the irruption of any event. In brief, that even a doctrine for which every subject hinges on the incalculable upsurge ofa novelty and the systematic deduction XXIX , ' . , L ,. I

'.

, ,, , ,, " " , ,'I,, , , ,I , I '',,' ' Alain Badiou On of its consequences has a place for something like a philosophical anthropology, a thinking of generic humanity that pivots around the capacity for thinking and which, whilst never reducible to its linguistic inscription, moves through a resolute confrontation between subj ects and their enunciations. Whether such a capacity is itself open to a formalisation equivalent to that provided for the event is of course a matter that can only be addressed elsewhere in a critical engagement with the resources of Bad iou's own thought. IV. We have seen, briefly, how Badiou can argue that Beckett is a writer of hope, but a hope based on nothing. 'Nothing', because the event or encounter wit h the other does not operate as a principle or foundation that could serve to plot the outline of a 'hope-giving' series of texts. 'Nothing', because the ultimate resource from which generic humanity draws its cognitive and practical capacity for novelty, as well as its courage to confront the torture o f the cogito and the indifference of the dim, is the void, and the way its pure inconsistency can burst through the partitions of apparent order, to reveal the most radical, and most generic, equality. In this regard, it is indicative that the encounter with the other only appears as a question for Beckett following the impasse of the investigations of the operations of language in the 'Trilogy' . Badiou is clear: We cannot simply rest content with an exploration of Beckett's work that colludes with the sophistical obsession with language. The major shift in potential that Badiou sees with the encounter fromHow it Is onwards, provides Beckett's characters with the only 'way out' of the perpetual linguisti c oscillation between the solitary cogito and the grey-black of being . Ultimately , it is this incalculable encounter that frees generic humanity from the relentles s and aporetic contortions of language and subjectivity. Though Beckett allows Badiou to consider the 'figural preparation' of this event, or even the quasiant hropological invariants required for its irruption, it is the event which in the last instance permits us to think the figure of 'thinking humanity'. Perhaps this is the real challenge posed by the conceptual configuration that has arisen between Badiou and Beckett: To think the entanglement and reciprocal determination of a thinking of the human as pure capacity, on the one hand, and a thinking of the incalculable novelty of the event, on the xxx Alain -I3adiou On Beckett llllT. 1/ Or: To produce a radically egalitarian notion of the human that would ':lIll1l..how remain entirely faithful to the anti-humanist legacy of Althusser i1l1d hllicault, among others .. this is what Beckett allows us, or rather force s II..;, to do. 18 Whilst Beckett shows us that an inquiry into the atemporal IIl Iguistic and cognitive determinants of humanity on its own cannot but lead 11.', into the ordeal of the subject and the impasse of fiction, into the wretch ed \Ii It iIism of annihilation or (worse) the pieties of humanism, he also manifes ts the inescapable demand that 'thinking humanity' find its fictional and

IIII i losophical determination, even if this means moving beyond the boundaries or language into the realm of the incalculable, moving beyond the 'on' of spL'cL'h to the invention of operations capable of affirming new beginnings. III this light, if we must 'shelter and retain' the truth that arises from an ev ent, i I' wc must remain 'tirelessly' faithful to the event, it is because of its potcntiality for thought, and not only for thought, but for action . Nina Power and Alberto Toscano 1 An English translation of the entirety of the Petit manuel d'inesthetique (Par is: SL'uil, 1998) is forthcoming. See Alain Badiou, Handbook of Inaesthetics, transl ated hy Alberto Toscano (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). 2 See Andrew Gibson's postface for a critical comparison of Bad iou's work on Be ckett I() that of recent Anglo-American commentators. :l Again, see Gibson's essay for an analysis of Bad iou's implicit decision not to engage with other critics and commentators. See also Dominique Rabate's stimulating ess ay .Continuer-Beckett' in a recent collection of essays on Badiou entitledAlain Bad iou: J>enser Ie multiple, ed. by Charles Ramond (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002), pp. 407-4 20. 4 Jacques Derrida, Acts of Literature, ed. by Derek Attridge (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 60. S Regarding this question of the 'grey black' lying beyond the solitary subject, it is interesting to note that Beckett has so many words in English for this 'nothing' among them 'half-light', 'dim' (Worstward Ho) and ' gloom' (The Lost Ones) -wher eas in French, he tends to use penombre across the texts. The French term perhaps be tter encapsulates the exact sense of the empty, colourless, topography that Beckett s eems to wish to convey -it is neither light nor dark, neither one colour nor another. It is, in effect, a term to designate being 'in its localisation, empty of any event'. 6 Beckett shares his identification of a method of subtraction or reduction (Bec kett's 'leastening') with two of the 20th century's great philosophical readers of Beck ett: XXXI , ,, , ,, " " , ,'I,, , , ,I , I '',,' ' Alain Badiou On of its consequences has a place for something like a philosophical anthropology, a thinking of generic humanity that pivots around the capacity for thinking and which, whilst never reducible to its linguistic inscription, moves through a resolute confrontation between subj ects and their enunciations. Whether such a capacity is itself open to a formalisation equivalent to that provided for the event is of course a matter that can only be addressed elsewhere in a critical engagement with the resources of Bad iou's own thought.

IV. We have seen, briefly, how Badiou can argue that Beckett is a writer of hope, but a hope based on nothing. 'Nothing', because the event or encounter wit h the other does not operate as a principle or foundation that could serve to plot the outline of a 'hope-giving' series of texts. 'Nothing', because the ultimate resource from which generic humanity draws its cognitive and practical capacity for novelty, as well as its courage to confront the torture o f the cogito and the indifference of the dim, is the void, and the way its pure inconsistency can burst through the partitions of apparent order, to reveal the most radical, and most generic, equality. In this regard, it is indicative that the encounter with the other only appears as a question for Beckett following the impasse of the investigations of the operations of language in the 'Trilogy' . Badiou is clear: We cannot simply rest content with an exploration of Beckett's work that colludes with the sophistical obsession with language. The major shift in potential that Badiou sees with the encounter fromHow it Is onwards, provides Beckett's characters with the only 'way out' of the perpetual linguisti c oscillation between the solitary cogito and the grey-black of being . Ultimately , it is this incalculable encounter that frees generic humanity from the relentles s and aporetic contortions of language and subjectivity. Though Beckett allows Badiou to consider the 'figural preparation' of this event, or even the quasiant hropological invariants required for its irruption, it is the event which in the last instance permits us to think the figure of 'thinking humanity'. Perhaps this is the real challenge posed by the conceptual configuration that has arisen between Badiou and Beckett: To think the entanglement and reciprocal determination of a thinking of the human as pure capacity, on the one hand, and a thinking of the incalculable novelty of the event, on the xxx Alain -I3adiou On Beckett llllT. 1/ Or: To produce a radically egalitarian notion of the human that would ':lIll1l..how remain entirely faithful to the anti-humanist legacy of Althusser i1l1d hllicault, among others .. this is what Beckett allows us, or rather force s II..;, to do. 18 Whilst Beckett shows us that an inquiry into the atemporal IIl Iguistic and cognitive determinants of humanity on its own cannot but lead 11.', into the ordeal of the subject and the impasse of fiction, into the wretch ed \Ii It iIism of annihilation or (worse) the pieties of humanism, he also manifes ts the inescapable demand that 'thinking humanity' find its fictional and IIII i losophical determination, even if this means moving beyond the boundaries or language into the realm of the incalculable, moving beyond the 'on' of spL'cL'h to the invention of operations capable of affirming new beginnings. III this light, if we must 'shelter and retain' the truth that arises from an ev ent, i I' wc must remain 'tirelessly' faithful to the event, it is because of its potcntiality for thought, and not only for thought, but for action . Nina Power and Alberto Toscano 1 An English translation of the entirety of the Petit manuel d'inesthetique (Par is: SL'uil, 1998) is forthcoming. See Alain Badiou, Handbook of Inaesthetics, transl ated hy Alberto Toscano (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). 2 See Andrew Gibson's postface for a critical comparison of Bad iou's work on Be

ckett I() that of recent Anglo-American commentators. :l Again, see Gibson's essay for an analysis of Bad iou's implicit decision not to engage with other critics and commentators. See also Dominique Rabate's stimulating ess ay .Continuer-Beckett' in a recent collection of essays on Badiou entitledAlain Bad iou: J>enser Ie multiple, ed. by Charles Ramond (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002), pp. 407-4 20. 4 Jacques Derrida, Acts of Literature, ed. by Derek Attridge (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 60. S Regarding this question of the 'grey black' lying beyond the solitary subject, it is interesting to note that Beckett has so many words in English for this 'nothing' among them 'half-light', 'dim' (Worstward Ho) and ' gloom' (The Lost Ones) -wher eas in French, he tends to use penombre across the texts. The French term perhaps be tter encapsulates the exact sense of the empty, colourless, topography that Beckett s eems to wish to convey -it is neither light nor dark, neither one colour nor another. It is, in effect, a term to designate being 'in its localisation, empty of any event'. 6 Beckett shares his identification of a method of subtraction or reduction (Bec kett's 'leastening') with two of the 20th century's great philosophical readers of Beck ett: XXXI "

Alain Badiou On ..Theodor W. Adorno and Giles Deleuze. In 'Trying to Understand Endgame' (1958), in Notes to Literature, vol. 1 (New York: Colombia, 1991), Adorno explicitly arg ues for Beckett's opposition to the 'abstraction' of existentialist ontology in favo ur of 'an avowed process of subtraction' (p. 246) that reduces it to a single category: 'b are existence' (p. 243). However, steeped as it is in the condemnation of 'the irrat ionality ofbourgeois in its late phase' (p. 244) and the 'pathogenesis ofthe false life' (p. 247), Adoorno's reading of Beckett is, to use Badiou's terminology, strictly 'antiphil osophical'; Adorno refuses to see in Beckett any concession to the speculative drive and also discounts a priori any reading of him as an affirmative or hopefu l thinker (Adorno concludes that in Endgame '[h]ope skulks out ofthe world' [po 27 5] back to death and indifference). In Adorno's estimation, Beckett's 'metaphysical negation no longer permits an aesthetic form that would itself produce metaphysi cal affirmation', his 'anti-art' culls 'aesthetic meaning from the radical negation of metaphysical meaning' (Aesthetic Theory [Minnesota: University of Minnesota, 199 7], pp. 348, 271). In this light, Adorno reads Beckett's method of subtraction again st 'modem ontology' and the 'poverty of philosophy' , as revealing 'an existence th at is shut up in itself like a mollusk, no longer capable of universality'; despite hi s somber acumen and eloquence, Adorno ultimately retains the category of the absurd as th e key to Beckett's worrk, and is impervious, in Badiou's terms, to the aesthetic r elevance of concepts of eternal novelty or generic humanity (see 'Trying to Understand Endgame', p. 246). In this respect, Deleuze's study of the stepwise, combinatory 'reduction' of language in Beckett's television plays (,The Exhausted', in Essay s , , , Critical and Clinical [London: Verso, 1997], pp. 152-174) bears far greate r affinity ' " , ' , with Badiou's depiction of Beckett as a rigorous thinker of formalising proced ures.

Alain Badiou On Beckett l) Marlin Esslin (ed.), The Theatre ofthe Absurd (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, I %X), p. 66. I I) lIadiou will write of the manner in which Beckett's 'anti-phenomenological' or 11< IIl illlentional reduction allows us to grasp the moment when 'movement beco mes " \lcrnally indiscernible from immobility', that is, when movement becomes nothi ng III"'.. than a differential of rest, expressing a sort of minimal and ideal mobi lity. It is IV' IIlh noting that Beckett himselfdraws on this theme from the calculus in his 'Joycean' dlSl'ussion of the thought ofGiordano Bruno and its influence on Vico. '[N]ot on ly do lilt' Illinima coincide with the minima, the maxima with the maxima, but the min ima IV iIh the maxima in the succession of transformations. Maximal speed is a state of I('sl.' See 'Dante ... Vico. Bruno ... Joyce', inDisjecta (London: John Calder, 1983), I' .' I Arguably the irreducibility ofthe 'functions' allows Beckett, in his lat er work, . I .. lIIove beyond this identity of contraries. II II is worth noting that the problem of the name, and specifically of the nami ng of Ih" ..vent, is far more prominent in the first two essays in this collection tha n in 'Being, 1'\islence, Thought: Prose and Concept'. This is explained by the fact that the 1kpendence ofthe theory ofthe event on a philosophy ofthe name has been the obje ct ..ra self-criticism on the part ofBadiou -on the basis both ofLyotard's doubts a bout Ihe theory ofthe two names of the event inL 'etre et l'eVl?nement and ofthe imma nent Ikillands of Badiou's own thinking of subjectivity, especially as it has come to illcorporate a thinking of appearance (see the preface to the English edition of the Fillies, the forthcoming Angelaki interview with Bruno Bosteels and Peter Hallwa rd 'Ikyond Formalisation' , and the forthcoming maj or work by Badiou himself,Logiq ues .It'S 1110ndes).

,' , " ,,

I " " I " , " " ' , , , Nevertheless, Badiou's preoccupation with the place of 'thinking humanity' in I2 See her fine essay on the novel, L' ecrivain pensif (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1998), p p Beckett's work -together with its Cartesian and Husserlian echoes -has no counte rpart in Deleuze's reading, for whom Beckett's reductions lead to abecoming-impercepti ble, to a spiritual and cosmic experience of Life (as he concludes in 'The Greatest I rish Fihn Ever Made', also in Essays Critical and Clinical). Needless to say, these d iffferent appreciations of reduction and formalisation find their deeper reasons in Badiou 's polemical engagement with Deleuze's philosophy in Deleuze: The Clamor of Being (Minnesota: University of Minnesota, 2000). 7 Badiou's own philosophy is itself articulated in terms of such' operations, ma ny of which are drawn from the domain of mathematical thought, operations such asforci ng, intervention, avoidance, subtraction, connection. The very process of evental subjectivation is eminently operational in character, a trait clearly attested t o by Badiou's recurrent references to the production (rather than intuition) of truth s. 8 See Conditions (Paris: Seuil, 1992). XXXII -" )-62. 13 Petit manuel d'inesthetique, p. 7. 14 Petit manuel d'inesthetique, p. 146.

15 Disjecta, pp. 171-172. 16 See Conditions, p. 141. 17 This link between a capacity for thought and the event (of the Two) is one of the principal objects of Badiou's essay 'Qu' est-ce que I'amour?', from Conditions. It is a Iso a crucial materialist postulate of Bad iou's that we cannot consider thoug ht outside ofits inscription in bodies and places (i.e. in appearance) and that any straigh tforward identification of a transcendental subjective capacity (one unhinged from the ir ruption of the event and the procedures that can ensue in its wake) would merely occlude the ordeal of the cogito for the sake of a meta-head, thereby ignoring the seriousne ss of Beckett's impasses, as well as their singular resolution. XXXIII

Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Beckett 18 In this respect, it would be interesting to measure and interrogate the gap t hat separates the dictum from The Unnamable ofwhich Badiou is so fond -'I alone am man and all the rest divine' -from the classically humanist pronouncement from 'Dante ... Vico. Bruno ...Joyce': 'Humanity is its work itself. [ ... ] Humanity is divine but no man is divine' (Disjecta, p. 22). The humanity recast in the later Becket t under the (empty) sign of the generic is a humanity stripped of such transcendence, an d 'blessed' with immortality only through the arduous fidelity to a vanishing even t. Whence Badiou's Beckettian programme, as formulated in 'What Happens': 'To relegate the divine and its curse to the periphery of saying, and to declare man naked, without either hope or hopelessness, relentless, surviving, and consigned to the excessive language of his desire.' At the antipodes ofthe divine, it would be of interest , , to consider how the capacity for thought which sustains Badiou's Beckettian venture Author's Preface

into philosophical anthropology also signals a caesura within man separating him , as rare but Immortal subject ofthe event, from a 'nihilistic' substrate of corporea lity and , 'I, animality -whence the emblematic nature ofPozzo's exhortation: 'Think, pig!'. 1\ ,' I " I I' I " I, , , , ,

" " ,:r I , , I, , , , " , I, " : !!ere then is what I have tried to say about Beckett in French brought back

, illio English, moving contrariwise to my French capture of this immense I

, writer of the English language. , ' , I , \ , , For we can say that Beckett, from a French perspective, is an entirely J '! ..nglish' writer. He is so even in the translations made on the basis of his (IWn French, which amount to something quite different than translations. Who can fail to see that in English any of Beckett's fables simply do not sound the same? They are more sarcastic, more detached, more mobile. In short, more empiricist. French served Beckett as an instrument for the creation (1f an often very solemn fonn of distance between the act of saying and what is said. The French language changed the paradoxes of the given into metaphysical problems. It inscribed into verdicts and conclusions what, in I hc English, led to irony and suspension. French -the language of Descartes, Beckett's great philosophical referent -changed picaresque characters into the witnesses of the reflexive Subject, into victims of the cogito. It also permitted the invention of a colder poetics, of an immobile power that keeps the excessive precision of the English language at bay. Beckett's French XXXIV

Alain Badiou On substitutes a rigid rhetoric that spontaneously lays itselfout between ornament and abstraction for the descriptive and allusive finesse of English. There is something of the 'grand style' in Beckett's French. However, radical as his inventions are -like the asyntactic continuum of How It Is -in Beckett's prose we glimpse the elevation of Bossuet, the musical grasp of Rousseau, the finery of Chateaubriand, far more in fact than the taut 'modem style' which is characteristic of Proust. This is because, like Conrad in English, the language that serves Beckett as a model is a language learned in its classical form, a language to which he resorts precisely so as not to let himself be carried away by familiarity. A language adopted in order to say things in the least immediate way possible. It is thus that Beckett's French is 'too' French, just as Conrad's English is a much 'too' mannered sort of English. ' " So that when Beckett returns to English, he must undo this 'too much', this excess, and thereby attain a strange 'not enough' -a kind of subtracted English, an English of pure cadence. He abandons himself to speed and its variations. His English is a French laid bare. And what of me, placed in this in-between of languages? This is for the reader to say. It must be noted, nevertheless, that what I have described is Beckett in French, even when this language did not exist for him (such is the , case of Worstward Ho, translated into French by Edith Fournier). You will , , read a French philosopher speaking of a French writer. Who is 'English'. , And of whom I am here speaking of in English. Speaking of what? Of his English? Of his French, reconfigured here into English? It is impossible to find our bearings here. But thought, in the end, speaks no language. Plato claims that philosophy 'starts from things, not from words'. But Beckett too starts from things! So let us simply say that these essays, between Beckett and me, speak the Anglo-French of things. Alain Badiou On Beckett The Writing of the Generic1

' I. :1 , VI

, I

I .' . ' , ,,

' " ,, , ,'I., 1. The Imperative and its Destination I ' l , Our starting point: some verses of doggerel, a mirlitonnade written by ) )I

Beckett around 1976.2 It is quite singular, in that it brings Mirliton together flux cause que toute chose

tout en etant toute chose donc celle-la meme celle-la

tout en etant

n ,est pas parlons-en flux causes that every thing while being every thing hence that one even that one while being is not speak on3 XXXVI

Alain Badiou On Beckett To speak will always remain an imperative for Beckett, but an imperative for the sake of the oscillation or the undecidability of every thing. The thing is not withdrawn, it can be shown, it is this thing, and yet, once determined, it oscillates according to its flux between being and non-being. We might then say that writing -the 'speak on' -holds itself at the place of a decision as to the being of the thing. It is clear, if only because the doggerel form is suited to it, that this decision will never be sublated by a dialectic. The imag e of the flux conveys the fact that the thing can stand simultaneously at the place where it is and at the place where it is not. But this flux is never the synthesis of being and non-being, and is not to be confused with Hegelian Becoming. , II I Writing installs itself at the point where the thing, on the verge of disappearing, summoned by the non-being of its flux, is exposed to the undecidable question of its own stability. This is precisely why writing , , never destined by what is immobilised in its being -presents itself, with respect to the uncertainty of the thing, in the guise of an imperative. In quite general terms, what this interminable imperative must contend with is the curse of the oscillation rfleau d' oscillation] between being and non-being -of the balancing and weighing of the thing -but this curse is also transformed into a number of questions.4 , Kant's thought organised Critiqu e around three questions: What can I , , , , ' , . . , , know? What should I do? What may I hope? There are also three questions in , Beckett, caught up in an ironic analogy that characterises his relationship to , ,, :. philosophy. These three questions are clearly stated in Texts for Nothing. Here is one variant:

Where would I go, if! could go, who would I be, if! could be, what would I say, if! had a voice [ ... J? (CSP, p. 82; GSP, p. 114)5 The three-fold interrogation bears on going, being, and saying.6 Such is the triple instance of an 'I' that is transversal to the questions themselves , of a subject captured in the interval of the going, the being, and the saying. Until 1960, and perhaps a little after, in what constitutes the best-known part of Beckett's work, the 'character' will be -always and everywhere..the man of a trajectory (going), the man of an immobility (being), and the man of a monologue (saying). I laving grasped this triplet of elementary situations of the subject, we 2 Alain Badiou On Beckett ' :111 immcdiately pinpoint what I will call Beckett's fundamental tendency lowards the generic. By 'generic' desire I understand the reduction of the " 'lllplcxity of experience to a few principal functions, the treatment in writi ng " II hat which alone constitutes an essential determination. For Beckett, writin g I:: al l act governed by a severe principle of economy. It is necessary to subtract Illorc and more .. everything that figures as circumstantial ornament, all I'lTiphcral distraction, in order to exhibit or to detach those rare functions t o which writing can and should restrict itself, if its destiny is to say generic h IIl1lanity. Initially, at the beginning ofthis prodigious enquiry into humanit y IhaI Bcckett' s art constitutes, these functions are three in number: going, bei ng, a lid saying. In Beckett's 'novels', this subtraction of ornaments has an inner " I Illdaphor: the characters, who realise the fiction of generic writing, lose thei r ;1I

" illl;sscntial attributes in the course of the text: clothing, objects, possessio ns, \'U I !' , '

hody parts and fragments of language. Beckett often lists what must be lost ..i so that the generic functions may emerge. He does not miss an opportunity to I' (';Ist unpleasant epithets upon these pointless ornaments and possessions; in 11 ' I I I , Ihis way he points outthat it is only by losing and dissipating these peripheral " , calamities that the essence of generic humanity may be grasped. Consider, , , lill' instance, one of these lists in Rough for Theatre II: , , " , , , Work, family, third fatherland, cunt, finances, art and nature, heart and , , conscience, health, housing conditions, God and man, so many disasters I II (CDW, p. 238; SP, p. 78).1 I The subtraction of 'disasters' gives rise within Beckett's prose to a fictional set-up of destitution [dispositij de denuement]. I think it is very important to relate this set-up to the function that it has for thought, because i1 has far too often been interpreted -taking what is simply a figuration too IiIcrally-as a sign that for Beckett humanity is a tragic devastation, an absurd abandonment. Allow me to say that this is the point of view ofan owner, for whom possessions are the only proofofbeing and sense! In fact, when Beckett presents us with a subject who is at the extreme point of destitution, we are dealing precisely with one who has succeeded -volens nolens -in losing, amidst the

vicissitudes of experience, all the disastrous ornamentations of We must repudiate those interpretations of Beckett that are filtered 3

Alain Badiou On through the 'nihilistic' worldliness ofthe metaphysical tramp. Beckett speaks to us of something far more thought out than this two-bit, dinner-party vision of despair. Beckett -who is very close to Pascal in this respect -aims at subtracting the figure of humanity from everything that distracts it, so as to examine the intimate articulation of its functions. The fictional device of destitution is, first of all, a progressively purified operator for the presentation of 'characters'. It is also, in the flesh of the prose, an altogether flagrant process that moves, from Beckett's first to his last writings, towards a kind of rupture that submits the prose to a hidden poem. Finally, it is a restricting of the metaphorical aspect of the prose to a finite stock of terms, whose combination and recurrence in the end organise , ' '" , the entirety of thought. Little by little, Beckett's text is oriented towards an economy that I would readily call ancient, or categorial. We have already seen that the , , , primitive functions are movement, rest, and logos. Ifwe note (and how can we not?) that, from 1960 onwards, the centre of gravity shifts to the question ofthe Same and the Other, and, in particular, to that of the existence -whether " " , , real or potential-of the Other, we will argue that behind the trajectory of this body of work are the five supreme genera (or kinds) of Plato 'sSophist. These ' I, ,' IllIi advient]. How is the event as a supplement to immobile being to be Ihollght? For Beckett, this problem is closely related to that ofthe capacities ," lallguage. Is it possible to name what happens or what takes place, inasmuch ,IS i I lakes place? 4) That of the existence of the Two, or of the virtuality of the Other. This is the question that ultimately ties together all of Beckett's work. Is an ,. l'ii:etive Two possible, a Two that would be in excess of solipsism? We might :ilso say that this is the question of love. 2. The Grey Black as the Place of Being h I, Since the originary axiomatic is that of wandering, immobility and the "

voice, can we, on the basis of this triplet, grasp any truth whatsoever [une ..i'1 'I I','Tite quelconque] regarding what is, inasmuch as it is? The operator of truth , however, is never indifferent [quelconque]. For Beckett, who is an artist, this (lpcrator is a set-up of fictions [un dispositij de fictions], so that the quest ion I" ' ,i ' hl..comes one of place. Is there a place of being, that can be presented in the , , " i'ietionalising set-up [le dispositij fictionnant] in such a way that the very ,, .. Alain Badiou On Beckett , " , ' " , ,,, " ' ,I ': . ,, " ' " " genera are the latent concepts that capture the generic existence of humanity, heing of this place of being becomes transmissible? " , ., ' '" ,

" , , ' ' and they underlie the prosodic destitution, understood as what makes it Ifwe consider the entirety of Beckett's work, we find that there exists " , , I , I " :: ," , ' . ' , , , possible to think our destiny. We will say that these supreme genera ill fact a kind of interweaving oftwo ontologicallocalisations, which indeed I I, , , (Movement, Rest, the Same, the Other, Logos) as displaced variants of the

seem to be opposed to one another. " , , . " ' ' , '"I .." ' , , ., " , : , Platonic proposal, constitute the points of reference, or primitive terms, for T he first localisation is a closure: arranging a closed space, so that the , -" , , ' I " an axiomatic of humanity as such. On the basis of these axiomatic terms we can grasp the questions proper to Beckett's work, those that organise the fiction of a humanity treated and exhibited by a functional reduction oriented towards the essence or the Idea. I will limit myselfto treating only four of these questions. The work of Beckett is a summa, simultaneously theological and a-theological, and it is not possible here to exhaust its set-up [disposition]. The four questions are the following: 1) That of the place of being, or, to be more precise, that of the fiction of its truth. How does a truth of being enter the fiction of its place? 2) That of the subject, which for Beckett is essentially a question of

identity. By means of which processes can a subject hope to identify itself? 3) That of 'what happens' [ce qui se passe] and of 'what takes place' 4 set of features of the place of being may be enumerated and named with precision. The aim is that 'what is seen' be coextensive with 'what is said', IInder the sign of the closed. This is obviously the case for the room in which the characters of Endgame are confined; it also holds for the bedroom where Malone dies (or does not die), or for Mr. Knott's house in Watt. It is also true ofthe cylindrical arena of The Lost Ones. These are some instances of closure, of which many other examples could be given. In the text entitled Fizzle 5 /Closed place}, Beckett writes the following:8 Closed place. All needed to be known for say is known (CSP, p. 199; GSP, p. 236).9 This is exactly the set-up of fiction with regard to the question of the 5

'I " ",I , , , I" " , I ' , , ' , , ' I ,'" II , ' " ':, , , ,, ' " " , ,"ii:I I ' ,I Alain Badiou On place of being, when this set-up is that of closure: a strict reversibility of vision and diction in the register of knowledge. This requires an especially ascetic type of localisation. But there is also a completely different set-up: an open, geographical space, a space oftransit which includes a variety of trajectories. We encounter it, for example, in the countryside -planes, hills and forests -where Molloy undertakes the search for his mother, and Moran his search for Molloy. Or in the city and the streets ofThe Expelled, and, even, though it tends towards a uniform abstraction, in the expanse of black mud on which the larvae of essential humanity crawl in How It Is. Or in the beautiful Scottish or Irish mounds, covered with flowers, where the old couple of Enough wander around in happiness. Both in the spaces of wandering and in the closed places, Beckett tends to suppress all descriptive ornamentation. This results in a filtered image of the earth and sky: a place of wandering, for sure, but a place that is itself ak in to a motionless simplicity. In the text called Lessness, we find the ultimate purification of the place of crossing, or ofthe possible space of all movement: Grey sky no cloud no sound no stir earth ash grey sand. Little body same grey as the earth sky ruins only upright. Ash grey all sides earth sky as one all sides endlessness (eSp, p. 153; GSP, pp. 197-1 98).10 At the end of its fictive purification, we could call the place of being (or the set-up that bears witness to the question of being in the form of the place) a 'grey black' [noir gris]. This might suffice. What is the grey black? It is a black such that no light can be inferred to contrast with it, an 'uncontrasted' black. This black is sufficiently grey for n o light to be opposed to it as its Other. In an abstract sense, the place of being is fictionalised as a black that is grey enough to be anti-dialectical, separated from all contradiction with light. The grey black is a black that must be graspe d in its own arrangement arid which does not form a pair with anything else. In this grey black that localises the thought of being, there operates a progressive fusion of closure and of open (or errant) space. Little by little, Beckett's poetics will fuse the closed and the open into the grey black, making it impossible to know whether this grey black is destined for movement or immobility. This is one of the conquests of his prose. The figure that goes and the one remaining at rest will become superimposed at the place ofbeing. 6 .. Alain Badiou On Beckett 1

111:; slIpl:rimposition is achieved in How It Is, where the journey and fixity oilly be named 'the nothing', or 'the void', and has no other name. This maxim, which from the localisation of being in the grey black . ' i ;11\' Iwo major figures of generip humanity. However, these two figures are in II,, "'"11/(' place, whereas earlier, wandering and closure remained disjoined IIIl'iaphors oflocalisation, split between Molloy, the novel ofthe journey, and A '"/0111' Dies, which is the place of saying fixed at its point of death. This final and unique place, the anti-dialectical grey black, cannot fall IIl1dn thc regime of clear and distinct ideas. The question of being, grasped III lis IOl:alisation, does not allow itselfto be distinguished or separated by an Itkal articulation. In Molloy, we find this peremptory anti-Cartesian utterance: I Ihink so, yes, I think that all that is false may more readily be reduced, to Ilotions clear and distinct, distinct from all other notions ('I', p. 82; TN, p. 82),u I[ere the Cartesian criterion of evidence is reversed, and we can see why: if the grey black localises being, reaching the truth of being requires Ihat onc think the in-separate, the in-distinct. By contrast, what separates and dlst inguishes -what separates dark from light, for example -constitutes the placc nf non-being and of falsehood. The localisation by the grey black ultimately entails that the iwing cannot be said as an isolatable singularity, but only as Ill'Iion that fuses the darkness of wandering and the darkness (Iperatcs, we notice that what this place presents as the form being of void. When the of immobility of being can

'IITivl:s at the void as the name ofwhat is located, is basically established as ('arty as Malone Dies. Malone's voice begins by warning us that weare dealing with a terrible phrase, one of those little phrases that 'pollute the whole of :;pcl:ch' . This phrase is: 'Nothing is more real than nothing' (T, p. 193; TN, p. I ()2),'1 This cardinal statement about being pollutes the entirety of language wit h its inconceivable truth. Many variants will follow, but the most accomplished is to be found in Worstward Ho. In this text, we find the li)II()wing: All save void. No. Void too. Unworsenable void. Never less. Never more. Never since first said never unsaid never worse said never not gnawing to 7

Alain Badiou On ," ", I ,I" , I I , " , . ,I : I I' I I : I I, " I II' , , '" , I . ' ,,' I ,,' ,I " ,II'" , "" ' " .. ," ,," ' , ::I : , ",' " , , , , , ,, ," , , , ' " " , :: ' , I. . , :1: ; ,. . ,I,I , ---be gone (WH, p. 42; NO, p. 113)Y This is the ultimate point that the fictionalisation of the place of being allows us to attest: being as void 'inexists' for language, subtracted as it is from every degree. But it is precisely being's subtraction from language that arranges it between its first two categories, movement and rest, and the third one, speech [la parole] or logos. That being qua being is subtracted from language is something that Beckett says in a great many ways, but perhaps, above all, by means of the always possible equivalence between dit and mal dit, said and missaid. This equivalence does not amount to an opposition between well saying and ill saying. Rather, it presents the missaid as the essence of language; it states that being inexists in language and that consequently, as Molloy says: 'all language was an excess of language' (T, p. 116; TN, p. 116).14 The main effect of this conviction is to split being and existence asunder. Existence is that of which it is possible to speak, whereas the being of existen ce remains subtracted from the network of meanings, and 'inexists' for language. Even though it is only in the later works that this split between being and existence with respect to language unfolds according to its true fictional operator (the grey black), it dates far back in Beckett's work. In First Love, from 1945, we already find the following: But I have always spoken, no doubt always shall, of things that never existed, or that existed if you insist, no doubt always will, but not with the existence I ascribe to them (eSp, p. 10; GSP, p. 35).15 This delicate separation between the thing that does not exist and the same thing which -inasmuch as it is seized by speech -always exists with an other kind of existence brings us back to the oscillation of the Heraclitean doggerel: the 'speak on' must operate at the place of being, the place of the grey black, which maintains an undecidable distinction between existence and the being of existence. The clearest statement about this question is perhaps to be found in Watt. Following an ontological tradition that Beckett takes up in his own way, we can call being 'Presence' inasmuch as it 'inexists' for language. More generally, we can call 'Presence' that aspect of being which remains unpresented in the existent. If being presents itself at the grey black place 8 Iit'il her t t '11 l I It is thus obvious why there cannot be any clear and distinct idea of presence. Such an idea could not exist because what remains of it for us is pllrcly a proper name: 'void' or 'nothing'. This name is the beam lfleau] in IlIe II eraclitean balance. Beneath its absence of sense, it effectively propose

s ;1 veritable being which is not an illusion, but it also proposes a non-being, ",ill. I I localisation and its impasse. Alain Badiou On ," ", I ,I" , I I , " , . ,I : I I' I I : I I, " I II' , , '" , I . ' ,,' I ,,' ,I " ,II'" , "" ' " .. ," ,," ' , ::I : , ",' " , , , , , ,, ," , , , ' " " , :: ' , I. . , :1: ; ,. . ,I,I , ---be gone (WH, p. 42; NO, p. 113)Y This is the ultimate point that the fictionalisation of the place of being allows us to attest: being as void 'inexists' for language, subtracted as it is from every degree. But it is precisely being's subtraction from language that arranges it between its first two categories, movement and rest, and the third one, speech [la parole] or logos. That being qua being is subtracted from language is something that Beckett says in a great many ways, but perhaps, above all, by means of the always possible equivalence between dit and mal dit, said and missaid. This equivalence does not amount to an opposition between well saying and ill saying. Rather, it presents the missaid as the essence of language; it states that being inexists in language and that consequently, as Molloy says: 'all language was an excess of language' (T, p. 116; TN, p. 116).14 The main effect of this conviction is to split being and existence asunder. Existence is that of which it is possible to speak, whereas the being of existen ce remains subtracted from the network of meanings, and 'inexists' for language. Even though it is only in the later works that this split between being and existence with respect to language unfolds according to its true fictional operator (the grey black), it dates far back in Beckett's work. In First Love, from 1945, we already find the following: But I have always spoken, no doubt always shall, of things that never existed, or that existed if you insist, no doubt always will, but not with the existence I ascribe to them (eSp, p. 10; GSP, p. 35).15 This delicate separation between the thing that does not exist and the same thing which -inasmuch as it is seized by speech -always exists with an other kind of existence brings us back to the oscillation of the Heraclitean doggerel: the 'speak on' must operate at the place of being, the place of the grey black, which maintains an undecidable distinction between existence and the being of existence. The clearest statement about this question is perhaps to be found in Watt. Following an ontological tradition that Beckett takes up in his own way, we can call being 'Presence' inasmuch as it 'inexists' for language. More generally, we can call 'Presence' that aspect of being which remains unpresented in the existent. If being presents itself at the grey black place 8 Iit'il her t t '11 l

I It is thus obvious why there cannot be any clear and distinct idea of presence. Such an idea could not exist because what remains of it for us is pllrcly a proper name: 'void' or 'nothing'. This name is the beam lfleau] in IlIe II eraclitean balance. Beneath its absence of sense, it effectively propose s ;1 veritable being which is not an illusion, but it also proposes a non-being, ",ill. I I localisation and its impasse. Alain Badiou On Beckett '. :.II. , ' " , , \\'Iwle existence 'indistinguishes' itself, we can stipulate that this Presence is an illusion (the sceptical thesis) nor a truthful and sayable Iprehension (the..dogmatic thesis), but rather a certainty without concept. ine is what Beckett has to say in this regard: So I shall merely state, without enquiring how it came, or how it went, that ill my opinion it was not an illusion, as long as it lasted, that presence of what did not exist, that presence without, that presence within, that presence between, though I'll be buggered if I can understand how it could have been anything else (W, p. 43;W US, p. 45).16 This text tells us three things. Firstly, that presence, which is a gift of Iwillg [donation d 'etre] from what is not in a position to exist, is itself not an I1IIIsion. Secondly, that it is distributed both within and without, but that it s prl'il:rred place is no doubt rather the 'between', the interval. And, thirdly, thai it is impossible to say more about it than that it is a subtraction from l'\islence, and, consequently, that presence entails no meaning whatsoever. ksides, this impossibility is also aprohibition, as the vocabulary of castration III Beckett's original French crudely suggestsP sillee it refers to the inexistence of being, which is precisely its unsayable

If there were only the fictional set-up of the grey black, whose virtues we have exhausted, we would be forced to agree that we are very close to the

vmious negative theologies, a point that is often made about Beckett. But Ilerc is something that comes before this localisation of being, something hat cannot be reduced to the being of the inexistent, and which is reflection as slIch, the cogito. Because the one for whom there is the grey black and the IIl1sayable presence does not stop reflecting and articulating both the In a certain sense, the movement that goes from the void to the cogito,

despite the anti-Cartesian statements that I quoted above (concerning the critcrion of evidence), is itself very Cartesian. Indeed, we know that Beckett was raised on Descartes. The reference to the cogito is explicit in many texts, 9

'I' , " : " I' I: , " , I: ,, I ," " , , ," ," " ," , , " , IIt I:II ' I , , " Alain Badiou On and it is set out in an entirely rational manner -albeit with an ironic grasp of this rationality -in the outline of Film. Film is indeed a film, a film whose only character is played by Buster Keaton. It concerns a man -an object 0, says Beckett -who flees because he is pursued by an eye, named E. The film is the story of the pursuit of 0 by E, and it is not until the end that one is meant to grasp the identity of the pursu er and the pursued, of the eye and the man. When Beckett published the script, he introduced it with a text called Esse est percipi, where we can read the following: All extraneous perception suppressed, animal, human, divine, selfperception maintains in being. Search of non-being in flight from extraneous perception breaking down in inescapability of self-perception (CDW, p. 323; SP, p. 163).18 This is the argument of the cogito, save for the ironic nuance which derives from the fact that the search for truth is replaced by the search for non-being, and, moreover, that by an inversion of values, 'the inescapability of self-perception' -which for Descartes is one of the first victories of certai nty -appears here as a failure. The failure of what, exactly? Of the extension to the All [Ie Tout] -subject included -of the general form of being, which is the void. The cogito undermines this extension. There is an existent whose being cannot inexist: the subject of the cogito. We are now appproaching our second question, after the one concerning the place of being: namely, the question of the subject as it is caught up in th e closure of the cogito, which is also the question of enunciation [I'enonciation] , tortured by the imperative of the enouncement [I 'enonce].19 3. On the Solipsistic Subject as Torture The fictional set-up that deals with the closure of the cogito is the one that structures the best-known part of Beckett's work. This is the set-up of the motionless voice -a voiceput under house arrest by a body [qu 'un corps assigne a residence]. This body is mutilated and held captive, reduced to being no more than the fixed localisation of the voice. It is in chains, tied to a hospital bed, or stuck in a jar that advertises a restaurant opposite the 10 <'l' ,I ,, , Alain Badiou On Beckett ,d'IIII',hkrhouse. This 'I' is doubly closed: in the fixity of the body and in t he

1,,'I:;lsll'llee of a voice with neither answer nor echo, it endlessly persists in II VillI', 10 find the path of its own identification. What does it mean for this repetitious voice of the cogito to identify

11.';ell? It means -with the help of a vast array of enouncements, fables, ficti onal 1IIII Iai ives and concepts -producing the pure and silent point of enunciation ,I:; :;l Ich. Of course, this pure point of enunciation, this 'I', is always ant ecedent III pres upposed since it is that which makes both the voice and the " lIlllllleements possible. It is the voice's place of being and as such is itse lf :llIhlractcd from all naming. The relentless aim of the solipsistic voice -or I he voice of the cogito -is to attain this originary silence, whose being is (l)lIsl ituted by its enunciation, and which is the SUbjective condition of all 11l0UIlCements. In order to identify oneself, it is necessary to enter this silen ce Ihal supports each and every word. This will be the hope of the 'hero' of The l il/I/amable: [.. . J there were moments I thought that would be my reward for having spoken so long and so valiantly, to enter living into silence [ ... J (T, p. 400; TN, p. 396).20 This entry into silence, holding death at a distance ('living'), has been described perfectly by Maurice Blanchot as an 'endless recapitulation' I ns.I'assement] of writing which simultaneously effectuates its point of l'llunciation and wants to capture or signify it. Beckett soon finds out, of course, that this point of identification -the si lent being of all speech -is inaccessible to any enouncement whatsoever. It would be too simple to believe that this inaccessibility is the result of a form al paradox: the necessity that the ontological condition of all naming be itself IIllnameable. The figure of the impossible, or the unnameable, is trickier than I hat, it fuses together two determinations that Beckett's prose consigns to an illsistence without hope. The first determination is that the conditions of this operation -the conditions of the cogito considered through the sole resort of its capture by a lixed voice -are, in a very precise sense, unbearable, charged as they are with anxiety and mortal exhaustion. Under the second determination it becomes evident, upon closer inspection, that the cogito is a situation far more complex than simple self 11

.. " " " \' , , , , Alain Badiou On Beckett I IIllIllllIatioll of the voice's obstinacy is also that of an unbearable tortur e. 1 11I1I11I,holil the Unnamable, tears stream down the face of the speaker. ..;lIch heroism on the part of the cogito designates an impasse. Following 1I11I11I.!I:lt Icy upon The Unnamable we have Texts for Nothing, which occupy 1111 1 t:;.-iy Ihe place of dying, where the temptation to abandon the imperativ e III IVtlllllg .. to rest from the torture of the cogito -imposes itself. This is the IIIIIIII!'III when the relation between the 'you must go on' and the '1 can't go "II' \": :>0 tense that the writer is no longer sure he can sustain it. 'I'he Texts for Nothing proceed in a more theoretical way, since they are . j... " lIgaged in the terrifying fictional set-ups of the solipsistic subject. T he . IlIillll discovery that these texts bear witness to is that the cogito, besides its 11I11IH'lIting and unbearable conditions, is ultimately without finality, becaus e , It kill I lieation is impossible. The injunction that the 'I' addresses to itself , , I , "lu'l"\'IIing the naming of its own founding silence is object-less: in effect , IIIl' ('ogito is not a reflection, a Two (the couple of enouncement and " lllIlIciation), rather, it sketches out a three-fold configuration. There are three

,I :I II , ' I " , , 11I::I:lllces ofthe 'I' that cannot be reduced to the One except under condition s , I, ", " " I III lolal exhaustion, of the dissipation of all subjectivity. " , i " The crucial text in this regard is the twelfth 'text for nothing', one of III\' densest and most purely theoretical texts written by Beckett. Here is a " '

, , " , . , , " , , p:l:,sagc that undertakes the analytical decomposition of the cogito: , , :,I , ' II, I . ..] one who speaks saying, without ceasing to speak, Who's speaking?, I , and one who hears, mute, uncomprehending, far from all [ ... ]. And this , " (T, p. 353; TN, p. 350).22 other now [ ... ] with his babble of homeless mes and untenanted hims [ ... ]. There's a pretty three in one, and what a one, what a no one (eSp, p. 112; GSP, p. 150).24 How is this infernal trio distributed? 1) First, there is the 'one who speaks' [Qui parle], the supposedly 1l"llexive subject of enunciation, or the one capable of also asking 'Who's . speaking?' [Qui parle], of enouncing the question concerning itself. It is thi s sl Ibject whom the hero of The Unnamable seeks to identify beneath the terror. 2) Then there is the subject of passivity, who hears without understanding, who is 'far away' in the sense of being the underside, the

obscure matter of the one who is speaking. This is the passive being of the subject of enunciation. 3) Finally, there is the subject who functions as the support of the 13

------------. ilIII11I'1I101'iai peace ofthe grey black; there never was a time or a place whe n , . Alain Badiou On question of identification, the one who, through enunciation and passivity, makes the question of what he is insist, and who, in order to do so, submits 111 1 himself to torture. The subject is thus tom between the subject of enunciation, the subject of passivity, and the questioning subject. The third of these subjects is ultimately the one for whom the relation between the other two is at issue , the relation, that is, between enunciation and passivity. Enunciation, passive reception, question: this is the 'pretty three' of Beckett's subject. And, if we wish to join them together, to count all three of them as One, we find only the void of being, a nothing that is worth nothing. Why is it worth nothing? Because the void of being does not itself claim to be the question of its own being. In the case of the subject, instead, we have ,,11" "11 this terrifying rambling of the question which, were it to issue into the void I " , I , I I' pure and simple, would turn the torture of identification into bitter buffoon ery. II" ' i II : ! Every question implies a scale of values (what is the answer wort h?), and if, II I , I 111'r in the end, we find only what was there before every question -that is, be ing " , .,

" I" I , " " ' " "' " as the grey black -then the value of the answer is zero. ,I II ' " , " I , " , II 1' ., ,I : : I Of course, one might think that the only solution is to abandon all " rr: : I: ,,, " , " ," , 'r" " , """ " , " I " II' " " '" I , , 'I II " ' " '

" I " ",::1 ,I' '" ,I' """ , " ',,' .. I questions. Would rest, serenity and the end of the tormenting question of identity not reside in a pure and simple coincidence with the place of being, ' , i 26 ' I I , " I with the unquestionable grey black? Why wish for the silence of the point of ", " , I"" ,,,, " ,

, ': I,:: ' ", ' , " , ,,' ,I , I ,.'" enunciation rather than for the silence as it is, as it has always been, in the , '" , anti-dialectical identity of being? Can the subject not rejoin the place from which all questions are absent, can it not desert and deconsecrate the dead end of its own identity? ' , , 4. The Transformation in Beckett's work after 1960 , " Well, the answer is no, it cannot do this. The question, because it is one ofthe instances ofthe subjective triplet, insists without appeal. Beckett, inIll Seen III Said, expressly says that it is impossible to reach a place, or a time, where the question has been abolished:

Was it ever over and done with questions? Dead the whole brood no sooner hatched. Long before. In the egg. Long before. Over and done with answering. With not being able. With not being able not to want to know. With not being able. No. Never. A dream. Question answered (ISIS, p. 37; NO, p. 70).25 The idea of disarticulating the subjective trio by suppressing the questioning instance cannot be put into practice. One cannot rejoin the 14 It is not true that Beckett's enterprise develops in a linear fashion on Ihe basis of its initial parameters. It is also utterly wrong to maintain, as much critical opinion would have it, that his work drove itself ever deeper into 'despair', 'nihilism', or the defeat of meaning. Beckett treats a set of problems in the medium of prose; his work is in no way the expression of a spontaneous metaphysics. When these problems tum out to be caught in a prosodic set-up that either does not or no longer allows them to be solved, Beckett displaces, transforms and even destroys ,this set-up and its corresponding fictions. This is, without a doubt, what happens at the end of the fifties, after the Texts for Nothing. We can take How It Is -ultimately a little known book -as the mark of a major transformation in the way that Beckett fictionalises his 15

Alain Badiou On thinking. This text breaks with the confrontation that opposed the suffering cogito to the grey black of being. It attempts to ground itself in completely different categories: the category of 'what-comes-to-pass' [ce-qui-se-passe] -present from the start but now recast -and, above all, the category ofalterity, of the encounter and the figure ofthe Other, which fissures and displaces the solipsistic internment of the cogito. In order to remain adequate to the categories ofthought, the construction of the texts also undergoes profound changes. The canonical form taken by the fictions of the 'early' Beckett alternates -as we have seen -between trajectories (or wanderings) and fixities (or constrained monologues). This form is progressively replaced by what I would like to call the figural poem o/the subject 's postures. Beckett's prose is no longer able to retain its usual , , 'novelistic' functions (description and narration) -not even when these are reduced to their bare bones (the grey black that describes only being, the pure wandering that narrates only itself). It is this abdication of the fictive ,, functions of prose that leads me to speak of the poem. With regard to the ," " subject, what is at stake in this poetics is no longer the question of its ident ity, " " " an effort which the monologue of The Unnamable had subjected to its own ,"," " brand oftorture. Rather, Beckett's concern will tum to the occurrences of the , , subject, to its possible positions, or to the enumeration of its figures. Instea d , I , of the useless and unending fictive reflection of the self, the subject will be ,", , , pinpointed according to the variety of its dispositions vis-a-vis its encounters

-in the face of 'what-comes-to-pass', in the face of everything that supplements being with the instantaneous surprise of an Other. " In order to track the discontinuity ofthe subject's figures -as opposed to the obstinate repetition of the Same as it falls prey to its own speech Becke tt's prose becomes segmented, adopting the paragraph as its musical unit. The subject's capture within thought will take place in a thematic network : repetitions ofthe same statements in slowly shifting contexts, reprises, circles , recurrences, etc. This evolution is typical, I think, of what I am trying to present here under the name of 'the writing of the generic'. Since what is at stake is a generic truth of Humanity, the narrative model -even when reduced to the pure feature of its trajectory -is not enough, and neither is the solipsistic 'internal' monologue, not even when it produces fictions and fables. Neither the technique of Molloy nor that of Malone Dies -both of which remain very close to Kafka's textual procedures -suffice to submit the prose to what is indiscernible in a generic truth?? 16 Alain Badiou On Beckett In order to grasp the discontinuous interweavings [intrications 1./. 'III/aires ] of the subject (or of what is dispersed within the subject) th e IIlollologue/dialogue/story triad must be deposed. At the same time, we cannot :qwak of a poem in the strict sense, since the operations of a poem, which are always affirmative, do not involve fictionalisation. Instead, I would say that Ihe prose -segmented into paragraphs -will come to be governed by alatent II(ll'fI1. This poem holds together what is given in the texts, but it is not it self I',ivcn. The thematic recurrences appear on the surface of the text, characteris ed by their slow motion. Beneath the surface, however, this movement is Iq..lIlated or unified by an inapparent poetic matrix. The distance between the latent poem and the surface ofthe text varies. "or example, the poem is almost entirely exposed inLessness, whereas it is (kcply buried in Imagination Dead Imagine. Yet in all these texts there is a k i!ld ofsubversion of prose and ofits fictional destiny by the poem, without IIIC text itself actually entering the realm ofpoetry. It is this subversion wit hout lransgression that Beckett was to refine after 1960 with a great many hcsitations, of course -as the only regime of prose adequate to the generic intention. ,, From a more abstract point of view, Beckett's evolution goes from a , progrannne of the One -obstinate trajectory or interminable soliloquy -to ,

I he pregnant theme of the Two, which opens out onto infinity. This opening orthe multiple will give rise to combinations and hypotheses reminiscent of cosmology. These combinations and hypotheses are captured in their literal objectivity; they are given, not as suppositions, but as situations. Finally, we have the passage from a set-up offictions, whose stories are perhaps intended 10 be allegorical, to a semi-poetic set-up that puts situations into place. Thes e situations will allow us to enumerate the possible fortunes or misfortunes of Ihe subject. As far as the question of the Other is concerned, this new project oscillates between realisations offailure and flashes of victory. We could say Ihat in Happy Days, Enough or III Seen III Said, it is the positive inflection Ihat predominates, under the signifier of a 'happiness' that cannot be abolished by the writing's ironic tone. In Company, by contrast, which ends with the word 'alone', there is a final deconstruction of that which -in the sublimity ofthe night -will have been but the fiction of a Two. However, this oscillation itself constitutes a principle ofopenness. The second half of Beckett's work in effect marks an opening onto chance, indifferently sustaining both success and failure, the encounter and the non-encounter, alterity and solitude. Chance 17

Alain Badiou On " , contributes in part to curing Beckett of the secret schema of predestination, evident in the work between Watt and How It Is. Ofcourse, in the earliest ofBeckett's works we can already find traces of this break with the schema of predestination, of this opening up to the chance possibility that what exists is not all there is [qu 'il n yait pas seule ment ce qu 'il y a]. These traces are linked to the muffled exposition ofthe schema itself. I am thinking, for instance, of the moment when Molloy declares: 'one is what one is, partly at least' (T, p. 54; TN, p. 54).18 This 'partly' concedes a point to the non-identity of the self, which is where the risk of a possible freedom lies. This concession prepares the judgment of Enough: 'Stony ground but not entirely' (CSP, p. 140; GSP, p. 187).29 There is here a breach of being, a subtraction from the indifferent ingratitude of the grey black. Or, to borrow a concept from Lacan, there is the not-all, both in that coincidence of self III Watt, on the other hand, we encounter the crucial problem of what 1111 lino calls 'incidents', which are themselves quite real. /Vlltt provides the allegorical arrangement of a structural place: the h"I I:;I' of Mr. Knott.31 This place is both immemorial and invariable, it is \"'111,), as All and as Law: I ... J nothing could be added to Mr. Knott's establishment, and from it 1I(llhing taken away, but that as it was now, so it had been in the beginning, alld so it would remain to the end, in all essential respects, any significant presence, at any time, and here all presence was significant, even though it was impossible to say of what, proving that presence at all times [ ... ] (W, p. 129; W US, p. 131).32 II: I' " II " " " I with self that speech exhausts itself in situating, and in the earth's stony Mr. Knott's house binds presence and meaning so closely that no breach ' ingratitude.29

III its being is thinkable, whether by supplement or by subtraction. All that What is this breach in the totality of being and self? What is to be (Ille can do is to reflect the Law of invariance that governs the place of being . . ' ., " " " " " found in this breach that is simultaneously the not-all of the subject and the I low does the house function over time? Where is Mr. Knott, at any given ,.; " ' "II , " I ' grace of a supplement to the monotony of being? This is the question of the IIIOlllent? In the garden, or on the first floor? These are questions that relat e , , , , , " event, of 'what-comes-to-pass'. It is no longer a matter of asking the question to pure knowledge, to the science of place; they are the rationalisations of ,,' ,

,1"', , t 'What of being such as it is?', or 'Can a subject who is prey to language :;( li llcthing like a 'waiting for Mr. Knott'. rejoin its silent identity?' Instead, one asks: 'Does something happen?' And, Bu t besides the law of place and its uncertain science there is the

" ' " , , , more precisely: 'Is there a name for the surging up, for an incalculable advent problem of incidents. This is what will arouse Watt's passion as a thinker. , " , , , that de-totalises being and tears the subject away from the predestination of its own identity?' ," 5. Event, Meaning, Naming The interrogation concerning both what comes to pass and the possibility of a thinking of the event as it arises motivates some of Beckett's earliest texts. It is central to Watt, which dates from the forties. But, to a considerab le extent, it was obliterated by the works that brought Beckett fame. In addition to Waiting for Godot, this means essentially the trilogy ofMolloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable. What common opinion retained from these works was precisely that in the end nothing happened, nothing but the wait for an event. Godot will not come; Godot is nothing but the promise of his coming. In this sense, the role of the event is akin to that of woman in Claudel: a promise that cannot be kept. 18 Speaking of these incidents, Beckett will say -in a formula of major lillportance -that they are 'of great formal brilliance and indeterminable purport' (W, p. 71; W US, p. 74).33 What are these incidents? Among the 1I10st remarkable ones, let us cite the visit of a piano tuner and his son, or t he pulting out of Mr. Knott's dish for the dog in front of the door, a dog whose origin is itself an 'impenetrable' question. What provokes thought is the contradiction between, on the one hand, Ihe formal brilliance of the incident (its isolation, its status as exception), and, on the other, the opaqueness of its content. Watt takes great pains in 'formulating hypotheses about this content. It is here that his thought is reall y awakened. What is at issue is not a cogito under the torturing compulsion of Ihe voice, but rather calculations and suppositions designed to raise the conten t ofthe incidents up to the level of their formal brilliance. In Watt, however, there is a limit to this investigation, a limit that Beckett will not cross until much later: the hypotheses about the incidents remain 19

,, . " "'

captive to a problematic of meaning. We are still within the confines of an attempt of the hermeneutic type, in which one is supposed to bring the incident, by means of a well-conducted interpretation, into agreement with the established universe of meanings. Here is the passage that lays out the hierarchy of possibilities that are open to Watt as the interpreter, or hermeneu t, of the incidents: [ ... ] the meaning attributed to this particular type ofincident, by Watt, in his relations, was now the initial meaning that had been lost and then recovered, and now a meaning quite distinct from the initial meaning, and now a meaning evolved, after a delay of varying length, and with greater or less pains, from the initial absence of meaning (W p. 76; W US, p. 79).34 The hermeneut has three possibilities: if he supposes that there is a meaning to the incident he can retrieve it, or else propose an entirely differen t one. If instead he supposes that there is no meaning, he can generate one. Of course, only this third hypothesis, which posits that the incident is entirely devoid of meaning and that it is therefore really separate from the closed universe of sense (Mr. Knott's house), awakens thought in a lasting manner (,after a delay of varying length'), and demands its labour ('with greater or less pains') . However, if this is all there is, if the interpreter is the giver of sense, then we remain prisoners of meaning as law and imperative. The interpreter creates nothing but an agreement between the incident and that from which he separated himself at the beginning -the established universe of meanings, Mr. Knott's house. In Watt there certainly is a chance that something may happen, but what-comes-to-pass -once it is captured and reduced by the hermeneut -does not preserve its character as a supplement ( '1 'oV: [Impatiently.] What is it? I IAMM: We're not beginning to ... to ... mean something? ( 'I ,OV: Mean something! You and I, mean something! [Brie/laugh.] Ah Illat's a good one! ( '[)W, pp. 107-108; E, pp. 32-33)35 Ultimately, Beckett replaces his initial hermeneutics -which attempts It! pin the event to the network of meanings -with an entirely different t '11\ Tat ion, that ofnaming. Confronted with a chance supplementation of being , lIaliling does not seek any meaning at all, but instead proposes to draw an Ili vented name out of the very void of what takes place. Interpretation is I hncby supplanted by a poetics of naming that has no other purpose than to

I /1 \ Ihc incident, to preserve within language a trace ofthe incident's separati on. "', , The poetics of naming is central to III Seen III Said, starting with the \,\,1 y title ofthe text. Indeed, what does 'ill seen' mean? 'Ill seen' means th at what happens is necessarily outside the laws ofvisibility ofthe place ofbeing. Wllat trulyhappens cannot be properly seen [bien vu] (including in the moral ::,'nsc of the term), because the well-seen [bien-vu] is always framed by the , ".Icy black of being, and thus cannot possess the capacity for isolation and ., ' ::urprise that belongs to the event-incident. And what does 'ill said' mean? I IIC well-said is precisely the order of established meanings. But if we do Ilianage to produce the name of what happens inasmuch as it happens -the lIamc ofthe ill seen -then this name cannot remain prisoner of the meanings that are attached to the monotony of the place. It thus belongs to the register 'I" "I' the ill said. 'Ill seen ill said' designates the possible agreement between thai which is subtracted from the visible (the 'ill seen'), and that which is ';lIhlracted from meaning (the 'ill said'). We are therefore dealing with the agrcement between an event, on the one hand, and the poetics ofits name, on or a breach. t hI; other, Here is a decisive passage concerning this point: During the inspection a sudden sound. Startling without consequence for the gaze the mind awake. How explain it? And without going so far how say it? Far behind the eye the quest begins. What time the event recedes. HAMM: What's happening? When suddenly to the rescue it comes again. Forthwith th e uncommon CLOY: Something is taking its course. common noun collapsion. Reinforced a littl e later if not enfeebled by the [Pause.] infrequent slumberous. A slumberous collapsion. Two. Then far from the IIAMM: Clov! still agonizing eye a gleam of hope. By the grace of these modest b eginnings 20 21

Alain Badiou On (ISIS, p. 55; NO, p. 83).36 The text, in the end, speaks about itself. 'The inspection' accords with visibility; it is the well-seen, which is moreover presented here as a torture. I" During the torment of the submission to the law of place, in the classical abruptness of the supplementation by an event, there is a noise. This noise is out-of-place [hors-lieu], isolated in its formal clarity, in-visible, ill seen?7 The entire problem is to invent a name for it. In passing, Beckett rejects the hypothesis -which might appear as more ambitious but actually exhibits a lesser freedom -of an explanation that would 'well say' about the ill seen. The name ofthe noise-event is a poetic invention. This is what Beckett signals by the paradoxical alliance of 'collapsion' and 'slumberous', one 'uncommon' and the other 'infrequent'. This naming emerges from the void >;)1 , ! , ' T of language, like an ill saying adequate to the ill seen of the noise. Even more important is the fact that once 'slumberous collapsion' is

j1Ij uttered -as what names the suddenness of the noise as a poetic wager on the ill seen -then and only then is there 'a gleam of hope' . What kind of hope are we dealing with here? The hope of a truth. A truth that will be interpolated into the grey black, a truth dependent on the naming of an event which will itself be eclipsed. The moment of grace, the 'grace of these modest beginnings'. There exists no other beginning for a truth than the one that accords a poetic name -a name without meaning -to a separable supplement which, however obscure, however ill seen it is said to be, is nevertheless, once subtracted from the grey black of being, 'of great formal brilliance'.

What is thus opened up is the domain of truth. In its separable origin, this is the domain of alterity. The naming guards a trace of an Other-thanbeing, which is also an Other-than-self. This is the source of the subject's dis-closure, whereby it incurs the risk of the Other, of its figures and occurrences. It does so under the sign of the hope opened up by ontological alterity -the breach in being which is crystallised both by the suddenness of the event and by the brilliance of the ill seen. 6. Figures of the Subject and Formulas of Sexuation The fabulation of the figures of the subject will persistently occupy ligures. 23 22

Alain Badiou On Beckett and those who have given up on this imperative -which is the same as giving 10.1 1 hOllrs all of Beckett's paradoxical optimism: the return (which is rare, up on one's desire, since there exists no other desire than that offinding one's ,1 111 It ,sl never takes place, but there are cases...) of a vanquished one to the lost one. Beckett calls these defeated searchers the vanquished. To be ,II " 11: 1 or the search. Here the set-up involves a certain torsion: giving up on vanquished, let us note, is never to be vanquished by the other, but rather Iii, ' lillperative is irreversible, but the result of (or the punishment for) this entails that one has renounced the other. .I, k:ll, which is apathetic immobility, is not irreversible. Or again: " Illl'vlTsibility is a law of choice, a law of the moment; it does not govern a ':I:iI(' of affairs. Grasped in all its consequences and figures, and not in its I'll n' moment, irreversibility is not irreversible. The subject's maxims are therefore as follows: to give up is irreversible, who no longer move at all. 1,"1 1111 possibilities exist even where nothing attests to them, in the midst o f We thus end up with four types of subject: I Ill' ligures ofsedentarity. Beckett says as much in an extraordinarily succinc t "I ' , , 1) The searchers who circulate nonstop, whom we might call the 1':lssage, which presents a very abstract and profound insight into the link " 'I,,: : II' " 'nomads', and who are the 'initial' living beings -the infants, for exampl e. I H'lween an imperative and the domain ofpossibilities in which it is exercis ed: , " " 1"I::,'I ,, II, I I r" , " , ", I ,

I " " ' " , , .1, .,, , I ' "I" ,'" , " ,"" II'"' ' ' ":: : , , ,,:,iI " " ,,, ' , , ,,,. , "'" I ,,,, , , :::11 ' ",I I , I :: 1, ' , I " I , i'" Ii"i The infants never stop circulating, on their mothers' backs to be sure, but

j I without ever coming to a halt. The mothers also belong to this category; they [. .. J in the cylinder what little is possible is not so it is merely no longer s o cannot be immobile, not even for an instant. and in the least less the all of nothing if this notion is maintained I , I I , (eSp, p. 167; GSP, pp. 211-212).40 , .'; " , The slightest failure is total (because less = nothing) but no possibility /. , I..; annihilated (because not-possible = provisionally no longer possible). ceaselessly turning in all directions. The ethics of the cylinder knows no eternal damnation, but neither 4) The non-searchers, the vanquished. docs it know any compromise regarding the imperative of the Other. What distributes this ethics into its two sides is a figure of the subject. InHow ItIs, the description ofthe subject's figures takes place in another

"', rictional montage, bringing us closer to the crucial problem of the Two. ' Of course, Beckett maintains that there are four main figures. There arc always four figures, we cannot escape this number, the problem is knowing which of them are nameable. A passing remark: you are probably acquainted with Lacan's thesis about what can be said oftruth. For Lacan, a truth can never be entirely said, it can only be half-said.40 When it comes to the truth of subjective figures, Ihe proportion that Beckett proposes is somewhat different. Ofthe four figures, only three can be named, so that in this case speech can reach three quarters ofthe truth: [. .. J the voice being so ordered I quote that of our total life it states only

three quarters (HI!, p. 142; HI! US, p. 130)42 24 25

Alain Badiou On , "" 'plicated. These are the four figural postures of the subject in How It Is: 1) To wander in the dark with a sack. 2) To encounter someone in the active position, pouncing on them in ' the dark. This is the so-called 'tormentor's' position. 3) To be abandoned, immobile in the dark, by the one encountered. 4) To be encountered by someone in a passive position (someone pounces on you while you are immobile in the dark). This is the position of the so-called 'victim'. It is this fourth position that the voice is not able to say, thus leading to the axiom of the three quarters concerning the relationship between truth and speech. These are the generic figures which cover everything that can happen to a member of humanity. It is very important to note that these figures are >:1 , ,,, " ,, , I ", , I ' " egalitarian ones. In this set-up there is no particular hierarchy, nothing t o I :: i , i " " , r '

, , " indicate that this or that one among the four figures is to be desired, preferre d, :;III ! " " ,, , I ", " " , I , " " or distributed differently than the others. The words 'tormentor' and 'victim' " , , " " ' , , should not mislead us in this regard. Besides, Beckett is careful to warn us , , , , 1 '" , '"

" " II " " ," " , , " , , . that there is something exaggerated, something falsely pathetic in these , ' " "'"I,, , ll I I , I' conventional denominations. Moreover, we will see that the positions of the I , , , " I victim and the tormentor designate everything that can exist by way of , , " ' I,, happiness in life. In sum, these figures are only the generic avatars of existen ce; they are equivalent to one another, and this profound equality offate authorises

the following remarkable statement: 'in any case we have our being injustice I have never heard anything to the contrary' (HII, p. 135; HII US, p. 124).43 Of course, the justice evoked here, as a judgment about collective being, does not refer to any kind of finality. It concerns only the intrinsic ontologic al , ii , " " equality of the figures of the subject. Within this typology, we can nevertheless group the figures of solitude, on the one hand, and the figures of the Two, on the other. The figures ofthe Two are the tormentor and the victim. These postures are the consequence of a chance encounter in the dark, and are tied to one another by the extorsion of speech, by the violent demand of a story. This is 'life in stoic love' (HII, p. 69; HII US, p. 62).45 7. Love and its Numericality: One, Two, Infinity The two figures of solitude are: to wander in the dark with one's sack and to be immobile because one has been abandoned. The sack is very important. Indeed, it provides the best proof that I am aware of for the existence of God: every traveller finds his or her sack more or less filled with tins of food, and to explain this fact God is the simplest hypothesis; all the other hypotheses, which Beckett tries to list, are extremely 26 Whilst Beckett's fables are subject to a number of variations, one feature remains unchanged: love begins in a pure encounter, which is neither destined nor predestined, except by the chance crossing of two trajectories. Prior to I his meeting, only solitude obtains. No Two, and in particular no sexual dualit y, exists before the encounter. Sexual difference is unthinkable except from the point ofview ofthe encounter, as it unfolds within the process oflove. There 27

Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Beckett .d " .-:;IY Ihat the Two of love elicits the advent of the sensible. The truth o f II,, 'I WI) gives rise to a sensible inflection ofthe world, where before only th e i ,'I. V hlack of being had taken place. Now, the sensible and the infinite are IIhlllical, because the infinity of the world is, together with the One of the , .,,:II," Ihe other coherent thesis. Between these two presentational positions , 1111 Two of love functions both as break and as a constitution. ()ne ofthe axioms ofHow It Is is that the One and the Infinite are the 1\\1' coherent ontological theses. The hero, crawling in the dark, asserts the the encounter: And to meet [...] in my sense exceeds the power offeeling, howevertender, 1"llow ing: and ofbodily motions, however expert (M, p. 124; M US, p. 222).44 in other words in simple words I quote on either I am alone and no further problem or else we are innumerable and no further problem either II" ,,I'11 >;! , , r ,I""" , " "II (l1lI, p. 135; HII US, p. 124f7 II'" " , I.I I ,

I I"'I II::' ' " I 11:::i" ,','" , 'I" ' ,,' :i ' I , , " " " " , , ; The Two of love deploys the sensible version of this abstract axiom, , exceeds both sentimentality and sexuality. '",, ' ,I" " II ,," " I '' ,1"

' II,"" ' ' 1 ,. , 'I II I I I' , " ' ' The encounter is the founding instance ofthe Two as such. In the figure which jo intly validates the thesis of the One and the thesis of the Infinite. I " , , " ' .. , . , I,,,, , 'I "I'' " ""'''' "

" " " 11 " ,, " " .. I :I' ,I"", II'".. -" ." "" " "" ".,", ,"" ,"" " ''II, "'ii' :::' 'Ii'" , , ,:'1" ' .

," I" oflove -such as it originates in the encounter -the Two arises. This includes I lIve offers beauty, nuance, colour. It presents what one might call the other ' " ," ,,' the Two ofthe sexes or of the sexualized figures. In no way does love tum a

pre-existing Two into a One; this is the romantic version oflove that Beckett III .-;econd nocturne -not the grey black ofbeing, but the rustling night, the ,: I 1111',111 ofleaves and plants, ofstars and water. Under the very strict conditio ns " .. ' ,,' ,I ,""I never ceases to deride. Love is never either fusion or effusion. Rather, it is t he often painstaking condition required for the Two to exist as Two. An example ' I")..;ed by the encounter and the ensuing toil, the Two of love operates the :.I ission of the dark into the grey black of being, on the one hand, and the , ' ' is provided inMaloneDies by the fictitious encounter that Malone engineers IIIIi 11itely varied darkness of the sensible world, on the other. between Macmann and his guardian, Moll. The love that is admirably This explains why in Beckett's prose one often chances upon these recounted here, like the love ofthe aging orthe dying, takes on an extraordinary

:;wlden poems where, under the sign of the inaugural figure of the Two, , ,,,' lyrical intensity. Malone comments on the truth-effects ofthis love as follows: ';Ililicthing unfolds within the night of presentation. This something is the But on the long road to this what flutterings, alarms and bashful fumblings, ofwhich only this, that they gave Macmann some insight into the meaning ofthe expression, Two is company (T, p. 261; TN, p. 260).46 The Two, which is inaugurated by the encounter and whose truth results from love, does not remain closed in upon itself. Rather, it is a passage, a pivotal point, the first numericality. This Two constitutes a passage, or authorises the pass, from the One of solipsism (which is the first datum) to the infinity ofbeings and of experience. The Two oflove is a hazardous and chance-laden mediation for alterity in general. It elicits a rupture or a severa nce of the cogito's One; by virtue of this very fact, however, it can hardly stand on its own, opening instead onto the limitless multiple of Being. We might 28 IllIdtiple as such. Love is, above all, an authorisation granted to the multiple , IIlade under the ever-present threat of the grey black in which the original ( )lIe undergoes the torture of its own identification. I would now like to quote three such poems that are latent within the plOse, so that another Beckett may be heard -a Beckett who gives voice to IIIe gift and the happiness ofbeing. The first poem is taken fromKrapp sLast Tape, at the moment in which Ihe hero of the play, a man nearing his end and launched into interminable allempts at anamnesis (he listens to recordings ofhis own voice at different .';(agcs ofhis life), retrieves the crucial moment when the Two oflove had reI )pcned the multiple: -upper lake, with the punt, bathed offthe bank, then pushed out into the 29 ' I' ,, , ",,f I

, I I

" , " " ," " " " , " , " " ," " " " , stream and drifted. She lay stretched out on the floorboards with her hands under her head and her eyes closed. Sun blazing down, bit of a breeze, water nice and lively. I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked how she came by it. Picking gooseberries, she said. I said again I thought it was hopeless and no good going on and she agreed, without opening her eyes. [Pause.] I asked her to look at me and after a few moments -[Pause.] -after a fe w moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. [Pause. Low.] Let me in. [Pause.] We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! [Pause.] I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side Past midnight. Never knew ( CDW, p. 221; SP, p. 61)48 As you can see, this is the poem ofthe opening of the waters, the multiple of the absolute moment, when love, even if it is in the statement of its own end, brings forth the infinity of the sensible world. The second quote comes fromEnough, a short text entirely devoted to love. This text establishes precise connections between love and infinite lmowledge. The two walking lovers, broken in two, in a world of hills in bloom, are never closer to one another than when they discuss mathematics His talk was seldom of geodesy. But we must have covered several times the equivalent of the terrestrial equator. At an average speed of roughly three miles per day and night. We took flight in arithmetic. What mental calculations bent double hand in hand! Whole ternary numbers we raised in this way to the third power sometimes in downpours of rain. Graving themselves in his memory as best they could the ensuing cubes accumulated. In view ofthe converse operation at a later stage. When time would have done its work (CSP, p. 141; GSP, p. 188).49 Here is another very beautiful passage, once again fromEnough, when the figure of the beloved man becomes this instance of lmowledge through which the sky is presented in its proper order: 30 Alain Badiou On Beckett ( )n a gradient Of one in one his head swept the ground. To what this taste was due I cannot say. To love of the earth and the flowers' thousand scents :lI1d hues. Or to cruder imperatives of an anatomical order. He never raised Ihe question. The crest once reached alas the going down again. In order from time to time to enjoy the sky he resorted to a little round Illirror. Having misted it with his breath and polished it on his calf he looked in it for the constellations. I have it! he exclaimed referring to the Lyre or the Swan. And often he added that the sky seemed much the same (CSP, p. 142; GSP, p. 190).50 I,IVC is when we can say that we have the sky, and that the sky has nothing.51 II is then that the multiple of Constellations is held in the opening of the Two.52 The last poem is taken from Company, and it is doubtless the one most "It IScly bound to the metaphor of a division of the dark and of the advent of llil.. second nocturne: You are on your back at the foot of an aspen. In its trembling shade. She at right angles propped on her elbows head between her hands. Your eyes opened and closed have looked in hers looking in yours. In your dark you look in them again. Still. You feel on your face the fringe of her long black hair stirring in the still air. Within the tent of hair your faces are hidden from view. She murmurs, Listen to the leaves. Eyes in each other's eyes

you listen to the leaves. In their trembling shade (C, pp. 66-67; NO, p. 35).53 All of these quotes show the Two of love as the passage lPasse] from I he One of solipsism to the infinite multiplicity of the world, and as the nocturnal fissure of the grey black of being. But there is also a conspiring of the Two -an insistence that takes the ligure of fidelity. This fidelity organises four functions in Beckett, which are also four figures of the subject within love. It is my conviction (for which I am unable here to adduce proof) that these functions have a general value, in I he sense that they are the organising functions of any generic process. They relate to the duration of love, of course, but also to scientific accumulation, artistic innovation, and political tenacity. The first of these functions is wandering [l 'errance] or the journey, with or without the benefit of a sack: a journey in the dark, which presents 31 .' , ," , Alain Badiou On to side. [Pause.] or astronomy:

Alain Badiou On the infinite chance of the faithful journey of love; the endless crossing of a world henceforth exposed to the effects of the encounter. This function of wandering, whose abstract variant we encountered in How It Is, is also exhibited in the incessant walking of the lovers ofEnough among the hills and flowers. It establishes the duration of the Two and grounds time under the injunction of chance. The second function is exactly the opposite, that is, immobility, which watches over, guards or maintains the fixed point of the first naming, the naming of the event-encounter. We saw that this naming pins the 'incident' to its lack of meaning, and permanently fixes that which is supernumerary into a name. This is the senseless 'I love you', 'We're in love', or whatever might come in its stead, and which in each of its occurrences is always , , , " I I pronounced for the first time. This immobility is that ofthe second nocturne , " :I " of the small craft caught in the flags, of gazes absorbed by the eyes of the 'I other. " I' The third function is that of the imperative: always to go on, even in separation; to decree that separation itself is a mode of continuity. The imperative of the Two relays that of the soliloquy (You must go on ... I'll go on), but it subtracts the element ofpointless torture from it, thereby imposing the strict law of happiness, whether one is a victim or a tormentor. The fourth function is that of the story, which, from the standpoint of the Two, offers up the latent infinity of the world and recounts its unlikely unfolding, inscribing, step by step -like an archive that accompanies wandering -everything that one may discover in what Beckett calls 'the blessed days of blue' (eSp, p. 153; GSP, p. 197).54 Love (but also any other generic procedure, albeit in the regime that is its own) weaves within its singular duration these four functions: wandering, immobility, the imperative, and the story.

Beckett constructs the Idea ofthe sexes, of the two sexes, by combining these four functions, under the assumption that the event of love has taken place. He thus establishes the masculine and feminine polarities of the Two independently of any empirical or biological determination ofthe sexes. The functions combined within the masculine polarity are those of immobility and the imperative. To be a 'man' is to remain motionless in love by retaining the founding name and by prescribing the law of continuation. Yet, because the narrative function is missing, this prescriptive immobility remains mute. In the case oflove, a 'man' is the name's silent custodian. And because the function of wandering is missing, to be a man within love is also 32 Alain Badiou On Beckett 1" ,I,. IHlthing that bears witness to this love, but only to retain, motionless in II" d:1I1, love's powerful abstract conviction. Thc feminine polarity combines wandering and narrative. It does not ill , t.rd with the fixity of the name, but with the infinity of its unfolding i n the \\lIlld, the narrative of its unending glory. It does not stick to the sole 1 '1 t ',<;niption without proof, but organises the constant inquiry, the verifi cation III :1 capacity. To be a 'woman', in the context of love, is to move about in ill t 'ordance with a custody of meaning, rather than of names. This custody IIl1plies the errant chance of inquiries, as well as the perpetual depositing of 1111,'; chance into a story. Love exists as the determination of this polarity, supporting the four IlIlIctions and providing them with a singular distribution. This is why love illolle calls for the observation that there is indeed 'man' (immobility of the IIl1perative, the custody of the name) and 'woman' (wandering of a truth, t ()lIsequences of the name within speech). Without love, nothing would bear wililess to the Two of the sexes. Instead there would be One, and One again, hili not Two. There would not be man and woman. These reflections open onto an important doctrine that concerns all 1',l'lleric procedures, which is that oftheir numericality. In love, there is first the One of solipsism, which is the confrontation or duel between the cogito and the grey black of being in the infinite Il'capitulation of speech. Next comes the Two, which arises in the event of an " IICllUnter and in the incalculable poem of its designation by a name. Lastly, Ihere is the Infinity of the sensible world that the Two traverses and unfolds, where, little by little, it deciphers a truth about the Two itself. This numeric ality (one, two, infinity) is specific to the procedure oflove. We could demonstrate I hat the other truth procedures -science, art, and politics -have different Illimericalities, and that each numericality singularises the type of procedure i II question, all the while illuminating how truths belong to totally Ilderogeneous registers. The numericality of love -one, two, infinity -is the setting for what I kckett quite rightly calls happiness. Happiness also singularises love as a lruth procedure, for happiness can only exist in love. Such is the reward

proper to this type oftruth. In art there is pleasure, in science joy, in politi cs enthusiasm, but in love there is happiness. Joy, pleasure, enthusiasm, and happiness all concern the advent, within Ihe world, of the void of being, as it is gathered within a subject. In the case of happiness this void is an interval; it is captured in the between [l 'entre 1

, " ..Alain Badiou On Beckett Deux], in that which constitutes the effective character of the Two. This is its separation, that is, the difference of the sexes as such. Happiness is not in th e least associated with the One, with the myth of fusion. Rather, it is the subjective indicator of a truth of difference, of sexual difference, a truth tha t love alone makes effective. At this point, at the very heart of happiness, once more we come up against sexuation, which is both the site and the stakes of happiness. In happiness, 'man' is the blind custodian of separation, of the between. The heroine of Enough will say: 'We were severed if that is what he desired' (eSp, p. 141; GSP, p. 188).55 In fact, the masculine polarity supports a desire for scission. This is not at all a longing to return to solipsism, but rather th e ''',, ', , desire for the manifestation of the Two in the divided between. There is a '"'' II ',,'" I Two only ifthere is this between where the void is located as th e ontological "",,'illil:i ,I " " ",,", , ,11,1:1 1 " ' , principle [principe d'etre] of the Two. The desire of 'man' is assigned to or ," ' ::::, I I ' :: :: ..II I "",'' 1 by this void. We might say that man desires the nothing of the Two, whereas '''''II " " '

, " ' ''''' ' , , ' "" . the feminine polarity desires nothing but the Two, that is, the infinite tenacit y ,.." ,.. ' .., ' ,' ' ,. ", " If whereby the Two endures as such. This instance of the 'woman' is "" !;.I, ' 'III" ! magnificently proclaimed at the very end of Enough. It is there that a woman ," " " argues for persistence, against the nothing of the Two, against the void that !I' IP'" ' " I I affects the Two from within and which is symbolised by the man's leaving in order to die. This woman is the one who insists on the 'nothing but the Two', even if it is only in its simple mnemonic outline, within the constantly , ' , reworked narrative of wandering: " , ',' , This notion of calm comes from him. Without him I would not have had it. Now I'll wipe out everything but the flowers. No more rain. No more mounds. Nothing but the two of us dragging through the flowers. Enough my oid breasts feel his old hand (eSp, p. 144; GSP, p. 192).56

Happiness is indistinguishably 'man' and 'woman'; it is, at one and the same time, a separating void and the conjunction that reveals this void. As happiness, as the outline of happiness, it is the nothing of the Two and the nothing but the Two. Such is its inseparable sexuation: immobility and wandering, imperative and story. This happiness is basically all that takes place between the beginning and the end of III Seen III Said. The entire beginning revolves around the word 'misfortune', while the end leans towards the word 'happiness'. If at the outset we have the reign of the visible and the rigidity of seeing in the 34 , , Alain Badiou On Beckett ,'ll'Y nocturne (ci limbo between life and death), at the end there arises a kin d "I lra nsparent void, which is laid out in the second nocturne. What more is I line to do than to listen to what is happening? What follows is the opening passage -in my view one of the most Iwalltiful texts in the French language -which captures the brilliance of I IIisfortune: From where she lies she sees Venus rise. On. From where she lies when the skies are clear she sees Venus rise followed by the sun. Then she rails at the source of all life. On. At evening when the skies are clear she savours its star's revenge. At the other window. Rigid upright on her old chair she watches for the radiant one. Her old deal spindlebacked kitchen chair. It emerges from out the last rays and sinking ever brighter is engulfed in its turn. On. She sits on erect and rigid in the deepening gloom. Such helplessness to move she cannot help. Heading on foot for a particular point often she freezes on the way. Unable till long after to move on not knowing whither or for what purpose. Down on her knees especially she " ! , , , ,I I, " jl' Ii! '

I I " .' " , ,I i , , , , I finds it hard not to remain so forever. Hand resting on hand on some ,, , , convenient support. Such as the foot of her bed. And on them her head. , , There then she sits as though turned to stone face to the night. Save for the white of her hair and faintly bluish white of face and hands all is black. For an eye having no need oflight to see. All this in the present as had she the misfortune to be still of this world (ISIS, pp. 7-8; NO, pp. 49-50).57 "'t1, And now the end, where the instant of happiness is conquered in the vcry brief and trying duration of a visitation of the void:58 Decision no sooner reached or rather long after than what is the wrong word? For the last time at last for to end yet again what the wrong word? Than revoked. No but slowly dispelled a little very little like the wisps of day when the curtain closes. Of itself by slow millimetres or drawn by a phantom hand. Farewell to farewell. Then in that perfect dark foreknell darling sound pip for end begun. First last moment. Grant only enough remain to devour all. Moment by glutton moment. Sky earth the whole kit and boodle. Not another crumb of carrion left. Lick chops and basta. No. One moment more. One last. Grace to breathe that void. Know happiness (ISIS, p. 59; NO, p. 86).59 35

", . ," I ," , " ,I' , Alain Badiou On Beckett This is also what I would like to call the writing of the generic: to present in art the passage from the misfortune oflife and of the visible to the happiness of a truthful arousal of the void. This requires the measureless power of the encounter, the wager of a name, as well as the combination of wandering and fixity, of imperative and story. All of this must in turn be traced out within the division of the night -only then, under these rare conditions, will we be able to repeat with Beckett: 'Stony ground but not entirely' [Terre ingrate mais pas totalement]. Translated by Bruno Bosteels Revised by Nina Power and Alberto Toscano ,.., I , Ti reless Desi re60 1. A 'Young Cretin' ,,""j I discovered the work of Beckett in the mid-fifties. It was a real encounter, a subjective blow of sorts that left an indelible mark. So that forty years later, I can say, with Rimbaud: 'I'm there, I'm always there' rry suis, j'y suis to ujours ]. This is the principal task of youth: to encounter the incalculable, and thereby to convince oneself, against the disillusioned, that 36

Alain Badiou On the thesis 'nothing is, nothing is But youth is also that fragment of oneself to be quite singular, when what will later be retained as the

valuable' is both false and oppressive. existence when one easily imagines really what one is thinking or doing is typical trait of a generation. Being young is

a source of power, a time of decisive encounters, but these are strained by their all too easy capture by repetition and imitation. Thought only subtracts itself from the spirit of the age by means of a constant and delicate labour. It is easy to want to change the world -in youth this seems the least that one could do. It is more difficult to notice the fact that this very wish could end up as the material for the forms of perpetuation of this very world. This is why all youth, as stirring as its promise may be, is always also the youth of a 'young cretin'. Bearing this in mind, in later years, keeps us from nostalgia. When I discovered Beckett, some years after the beginning of his French oeuvre (that is, around 1956), I was a complete and total Sartrean, though I was possessed by a question whose importance I thought I had personally discovered to have been underestimated by Sartre. I had yet to realise that it was already, and was going to be for a long while, the abiding obsession of my generation and of the ones to follow: the question of language. From such a makeshift observatory, I could only see in Beckett what everybody else did. A writer of the absurd, of despair, of empty skies, of incommunicability and of eternal solitude -in sum, an existentialist. But also a 'modem' writer, in that the destiny of writing, the relationship between the endless recapitulation of speech and the original silence -the simultaneously sublime and derisory function ofwords -was entirely captured by the prose at a distant remove from any realist or representational intention. In such 'modem' writing, fiction is both the appearance of a story and the reality of a reflection on the work of the writer, on its misery and its grandeu r. I used to delight myself with the most sinister aphorisms -youth having a fatal tendency to believe that ' our sweetest songs are those that tell of sad dest thought'. Into sundry notebooks I copied things like: And when it comes to neglecting fundamentals, I think I have nothing to learn, and indeed I confuse them with accidentals (T, p. 80; TN, p. 80).61 I should have concentrated my attention on the irony that charges this nihilistic verdict with a bizarre energy. All the same, when I delighted in reading (from Malone Dies): 38 Alain Badiou On the thesis 'nothing is, nothing is valuable' is both false and oppressive. But youth is also that fragment of existence when one easily imagines oneself to be quite singular, when really what one is thinking or doing is what will later be retained as the typical trait of a generation. Being young is a source of power, a time of decisive encounters, but these are strained by their all too easy capture by repetition and imitation. Thought only subtracts itself from the spirit of the age by means of a constant and delicate labour. It is easy to want to change the world -in youth this seems the least that one could do. It is more difficult to notice the fact that this very wish could end up as the material for the forms of perpetuation of this very world. This is why all youth, as stirring as its promise may be, is always also the youth of a 'young cretin'. Bearing this in mind, in later years, keeps us from nostalgia. When I discovered Beckett, some years after the beginning of his French oeuvre (that is, around 1956), I was a complete and total Sartrean, though I

was possessed by a question whose importance I thought I had personally discovered to have been underestimated by Sartre. I had yet to realise that it was already, and was going to be for a long while, the abiding obsession of my generation and of the ones to follow: the question of language. From such a makeshift observatory, I could only see in Beckett what everybody else did. A writer of the absurd, of despair, of empty skies, of incommunicability and of eternal solitude -in sum, an existentialist. But also a 'modem' writer, in that the destiny of writing, the relationship between the endless recapitulation of speech and the original silence -the simultaneously sublime and derisory function ofwords -was entirely captured by the prose at a distant remove from any realist or representational intention. In such 'modem' writing, fiction is both the appearance of a story and the reality of a reflection on the work of the writer, on its misery and its grandeu r. I used to delight myself with the most sinister aphorisms -youth having a fatal tendency to believe that ' our sweetest songs are those that tell of sad dest thought'. Into sundry notebooks I copied things like: And when it comes to neglecting fundamentals, I think I have nothing to learn, and indeed I confuse them with accidentals (T, p. 80; TN, p. 80).61 I should have concentrated my attention on the irony that charges this nihilistic verdict with a bizarre energy. All the same, when I delighted in reading (from Malone Dies): 38 -_._---No matter, any old remains of flesh and spirit do, there is no sense in stalking people. So long as it is what is called a living being you can't go wrong, you have the guilty one (T, p. 260; TN, p. 259).62 I didn't pay enough attention to the denial that this affirmative, almost violen t, :;Iyle brings to the commonplace (and sub-Kafkaesque) thesis of universal l"IIIpability. In my eyes all of this remained the literary allegory of a conclusive :;Iatement pronounced by Sartre, the famous 'man is a useless passion'. It didn't have the same flavour as the maxims on language, which I used in (lrder to support my conviction that the decisive philosophical task, which I considered my own, was to complete the Sartrean theory of freedom by means (1I" a careful investigation into the opacities of the signifier. This is why Th e {fnnamable was my favourite book. For several months (in youth, this is, to speak like Beckett, a 'vast time'), I lived in the company of the striking mixtu re ofhatred and saving familiarity that the 'speaker' of this novel lavishes upon his linguistic instrument. It's a poor trick that consists in ramming a set of words down your gullet on the principle that you can't bring them up without being branded as belonging to their breed. But I'll fix their gibberish for them. I never understood a word of it in any case, not a word of the stories it spews, like gobbets in a vomit (T, p. 327; TN, pp. 324-325).63 I should have liked to go silent first, there were moments I thought that I .... . , I would be my reward for having spoken so long and so valiantly, to enter living into silence, so as to be able to enjoy it, no, I don't know why, so as to feel myself silent [ ... J (T, p. 400; TN, p. 396).64

Without doubt I should have pondered this 'valiance' inherent to all speech, as well as what exactly is designated by these 'stories' spewed forth by the breed. Above all, it would have demonstrated more lucidity on my part to have understood that for Beckett The Unnamablewas really an impasse, one that would take him ten years to get out of. But the (ultimately inconsisten t) alliance between nihilism and the imperative of language, between vital existentialism and the metaphysics ofthe word, between Sartre and Blanchot, rather suited the young cretin that I was at the time. Basically, my stupidity lay in unquestioningly upholding the caricature 39

which was then -and still is -widespread: a pitiless awareness of the nothingness of sense, extended by the resources of art to cover the nothingness ofwriting, a nothingness that would be materialised, as it were, by means of increasingly tight and increasingly dense prose pieces that abandoned all narrative principle. The caricature of a Beckett meditating upon death and finitude, the dereliction of sick bodies, the waiting in vain for the divine and

the derision of any enterprise directed towards others. A Beckett convinced that beyond the obstinacy of words there is nothing but darkness and void. It took me many years to rid myself of this stereotype and at last to take Beckett at his word. No, what Beckett offers to thought through his art, theatre , prose, poetry, cinema, radio, television, and criticism, is not this gloomy corporeal immersion into an abandoned existence, into hopeless . relinquishment. Neither is it the contrary, as some have tried to argue: farce, derision, a concrete flavour, a 'thin Rabelais'. Neither existentialism nor a modem baroque. The lesson of Beckett is a lesson in measure, exactitude and courage. That is what I would like to establish in these few pages. And since it was on reading The Unnamable that my forty-year passion for this author was born, rather than in the statements on language that enchanted my youth, I would like to hold onto this aphorism which still astounds me today, when the 'unnameable' speaker, through his tears and in the certainty that he will never give up, declares: I alone am man and all the rest divine CT, p. 302; TN, p. 300).65 2. Beauty The work of Beckett, which is often presented as a block or as a linear movement -becoming increasingly nihilistic in content and increasingly concise in fOlm -is really a complex trajectory employing a great variety of literary means. One can certainly discern in Beckett a central oscillation between philosophical abstraction (an abstraction that is entirely purified in Worstward Ho) and the strophic poem. The latter describes a kind of picture through the incessant repetition of the same groups of words, and through minute variations which, little by little, displace the meaning ofthe text (a technique pushed to its extreme in Lessness). We can also identify two major periods within Beckett's work. After 40

.. . --" -----------------------------Alain Badiou On Beckett /, \ /1 Iii/' Nothing ( composed between 1950 and 1953), the writer is overcome loy ; I I\'d ing of impasse and impotence. He comes out of this impasse with I!. 'II' /1 Is (1959-1960), a text that introduces a clean rupture in the themes as l\t -II as in the conduct of the prose. The effect of this oscillation and this caesura is that no single literary " . 111(' can command the comprehension of Beckett's enterprise. The novel 1111 111 is still perceptible in Molloy, but in The Unnamable it is exhausted, '1ll IlIgh it is not possible to say that the poem prevails -even if the cadence , lilt' disposition ofthe paragraphs and the intrinsic value ofthe visions indicat e IIlal the text is governed by what could be defined as a 'latent poem'. In truth, the scraps of fiction or spectacle that Beckett employs attempt 'II ,'x pose some critical questions (in Kant's sense) to the test of beauty. Th ese qllestions are very few in number. To Kant's famous 'What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?', comes the threefold response from "" Is /or Nothing: 'Where would I go, if I could go? Who would I be if I t Olild be? What would I say, if! had a voice?' After 1960, one can add: 'Who ,/11/ I. if the other exists?' The work of Beckett is nothing but the treatment of Ihesc four questions within the flesh of language. We could say that we are dealing with an enterprise of meditative thought -half-conquered by the p()cm -which attempts to seize in beauty the non-prescriptible fragments of txistence. We should also refrain from the belief that Beckett sinks into an IIltcrrogation that is sufficient unto itself, solving none ofthe problems that it has posed. On the contrary, the work of the prose is intended to isolate and allow to emerge the few points with respect to which thinking can become II I anirmative. In a manner that is almost aggressive, all of Beckett's genius Il:nds towards affirmation. He is no stranger to the maxim, which always carries with it a principle of relentlessness and advancement. Let us take just one maxim amongst many others, a conclusion: 'Stony ground but not entirely. '66 Ah! One really should speak of the stoniness, of the ingratitude ofthe Earth! But only as a last resort, so that the 'not entirel y' may come to shine within the prose, this prose that we know is destined to 'ring clear' and to keep courage alive within us. Like many other writers since Flaubert, Beckett often remarked that only music mattered to him, that he was an inventor of rhythms and punctuations. When asked -in one of those periodic inquiries about the 'mystery ofthe author' in which every artist is invited to take up a pose and

fced the century an ersatz of spirit -why he wrote, he telegraphed back: 41

", I " , ,' , , , "I , , " . I I " , I '" " , Alain Badiou On 'That's all I'm good for' [Bon qu 'd 9a]. Not completely, Beckett, not completely! That's all, but not completely! There was the complicated relationship with Joyce, who, all things considered, was Beckett's immediate master. Against the Nazis, on French territory, there was the immediate and very dangerous commitment to the resistance. There was the long marriage with Suzanne, which, without engaging in vulgar 'biographism', we can clearly see as a central reference for all the couples who traverse Beckett's work. There was the wish to work in the theatre, not only as an author, but also as a punctilious and demanding director. There was the constant preoccupation with the use of new techniques: radio (Beckett is a master of the radio play), cinema, television. There were the relations with painters, and the activity of literary criticism (on Proust and Joyce). And many other people, many other things. I have never deemed it necessary to take entirely seriously the declarations of artists regarding their absolute vocation, the imperial ordeal ofphrases and the mysticism of the page. All the same, it is true that to find a writer of this calibre so little exposed to the world, so little compromised, one would need to look far and wide. Beckett truly was a constant and attentive servant of beauty, which is why, at a distance from himself (at a distance from nature, from a 'natural' language, and at a distance from the mother, from the mother-tongue), he called upon the services of a secondary and learnt idiom, a 'foreign' language: French. Little by little, this language conferred upon him an unheard of timbre. In particular, this took place by a sort of intimate rupture which isolates words in order to rectify their precisio n within the phrase, adding epithets or repentances. Thus we read, inIII Seen III Said: Was it ever over and done with questions? Dead the whole brood no sooner hatched. Long before. In the egg. Long before. Over and done with answering. With not being able. With not being able not to want to know. With not being able. No. Never. A dream. Question answered (ISIS, p. 37; NO, p. 70).67 But it also occurred by means of sudden lyrical expansions, in which the calculus of sound appeases the tension of the spirit, filling the air with t he nocturne of reminiscence. From Company: You are on your back at the foot of an aspen. In its trembling shade. She at 42 ", I " , ,' , , , "I , , " . I I " , I '" " , Alain Badiou On 'That's all I'm good for' [Bon qu 'd 9a]. Not completely, Beckett, not completely! That's all, but not completely! There was the complicated relationship with Joyce, who, all things considered, was Beckett's immediate master. Against the Nazis, on French territory, there was the immediate and very dangerous commitment to the resistance. There was the long marriage with Suzanne, which, without engaging in vulgar 'biographism', we can clearly see as a central reference for all the couples who traverse Beckett's work. There was the wish to work in the theatre, not only as an author, but also as a punctilious and demanding director. There was the constant preoccupation with the use of new techniques: radio (Beckett is a master of the radio play), cinema, television. There were the relations with painters, and the activity of literary criticism (on Proust and Joyce). And many other people, many other things.

I have never deemed it necessary to take entirely seriously the declarations of artists regarding their absolute vocation, the imperial ordeal ofphrases and the mysticism of the page. All the same, it is true that to find a writer of this calibre so little exposed to the world, so little compromised, one would need to look far and wide. Beckett truly was a constant and attentive servant of beauty, which is why, at a distance from himself (at a distance from nature, from a 'natural' language, and at a distance from the mother, from the mother-tongue), he called upon the services of a secondary and learnt idiom, a 'foreign' language: French. Little by little, this language conferred upon him an unheard of timbre. In particular, this took place by a sort of intimate rupture which isolates words in order to rectify their precisio n within the phrase, adding epithets or repentances. Thus we read, inIII Seen III Said: Was it ever over and done with questions? Dead the whole brood no sooner hatched. Long before. In the egg. Long before. Over and done with answering. With not being able. With not being able not to want to know. With not being able. No. Never. A dream. Question answered (ISIS, p. 37; NO, p. 70).67 But it also occurred by means of sudden lyrical expansions, in which the calculus of sound appeases the tension of the spirit, filling the air with t he nocturne of reminiscence. From Company: You are on your back at the foot of an aspen. In its trembling shade. She at 42 right angles propped on her elbows head between her hands. Your eyes opened and closed have looked in hers looking in yours. In your dark you look in them again. Still. You feel on your face the fringe of her long black hair stirring in the still air. Within the tent of hair your faces are hidden from view. She murmurs, Listen to the leaves. Eyes in each other's eyes you listen to the leaves. In their trembling shade (e, pp. 66-67; NO, p. 35).68 And also by means ofa declarative tone that establishes the splendour ()fthe universe and the apparent misery of its immobile witness as a spectacle Ihat is unveiled through prose, as in III Seen III Said: From where she lies she sees Venus rise. On. From where she lies when the skies are clear she sees Venus rise followed by the sun. Then she rails atthe source of all life. On. At evening when the skies are clear she savours its star's revenge. At the other window. Rigid upright on her old chair she watches for the radiant one (ISIS, p. 7; NO, p. 49).69 And also by way of falls and halts in the action that indicate, in the prose of Enough, a tenderness which until that point had been restrained, whilst showing in the rhythm that the business of life will not have the last word: Now I'll wipe out everything but the flowers. No more rain. No more mounds. Nothing but the two of us dragging through the flowers. Enough myoid breasts feel his old hand (eSp, p. 144; GSP, p. 192).10 And also by the jokes (here from Rough for Theatre II), which annul any loftiness in the tone of the prose: Work, family, third fatherland, cunt, finances, art and nature, heart and conscience, health, housing conditions, God and man, so many disasters (eDW, p. 238; SP, p. 78).71 And finally -against the grain of the brevities and caesurae that

elsewhere dominate -by means of length, that extreme flexibility which permits the withdrawal ofpunctuations, when Beckett wants all the data of a 43 Alain Badiou On Beckett i , i ,",

, , , , . situation or of a problem to be enveloped in a unified prosodic movement In the first part of his French oeuvre, Beckett's methodical ascesis something that he attempts in How It Is: 1.I.lales three functions: movement and rest (to go and to stall, or to collapse , ' 1.111, lie down); being (what there is, the places, the appearances, as well as in other words in simple words I quote on either I am alone and no further 111[' vacillation of any identity whatsoever); language (the imperative of sayin g, problem or else we are innumerable and no further problem either 111[' impossibility of silence). A'character' is never anything but the assembla ge , (HIl, p. 135; HII US, p. 124).72 III a journey, an identity, and a cruel chatter. Fiction, which is always presen ted lI:: mbitrary, as an aleatory montage, tends to set out the loss of everything which is not reducible to these three functions and to demonstrate that these IIll1ctions are what cannot be abolished. Such is the case with movement: not only must wandering be detached, !tlile by little, from all apparent sense, but since it is a matter of presentin g Ihe essence of movement -the movement in movement -Beckett's advance will bring with it the destruction of all the means, outside supports, and Rectification, or the work on the isolation of terms. Expansion, or the poetic incision of memory. Declaration, or the function of emergence of prose. Declension, or the tender cadence of disaster. Interruption, or the maxims of comedy. Elongation, or the phrased embodiment of variants. These are, in my opinion, the principal operations through which Beckett's writing attempts, at one and the same time, to speak unrepentantly of the stony ingratitude of

, , , ," the Earth, and to isolate, according to its proper density, that which exceeds perceptible surfaces of mobility. The 'character' (Molloy, or Moran) will ' ' , , ,'I I I ", I I " , ' .' I I it. This is why we must begin with the beauty in the prose. It is this beauty that tells us what it is that Beckett wishes to save. This is because the destin y of beauty, and in particular of the beauty that Beckett aims at, is to separate. To separate appearance, which it both restores and obliterates, from the universal core of experience. It is indispensable to take Beckett at his word: the word of beauty. In this separating function, the word declares what we must disregard in order to face up to what may be of worth. 3. Ascesis as Method In his own way, Beckett rediscovers an inspiration belonging to Descartes and Husserl: if you wish to conduct a serious enquiry into 'thinking humanity' [l'humanite pensante], it is first of all necessary to suspend everything that is either inessential or doubtful; it is necessary to reduce humanity to its indestructible functions. The destitution of Beckett's character s -their poverty, their illnesses, their strange fixity, or indeed their wandering without any perceptible finality, in other words, everything that has so often been taken as an allegory of the infinite miseries of the human condition -is nothing other than the protocol of an experience which deserves comparison with the doubt by means of which Descartes reduced the subject to the vacuity of its pure enunciation, or Husserl's epoch!!, which reduces the evidence of the world to that of the intentional fluxes of consciousness. 44 Illisiay his bicycle, injure himself, no longer know where he is, and even lose a good part of his body. Innumerable in Beckett's prose are the blind, the

lame, the paralytic, the old who have lost their walking sticks, the helpless and the impotent, and, in the end, those bodies that are reduced, little by IiItie, to a head, a mouth, a skull with two holes to ill see and an oozing of words for ill saying. In this dispossession, the 'character' reaches a pure moment in which movement becomes externally indiscernible from immobility. This is because movement is no longer anything but its own ideal mobility, testified only by a minute tension, a sort of differential of which we could say -so exhausted is the prose -that it is brought back to a point of movement. , Immobility would thereby find its complete metaphor in the corpse: 'dying' is the conversion of all possible movement into permanent rest. But here again, the irreducibility of the functions means that 'dying' is never death. In Malone Dies, one sees how movement and language ultimately infect both being and immobility, so that the point of immobility is constantly deferred; it does not allow itself to be constructed otherwise than as the unattainable limit of an increasingly diminishing network of movements, memories and words. Beckett's poetics is thus constituted by a progressive alleviation of constraints, a demolition of that which delays the moment of immobility. If movement is undone, so as to be no more than a difference of rest, rest itself is presented as the integral of movement and language, as a strange mix of the deceleration of prose and the acceleration of its dispersal. When Beckett wishes to concentrate his attention on one of thc 45 , 'I: , ,, , i( f,

.. Alain Badiou On functions, he makes sure that the others are blocked. It thus that the 'speaker' of The Unnamable, trapped in a jar at the entrance to a restaurant, is rendered immobile, and the subject matter of his gigantic monologue is nothing more than the imperative to speak. This is not a tragic image. In fact, if we conside r what requires thinking in the beauty ofprose, we will say that this ' character' , whose proper name is effaced or undecided and who is utterly destitute, has actually succeeded in losing all the secondary ornaments, all the dubious possessions that would have diverted him from what it is his destiny to experiment, and which concerns generic humanity, whose essential functions are: going, being and saying. One can never emphasise enough the degree to which the confusion between this methodical ascesis -staged with a tender and voluble humour .. IIIIL..e primitive functions. In How It Is, the Other is assigned to movement and to rest: sometimes, III Ihe black night -where, like everyone else, it crawls with its sack -the ( )Iher encounters an immobile entity; sometimes it is encountered in tum, in :,1 .. lis immobility, by the reptations of a subject. This accounts for the derived fUllctions of activity (the one who falls on the other: the tOlmentor) and of passivity (the one on whom the other falls: the victim). The existence of the II I'

( )1her is not in doubt, but its construction and identity refer back to an evas ive II I , circularity; it is possible to occupy successively the position of the tormentor , 1 IH.;nthat of the victim, and nothing besides these positions can serve to spec ity aitcrity. In Company, the problem is inverted, since this time the Other is ,., I .. I "

," '"I I II" ., , ii' and some sort of tragic pathos of the destitution and the misery of man has assi gned to the third function, language. It presents itself as a voice reaching :11' HI:" , ,', "I"' :II of Beckett. I" " Beckett says, in How It Is: ...

the dejections no they are me but I love them the old half-emptied tins let II. limply fall no something else the mud engulfs all me alone it carries my ',I" four stone five stone it yields a little under that then no more I don't fl ee I am banished (HII, p. 43; HII US, p. 39)13 We cannot understand the text ifwe immediately see it as a concentration camp [concentrationnaire] allegory ofthe dirty and diseased human animal. On the contrary -admitting that we are indeed animals lodged upon an earth "" ." "1 which is insignificant and brimming over with excrement -it is a matter of establishing that which subsists in the register of the question, of thought, of the creative capacity (in this case, the will to movement, as opposed to flight) . Thus reduced to a few functions, humanity is only more admirable, more energetic, more immortal. From the sixties onwards, a fourth function takes on a more and more determining role: that of the Other, of the companion, of the external voice. It is not by chance that the three parts ofHow It Is relate to the three moments that are named by the following syntagms: 'before Pim', 'with Pim' and 'after Pim'; or that a later text is called Company. The 'with the other' is decisive. But here too, it is necessary to isolate the essential nature of this 'with the other' by means of a montage that eradicates all psychology, all evidence, and all empirical exteriority. The Other is itself a knot tying together the

46 , I , distracted our contemporaries from any deep understanding of the writings () ut to someone in the dark. The singularity of this voice is not in doubt; it relates childhood stories of a rare poetic intensity. But since no real movement ()r corporeal encounter bears witness to it, its existence remains suspended: it could be the case that there is nothing but '[t]he fable of one fabling of one with you in the dark' (C, 89; NO, 46). Just as movement, purified by a methodical literary ascesis, is a difference of the immobile, and the immobility of being, or death, is never anything but the inaccessible limit of movement and of language, so the I,i other, reduced to its primitive functions, is caught in the following tourniquet : :I if he exists, he is like me, he is indiscernible from me. And if he is clearly ' . ' II identifiable, his existence is uncertain. In all these cases we can see that the ascesis -metaphorically enacted as loss, destitution, poverty, a relentlessness based on almost nothing -leads to a conceptual economy of an ancient or Platonic type. If we disregard (and Beckett's prose is the movement of this disregard, of this abandon) what is inessential, what distracts us (in Pascal's sense), we see that generic humanity can be reduced to the complex of movement, of rest (of dying), of language (as imperative without respite) and of the paradoxes of the Same and the Other. We are very close to what Plato, in The Sophist, names as the five supreme genera: Being, Sameness, Movement, Rest, and Other. If Plato the philosopher uses these to determine the general conditions for all thinking, then Beckett the writer intends, through the ascetic movement of prose, to present in fiction the atemporal determinants of humanity. This humanity, which has been called 'larval' or 'clownish', and which II in Worstward Ho in fact comprises nothing but skulls oozing words, must be I I 47 I

Alain Badiou On thought of as constituting a sort of purified axiomatic, allowing us to go straight to the only questions that matter. And, first ofall, to the question th at makes writing itselfpossible, the one that is able to ground the fact that there is a reason to write [qu 'ilyait lieu d'ecrire]: what is the link between langua ge and being? Ofcourse, it is a fact that we are constrained to speak, but ofwhat does speech speak? Of what can it speak? 4. Being and Language If it is indeed necessary to speak, this is not simply because we are prey to language. It is also, and above all because as soon as it is named that which is and ofwhich we are obliged to speak escapes towards its own nonbeing. This means that the work ofnaming must always be taken up again. On this point, Beckett is a disciple ofHeraclitus: being is nothing other than its own becoming-nothingness. This is what is summed up in one of the mirlitonnades from Poemes: flux cause flux causes que toute chose that every thing , tout en etant while being toute chose every thing done celle-ld hence that one meme celle-ld even that one tout en etant while being n 'estpas is not parlons-en speak on74 On this basis, how can the imperative to speak, which governs in particular the imperative ofthe writer -and above all ofthe one who is 'good for' nothing else -attune itselfwith being? Have we some hope that language could stop the flux and confer upon a thing (that one /even that one) at least a relative stability? And if not, what good is the imperative that we should speak on? For the artist -who differs from the philosopher in this regard -the operator of thought is the fiction within prose. That being ceases to flee in order to convert itself into nothingness entails that language must determine the place of being within a fiction, that it must assign being to its place. 48 Badiou On Beckett

itl'l'kett devotes many of his inventions to the following task: to name the Ihiional place ofbeing. There are two places of being in Beckett's first fictions, according to .111 opposition that we could refer to as Bergsonian, to the extent that it dlsl inguishes the closed and the open. The closedplace forbids flight -it blocks the always menacing identity IIIheing and nothingness -because the set of its components is denumerable ;11111 the components themselves can be named exactly. The aim ofthe fictions III closure is that the seen be coextensive with the said. Beckett fixes this IIhjective in a short text, Fizzle 5: Closed Space: Closed place. All needed to be known for say is known (CSP, p. 199; GSP, p. 236).75 This same tendency is exemplified by the room where the two protagonists ofEndgame are enclosed, by the room where Malone dies (or rat her moves indefinitely towards his death), and by the house of Mr. Knott III Watt, as well as by the cylinder where the entities ofThe Lost Ones bustle ahout. In all these cases, the set-up of the fiction [Ie dispositij de fiction] ('stablishes a strict control upon place, constructing a universe sufficiently tillite so thatwhen the prose wishes to seize being its escape can be temporaril y hlocked. The open place instead exposes the aleatory character ofpaths; it extends Ihe dissipation and tries to maintain itself as close as possible to the flight of appearances. What is in question is a wholly other equality between language and being: the flexibility of the first matches the versatility of the second. This equality tries to anticipate the metamorphoses. This is the case with the I rish countryside -plane, hills, gloomy forests -where Molloy looks for his mother, and where Moran looks for Molloy. We also find it in the town and the labyrinth ofstreets of The Expelled, and it is even present in the corridor ofblack mud where the torturers and the victims ofHow ItIs crawl, since, as wewill later learn, this corridor is infinite. In these openplaces the arrangeme nt ofthe fiction seeks to capture in language the 'conversion times' of being into nothingness. Therefore, it is not by controlling its elements that prose adheres to being, but rather because it flees as fast -or even faster -than being. Little by little, nevertheless, Beckett will fuse together these two prosodic figures ofthe place ofbeing. Whether it is a question ofthe closed 49 I I I: ; , "I'I

I,ll II ,, '" , I', , ,, ,, I 'I,'' I' ' , I I,' I III I'I , ,

. . _

Alain Badiou On space or of wandering, the suppression of any descriptive particularity ends up with a uniform image ofthe earth and the sky, in which any movement is equivalent to a transparent immobility. The text Sans (for which Beckett created the word 'lessness' in English) -a pure description that slowly repeats or modifies its components -represents in my view the successful realisation of Beckett's poetic effort to assign being a place: Grey sky no cloud no sound no stir earth ash grey sand. Little body same grey as the earth sky ruins only upright. Ash grey all sides earth sky as one all sides endlessness (CSP, p. 153; GSP, pp. 197-1 98).76 In this kind of passage, it is a question for Beckett of fixing the scene ."", I ". ,,, ",I! of being, of determining its lighting, which -precisely because we a re 'before' ,'" I I the taking place of something -must be grasped in the neutrality of that which is neither the night nor the light. Which is the most appropriate colour for the empty place that constitutes theground [fond] of all existence? Beckett replies: dark grey, or light black, or black marked by an uncertain colour. This metaphor designates being in its localisation, which is empty of any event. Often Beckett typifies this with the namesgloom, half-light, or dim.77 Thus in The Lost Ones: What first impresses in this gloom is the sensation of yellow it imparts not to say of sulphur in view of the associations (CSP, p. 169; GSP, p. 213).78 " , " ' In Worstward Ho, the question ofthe prosodic construction ofthe place of being, of what there is prior to all knowledge, or rather of the minimum of knowledge to which language can cling, is explicit, and it takes the name of 'dim' : Dim light source unknown. Know minimum. Know nothing no. Too much to hope. At most mere minimum (WH, p. 9; NO, p. 91).79 Beckett notes with great precision that this 'mere minimum' is the being of an empty place awaiting bodies, language, and events: Void cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go (WH, p. 18; NO, p. 97).80 At the end of this fictive simplification, one could call the place of

50 Alain Badiou On Beckett 111 1111'" or dim, a 'grey-black'. A black grey enough so that it will not enter 1111" (,(lI1tradiction with the light; a blackwhich is notthe opposite ofanythin g, fill ilnli-dialectical black. It is here that the closed and the open become III,hsl inguishable, and that voyage and fixity become the reversible metaphors "I Illal aspect of being which is exposed to language. Of course, the grey-black itself does not let itself be spoken of in a .I.. ar and distinct manner. This is why literary writing is required here. It i s 11" ,',..ssary to reverse the Cartesian equivalence between the true and the cle arillid distinct. Thus in Molloy: [ think so, yes, I think that all that is false may more readily be reduced, to notions clear and distinct, distinct from all other notions (T, p. 82; TN, p. 82).81 Il lhe grey-black, which does not separate the dark and the light, is the place "Iheing, then artistic prose is required, since it alone carries a possible thou ght "I Ihe in-separable, of the indistinct. Prose alone can reach the exact point where being, far from letting itself be thought in a dialectical opposition to lIoll-being, stands towards it in a relation of unclear equivalence. This is the point where, as Malone says (not without warning us that one could thus 'pollute the whole of speech'): 'Nothing is more real than nothing (T, p. I In; TN, p. 192). It is far from being the case that employing the resources of the latent pocm allows Beckett to surmount all the obstacles before him. This is because I IlCre is not just the place; or, as Mallarme said, it is not true that 'nothin g will , lake place but the place' [rien n 'aura lieu que Ie lieu]. In effect, all fictio n, as " I levoted as it may be to establishing the place of being -in closure, o penness or the grey-black -presupposes or connects to a subject. This subject in tum excludes itself from the place simply by the act of naming it, whilst at the same time holding itself at a distance from this name. The one for whom Ihere is the grey-black does not cease to reflect and recommence the poetic work oflocalisation. In so doing, the subject advenes as an incomprehensible supplement of being; it is borne by a prose whose entire energy, inasmuch as it seeks to make the real and the nothing equivalent, is expended in trying to Icave no room for any supplement whatsoever. Whence the torture of the cogito. 51

5. The Solitary Subject Let us then suppose that the subj ect, in its link to language, is the thought ofthought, or the thought of that which thinks itself in speech. In what then consists the effort of fiction to seize, to reduce, to stop this haunting except ion to the pure grey-black of being? Writing, this place of experimentation, will ", annul the other primitive functions of humanity: movement and the relation to an other. Everything will be reduced to the voice. Stuck in a jar, or pinned -captive, mutilated, dying -is nothing more than the vanishing support of a word. How can such a repetitious and interminable speech identify or reflect itself? As Blanchot, analysing Beckett, has rightly said, it can only do so by returning to the silence that can be supposed at the origin of all speech. The role of the voice is to track down -by way of a great deal offables, narrative fictions, and concepts -the pure point ofenunciation, the fact that what is said belongs to a singular faculty of saying. This faculty is not itself said; it exhausts itself in what is said but nevertheless always remains on this side of things, as a silence which is indefinitely productive of ' To seize and annul itself the voice must enter into its own silence, it must produce its own silence. This is the fundamental hope of the 'hero' of [... ] perhaps it's a dream, all a dream, that would surprise me, I'll wake, in the silence, and never sleep again, it will be I, or dream, dream again, dream of a silence, a dream silence [ ... ] (T, p. 418; TN, p. 414).82 But the desired self-annulment reveals itself to be inaccessible. First of all, because the necessary conditions for obtaining this awakening of language to its first silence submit the subject of the voice to Sometimes this voice is exacerbated: it proliferates, invents a thousand fables, whimpers and takes flight. But this mobility is insufficient for the intended aim: to destroy language by excess and saturation, to obtain silence through the violence inflicted on words. Sometimes, on the contrary, the voice exhausts itself: it stammers, repeats itself, inventing nothing. But this sterility is still not enough if, fr om a tired and worn out language, an original silence is to suddenly emerge. This oscillation between, on the one hand, an excess so violent that it 52 'I , .. Bad iou On Beckett i", ,k::lroys not language but the subject and, on the other, a lack which in vain " p()ses the subject to the throes of 'dying' , places the subject ofthe Beckett ian , / ,,:i/() in a state of genuine terror. In the words ofthe hero of The Unnamab le: I only think, if that is the name for this vertiginous panic as of hornets smoked out oftheir nest, once a certain degree ofterror has been exceeded (T, p. 353; TN, p. 350).83 But the objective is also inaccessible, since reflection, such as it is t it -posited in the voice, does not possess the simple structure that one may a t Illsl imagine (one who speaks and -the same -one who thinks speech so 111:11 it may tum into silence). In the Texts for Nothing, which coincided with a serious crisis in I kckett's work -so that the title must be taken, as always, to the letter (thes e

it",.. I s are written for nothing, nothing results from the artist's thought) Beckett ::liows that the subject is not double (the thought and the thought ofthought), Iliit triple, and that it is is absolutely impossible to try and reduce this tri plicity Itl the unicity of silence is impossible. In Texts for Nothing, we find the I"Ilowing decomposition of the cogito into three: [... ] one who speaks saying, without ceasing to speak, Who's speaking?, and one who hears, mute, uncomprehending, far from all [ ... J. And this other now [ ... ] with his babble of homeless mes and untenanted hims [... ] There's a pretty three in one, and what a one, what a no one (eSp, p. 11 2; GSP, p. 150).84 Let us note carefully the components of this 'pretty three in one'. First ofall, there is the subject who speaks, the subject of saying, who IS equally supposed to be capable of asking 'who speaks?' at the same time :IS he speaks. Let us call this the subject of enunciation. Then there is the passive subject, who hears without understanding, who is 'distant' because he constitutes the obscure matter of the one who ,..peaks, the support or the idiot body of all thinking subjectivity. Let us cal l Ihis the subject of passivity. Finally, there is the subject who asks himself what the other two are, Ihe subject who wants to identify the 'ego' of speech, the subject who wants 10 know what is at stake in the being of the subject, and who, in order to :lttain this knowledge, subjects himself to torture. Let us call this the subjec t 53 ,I!' l i:, i " ,I, ,,I I , , ,I i I', ' ,i' I , II!,I1,1I ., ' . ' , I 5. The Solitary Subject Let us then suppose that the subj ect, in its link to language, is the thought ofthought, or the thought of that which thinks itself in speech. In what then consists the effort of fiction to seize, to reduce, to stop this haunting except ion to the pure grey-black of being? Writing, this place of experimentation, will ", annul the other primitive functions of humanity: movement and the relation to an other. Everything will be reduced to the voice. Stuck in a jar, or pinned -captive, mutilated, dying -is nothing more than the vanishing support of a word. How can such a repetitious and interminable speech identify or reflect itself? As Blanchot, analysing Beckett, has rightly said, it can only do so by returning to the silence that can be supposed at the origin of all speech. The role of the voice is to track down -by way of a great deal offables, narrative fictions, and concepts -the pure point ofenunciation, the fact that what is said belongs to a singular faculty of saying. This faculty is not itself said; it exhausts itself in what is said but nevertheless always remains on this side of things, as a silence which is indefinitely productive of ' To seize and annul itself the voice must enter into its own silence, it must produce its own silence. This is the fundamental hope of the 'hero' of [... ] perhaps it's a dream, all a dream, that would surprise me, I'll wake, in

the silence, and never sleep again, it will be I, or dream, dream again, dream of a silence, a dream silence [ ... ] (T, p. 418; TN, p. 414).82 But the desired self-annulment reveals itself to be inaccessible. First of all, because the necessary conditions for obtaining this awakening of language to its first silence submit the subject of the voice to Sometimes this voice is exacerbated: it proliferates, invents a thousand fables, whimpers and takes flight. But this mobility is insufficient for the intended aim: to destroy language by excess and saturation, to obtain silence through the violence inflicted on words. Sometimes, on the contrary, the voice exhausts itself: it stammers, repeats itself, inventing nothing. But this sterility is still not enough if, fr om a tired and worn out language, an original silence is to suddenly emerge. This oscillation between, on the one hand, an excess so violent that it 52 'I , .. Bad iou On Beckett i", ,k::lroys not language but the subject and, on the other, a lack which in vain " p()ses the subject to the throes of 'dying' , places the subject ofthe Beckett ian , / ,,:i/() in a state of genuine terror. In the words ofthe hero of The Unnamab le: I only think, if that is the name for this vertiginous panic as of hornets smoked out oftheir nest, once a certain degree ofterror has been exceeded (T, p. 353; TN, p. 350).83 But the objective is also inaccessible, since reflection, such as it is t it -posited in the voice, does not possess the simple structure that one may a t Illsl imagine (one who speaks and -the same -one who thinks speech so 111:11 it may tum into silence). In the Texts for Nothing, which coincided with a serious crisis in I kckett's work -so that the title must be taken, as always, to the letter (thes e it",.. I s are written for nothing, nothing results from the artist's thought) Beckett ::liows that the subject is not double (the thought and the thought ofthought), Iliit triple, and that it is is absolutely impossible to try and reduce this tri plicity Itl the unicity of silence is impossible. In Texts for Nothing, we find the I"Ilowing decomposition of the cogito into three: [... ] one who speaks saying, without ceasing to speak, Who's speaking?, and one who hears, mute, uncomprehending, far from all [ ... J. And this other now [ ... ] with his babble of homeless mes and untenanted hims [... ] There's a pretty three in one, and what a one, what a no one (eSp, p. 11 2; GSP, p. 150).84 Let us note carefully the components of this 'pretty three in one'. First ofall, there is the subject who speaks, the subject of saying, who IS equally supposed to be capable of asking 'who speaks?' at the same time :IS he speaks. Let us call this the subject of enunciation. Then there is the passive subject, who hears without understanding, who is 'distant' because he constitutes the obscure matter of the one who ,..peaks, the support or the idiot body of all thinking subjectivity. Let us cal l Ihis the subject of passivity. Finally, there is the subject who asks himself what the other two are, Ihe subject who wants to identify the 'ego' of speech, the subject who wants 10 know what is at stake in the being of the subject, and who, in order to :lttain this knowledge, subjects himself to torture. Let us call this the subjec

t 53 ,I!' l i:, i " ,I, ,,I I , , ,I i I', ' ,i' I , II!,I1,1I ., ' . ' , I Alain Badiou On to a hospital bed, the body " I I I "I' the din of words. The Unnamable: " I I I an intolerable torture.

II II, Alain Badiou On of the question. 'Question' can be taken here in its judicial sense, as when we speak of a suspect being questioned. For what is in fact this torture of thought? As we've already said, the dim -the grey-black that localises being -is ultimately nothing but an empty scene. To fill it, it is necessary to turn towards this irreducible region of existence constituted by speech -the third universal function of humanity, along with movement and immobility. But what is the being of speech, if it is not the speaking subject? It is therefore necessary th at the subject literally twist itself towards its own enunciation. This time, it is the expression 'writhing in pain' that must be interpreted literally. Once one perceives that the identity of the subject is triple, and not just double, the subject appears as tom. ! 111111<1 go on, and the response was negative. How could one continue to , I', I' 11.':(,11 late -helplessly and without result -between the grey-black of being IllId t he infinite torture ofthe solipsistic cogito? Which new fictions could b e 1'111I,cndered within such an oscillation? Once being was named and experience was had ofthe impasse of that subject which constitutes an exception within Iwing, where -if not in the pure impossibility of rejoining its constitutive ':ilcilce -does the writer's word find its nourishment? It was necessary to have done with the alternation of neutral being and vain reflection so that Beckett could escape the crisis, so that he could break with Cartesian terrorism. To do this, it was necessary to find some third terms, Iwither reducible to the place of being nor identical to the repetitions of the voice. It was important that the subject open itself up to an alterity and cease Iteingfolded upon itself in an interminable and torturous speech. Whence, The 'true' subject, the one who should be led back to silence, and who Ii ,,

heginning with How It Is (composed between 1959 and 1960), the growing would reveal for us what there is in the grey-black of being, is the unity of I the three. But Beckett tells us that this unity is worth nothing. Why then? After all, the fact that it is 'nothing' does not constitute a failing, because, as we have seen with regard to the grey-black of being, 'nothing is more real than nothing. ' True, but the whole problem is that unlike the dim, which is in fact indiscernible from nothing (because being and nothingness are one and the same thing), the subject results from a question. Now, every question imposes values, and demands that one is able to ask oneself: what is an answer worth? If, in the end, after an exhausting labour of speech, the only answer one finds is the one that precedes every question (the nothing, the grey-black), the torture of the subject's identification will have amounted to nothing but a bitter charade. If, when you count as one the subject of enunciation, the subjec t ofpassivity and the subject of a question, the question itself is dissolved in the return to the indifference of being, then you have counted badly.85 That means you must begin again. You must recommence even though you have just realised that all this work is impossible. The only result of the torture is the desolate and desert-like injunction that one must subject oneself to torture again. Such is, after all, the conclusion of The Unnamable: [. . .J you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on (T, p. 418; TN, p. 414).86 The cogito of the pure voice is unbearable (stricto sensu: in writing, it can be borne by no one), but it is also inevitable. Having come to this point, it looks like we have reached an impasse. At the time of the Texts for Nothing, this was indeed Beckett's own feeling. It was a question of knowing if one Importance of the event (which adds itself to the grey black of being) and of thc voice of the other (which interrupts solipsism). I, , 6. The Event and its Name Little by little -and not without hesitations and regrets -the work of Beckett will open itself up to chance, to accidents, to sudden modifications ofthe given, and thereby to the idea of happiness. The last words ofIll Seen III Said are indeed: 'Know happiness'. This is why I am entirely opposed to the widely held view according to which Beckett moved towards a nihilistic destitution, towards a radical opacity of significations. We have already remarked above how the destitution of the scenes and the voices, as well as of the prose, is a method directed against

mere distraction [divertissement], and whose ever more prevalent support is the poeticisation of language. The opacity results from the fact that Beckett substitutes the question 'how are we to name what happens?' for the question 'what is the meaning of what is?' But the resources of happiness are considerably greater when we tum towards the event than when we search in vain for the sense of being. Contrary to the popular opinion, I think that Beckett's trajectory is one that begins with a blind belief in predestination and is then directed towards Ii the examination of the possible conditions, be they aleatory or minimal, of a kind of freedom. 55 54

Alain Badiou On , , , Of course, as we shall see, the interrogation regarding the event is centra I to Watt, the writing of which dates from 1942-1943. But the immense success of Waitingfor Godot, after the impasse to which the trilogy (Molloy, Malone ,, '" Dies and The Unnamable) had led, has served to hide this initial impetus. Of : 1'1', II, all these works, all that people retain is the idea that in them nothing ever happens. Molloy will not find his mother. Moran will not find Molloy. Malone stretches ad irifinitum the fables that populate his agony, but death never comes. The Unnamable has no other maxim than to go on forever. And Godot,

: , of course, can only be awaited, being nothing but the constantly reiterated 1Ii1 11 1t' . promise of his coming. It is in this element devoid of emergence and novelty In Watt, we still possess only the first figure of the event, so that the that prose oscillates between grasping indifferent being and the torture of a Il l lvl'I is not entirely detached from a religious symbolism (I call 'religion' , reflection without effect. lill' dcsire to give meaning to everything that happe ns). Watt is an interpreter,

In Watt, the place of being is absolutely closed; it validates a strict ,I Ill'r meneut. Even the hypothesis of meaninglessness is the prisoner of a principle of identity. This place is complete, self-sufficient, and eternal: ',l lIilhorn will to give meaning, and even more of a will to link this meaning III :111 original meaning, a meaning lost and then found again (this is the [ ... J nothing could be added to Mr. Knott's establishment, and from it nothing taken away, but that as it was now, so it had been in the beginning, and so it would remain to the end, in all essential respects [ ... J (W, p. 129; W US, p. 131 ).87 It could therefore be believed that we are here in the midst of a typically predestined universe. Knowledge lacks any kind of freedom; it consists of questions relative to the laws of the place. It is a question of attempting, 1IIl'Iuctable tendency of what I call 'religion': meaning is always already ther e, 11111 man has lost it): [ ... J the meaning attributed to this particular type of incident, by Watt, in his relations, was now the initial meaning that had been lost and then recovered, and now a meaning quite distinct from the initial meaning, and now a meaning evolved, after a delay of varying length, and with greater or less pains, from the initial absence of meaning. , I ! I , '. I " forever in vain, to understand the impenetrable designs of Mr. Knott. Where (W p . 76; W US, p. 79).89 I, , is he right now? In the garden? On the first floor? What is he preparing? Who does he love? Struggling with obscure laws -here lies the Kafkian dimension ! ! III Watt, thought is therefore granted the following opportunity: that the event I,

of this book -thought is irritated and fatigued. What saves thought is that which functions 'outside the law', what adds itself to the situation -which is nevertheless declared closed and incapable of addition -as symbolised by Mr. Knott's house. Watt calls these paradoxical supplements 'incidents'. For example, the fact that, according to the perceptible laws of the House, the origin of the dog for which Mr. Knott leaves out his dish is entirely incomprehensible. As Watt declares, with regard to these incidents, they are 'of great formal brilliance and indeterminable purport' (W, p. 71; W US, p. 74).88 At this juncture, thought awakens to something completely different than the vain grasp of its own predestination -not to mention the torture elicited by the imperative of the word. By means of hypotheses and variations, 56 exists. But, once awoken by incidents, the movement of thought turns back I' I 10 the origin and the repetition of meaning. The predestining pull of Mr. 'I Knott's house is the strongest element of them all. The question remains that oflinking incidents back to the supposed core of all signification. Almost at the other extreme of Beckett's trajectory -inIll Seen III Said or in Worstward Ho -we encounter once again the central function of the cvent, but here thought's awakening operates in a thoroughly different manner. It is no longer a question of the play of sense and nonsense, of meaning and meaninglessness. Already in Endgame (1952), Cloy mocks Hamm's idea, according to which if 'Something is taking its course' (CDW, p. 107; E, p. 32)90 one must conclude that there is meaning: 57

,-----------' " , ----I' ' Mean something! You and I, mean something! [Brie/laugh.] Ah that's a , ' IXhausts itself(as Beckett says, the eye is 'still agonizing') in the considerat ion "I what there is, of the neutral abode of being. good one! (CDW, p. 108; E, p. 33)91 What does 'ill seen ill said' mean? The event cannot but be 'ill seen', since it precisely constitutes an exception to the ordinary laws of visibility. The 'well seen' takes us back to the indifference of the place, to the grey-black ofbeing. The formal brilliance of the incident, of 'what happens', thwarts both seeing and 'well seeing' by way of the surprise that it imposes. But the event is also 'ill said', since well saying is nothing other than the reiteration of established significations. Even under the pretext ofmeaning, it is not a question of reducing the formal novelty of the event to the significations carried by ordinary language. To the 'ill seen' of the event there must correspond a verbal invention, an unknown act of naming. In terms ofthe usual laws oflanguage, this will necessarily manifest itself as an 'ill said'. 'Ill seen ill said' designates the possible agreement between that which, as pure emergence [surgissement], is in exception of the laws of the visible (or of presentation) and that which, by poetically inventing a new name for this emergence, is in exception of the laws of saying (or of representation).92 Everything depends on the harmony between an event and the poetic emergence of its name. Let us read the following passage from III Seen III Said: 2) Reduced to a simple trait by the method of ascesis, the event is a Ii(lise, constituting an exception ('sudden') to the monotonous and repetitious 1I1spection. 3) 'The mind awakens'. This confirms that thought is only diurnal and vlj',ilant under the effect of an event. 4) At first, the question that constitutes the awakening of thought is PIl:occupied with explaining ('How explain itT). This is the dominant figure III Watt. But the subject renounces explanation at once, in favour of a

('(llllpletely different question, the question of the name: 'How say itT 5) This name is doubly invented, doubly subtracted from the ordinary laws oflanguage. It is constructed from the noun 'collapsion' .. of which it is lIoled that it is 'uncommon' and of the adjective 'slumberous' which is i II frequent' and moreover does not agree with the noun. In sum, this name is a poetic composition (an ill said), a surprise within language attuned to the :all'prise -to the 'sudden' .. ofthe event (an ill seen). 6) This attunement produces a 'gleam of lorture of inspection. And though it is rommencement, a modest beginning, it is Ihe thought that it awakens like an act hope'. It is opposed to the certainly nothing more than a a commencement that comes to of grace.

What is this beginning? What is this hope? What power is harboured hy the precarious agreement between the emergence ofthe new and the poetic , , , " ,II, Ii I " : ! , , I: il illvention of a name? Let us not hesitate to say that we are dealing with the During the inspection a sudden sound. Startling without consequence for the gaze the mind awake. How explain it? And without going so far how say it? Far behind the eye the quest begins. What time the event recedes. When suddenly to the rescue it comes again. Forthwith the uncommon common noun collapsion. Reinforced a little later if not enfeebled by the infrequent slumberous. A slumberous collapsion. Two. Then far from the still agonizing eye a gleam of hope. By the grace ofthese modest beginnings (ISIS, p. 55; NO, p. 83).93 We must carefully note the stages whereby Beckett fixes within prose the movement of the 'ill seen ill said'. 1) The situation that serves as the starting point is the 'inspection', understood as the normal role of seeing, and of well seeing; the 'inspection' 58 hope of a truth.

Meaning, the torture of meaning, is the vain and interminable agreement hdween what there is, on the one hand, and ordinary language, on the other between 'well seeing' and 'well saying'. The agreement is such that it is 1I0t even possible to decide if it is commanded by language or prescribed by heing. Frankly, this is the tiresome torture of all empiricist philosophies. A truth begins with the organisation of an agreement between, on the one hand, a separable event 'shining with formal clarity' and, on the other, Ihe invention in language of a name that from now on retains this event, even i f-inevitably .. the event 'recedes' and finally disappears. The name will guarantee within language that the event is sheltered. But if some truths exist, then happiness is not out of the question. It is simply necessary to expose these truths to the test of the Other. One must experiment ifat least one truth can be shared. Like in Enough, when the two 59 -

..----..----Ihilill /\s though it were necessary, in order to guarantee prose's definitive i" 1111 " 0 I' pi ural humanity, that prose establish an eternity of sorts, a se parate .other: 1111" '1 .IImy where the animals in question are atemporally observed. It is We took flight in arithmetic. What mental calculations bent double hand 11111Iti llable that these laboratories clearly resemble Dante's settings. As we , in hand! (eSp, p. 141; GSP, p. 188)94 k,II '1\ . I kckett undertook painstaking studies of The Inferno, and of the fifth i!,I I I III particular. , ,1111" mathematics. . III The Lost Ones (1 967-70) the place is a huge rubber cylinder whose I'll\:;Il'aI parameters are subject to laws (light, temperature, sound, etc.) wh ich Ill ' ,I:; strict and contingent as the laws of physical science.96 The 'little people' 7. Others lilill Ilihabit the place have no other aim than to look for their los t one. This is Ih,' vny start of the fable: I'"'' I I! " i\bode where lost bodies roam each searching for its lost one. ( 'SP, p. 159; GSP, p. 202).97 . :

What is the 'lost one'? It is each one's own other, the one who "IIII',ularises a given inhabitant, who wrenches the inhabitant away from ill Il' Ilymity. To find one's lost one is to come to oneself; to no longer be a r,lllIplc element of the small group of searchers. It is thus that Beckett , ';lll lIIounts the painful antinomies of the cogito: one's identity does not dep end IIpOIl the verbal confrontation with oneself, but upon the discovery of one's ,001ICr. i

! "

[ ... J what flutterings, alarms and bashful fumblings, of which only this, , that they gave Macmann some insight into the meaning of the expression, On this simple basis, and through the meticulous description of the Two is company (T, p. 261; TN, p. 260).95 \ Il'issitudes ofthe search (one must run around in the cylinder, climb ladders, " ,plore the niches situated at different heights, etc.), Beckett succeeds in " ,Iracting a few criteria for the classification of plural humanity. The most important among these criteria distinguishes searching humans 110m those who have renounced the search. The latter have given up on their dcsire, since in the cylinder no other desire exists than that of finding one's lost one (i.e. no desire other than -in the words of Nietzsche, whom the VI)Lmg Beckett knew well-'to become what one is '). These broken searchers ;1rc called the vanquished. Note that to be vanquished is never to be vanquished by the other. On the contrary, here to be vanquished is to renounce the other. The second criterion brings us back to the primitive categories of lIIovement and rest. Some of the searchers ambulate ceaselessly, some stop and others no longer move. Beckett recapitulates as follows the human groups that can be described

60 61

Alain Badiou On and enumerated with the help of these two criteria: Seen from a certain angle these bodies are of four kinds. Firstly those perpetually in motion. Secondly those who sometimes pause. Thirdly those who short of being driven off never stir from the coign they have won and when driven off pounce on the first free one that offers and freeze again. [... J Fourthly those who do not search or non-searchers sitting for the most part against the wall [... J (CSP, p. 161; GSP, pp. 204-205).98 The absolute nomadic living beings (first category) and the vanquished (fourth category) are extreme figures of human desire. Between the two we find those that Beckett names the 'sedentary' (the second and third figures). ," , , Notwithstanding these distinctions, all of Beckett's paradoxical optimism is concentrated in one point: it can happen -very rarely, almost never, but not quite never -that a vanquished searcher returns to the arena of the search. This is what we could call the Beckettian conception of freedom. Of course we can be vanquished, that is, defeated in the desire that constitutes us. But even then, all possibilities still exist, including the possibility that this defeat, irreversible in its essence (for how could the one whose desire is dead even desire for his desire to return?), may become miraculously reversible. I Every sedentary figure is a possible nomad. Even the one who gives up I i on his desire can suddenly desire to desire (we are then dealing, in a stron g I, , , I , , sense, with an event). There is no eternal damnation, and hell -for one who ' I dwells within it -can be revealed as nothing but a purgatory. This indestructibility of possibles, which takes place precisely at the point at which one has renounced them, is affirmed by Beckett in an extraordinarily dense passage. This passage is a perfect example of what above I called the 'elongation' of the phrase, the non-punctuated style that unifies all the ramifications ofthe idea: [ . ..J in the cylinder what little is possible is not so it is merely no longer so and in the least less the all of nothing if this notion is maintained (CSP, p. 167; GSP, pp. 211-212).99 This statement is elucidated as follows. On the one hand, every lapse

in the desire to search for one's other is absolute. For though this desire diminishes ('the least less '), it is also as if it had annulled itself (in the least 62 .. --'..-----------------..-----, -------------

I, I 1" ,;, there is 'the all of nothing'). On the other hand, however, what is not I", ,'ahle (such as recommencing one's search if one has renounced it) is not i "" 11111 ively and properly speaking impossible, but only temporarily 'no longer ' I l'tI',::ihle. That means that the choice of renunciation destroys everything, I, IIlIt tlIe possibility that inheres in choice remains mysteriously indestructibl e, , ;\ figure of plural humanity is always suspended between the il l t'versibility ofchoice and the maintenance -which is to say the reversibili ty I' I: t Ii possibles, I , In How It Is -without doubt the greatest of Beckett's prose works, nitIlig with Enough andIIISeen IIISaid-the distribution ofthe figures obeys 1\ t Ii f'icrent principle. The human animals crawl along through a sort ofblack mud, each one til :Igging a sack offood. This imperative to travel harbours four possiqilities : 1) To continue crawling alone in the dark. 2) To encounter someone in an active position, pouncing upon them in IIIl' dark. This is the figure that Beckett calls the 'tormentor', Note that the ,, II , prillcipal activity ofthe tormentor is to extort from his victim -if needs be by plallting in his arse the sharpened top of a tin can -stories, fables from anoth er

11 1l:, memories. This proves that the tormentor also wants to find his lost one , ItI hc wrested away from solitude and subtracted from the darkness of infinite nawling by the one he encounters. 3) To be abandoned by the one encountered. At this point, all that 1l'llIains is to make oneself immobile in the dark. 4) Being encountered by someone, this time in a passive position: he pounces on you while you are immobile in the dark, and it is you who will Ilave to give him his due of fables. This is the position that Beckett calls the ' victim' . The enumeration of the generic figures of humanity operates once again hy combining the movement/rest couple and the self/other couple. One can Iravel alone and one can be immobile alone; one can be either a tormentor or a victim. These figures are sustained by a rigorous principle of equality: none is sliperior to the others. The use of the words 'tormentor' and 'victim' must not Icad us astray. It does not imply any sort of pathos or ethics -besides the ethics of prose, that is. And even the latter, as Beckett warns, could easily be exaggerated, since words always 'ring' too much for them to maintain the :ll1onymity and the equality of the figures that the human animal can take. It 63

..-.......---..-....-..--'I I , Alain Badiou On " " . I,,I, I I I', , I:' " , , is this equality of the figures that justifies this very profound statement: [ ... ] in any case we have our being injustice I have never heard anything to the contrary (RII, p. 135; RII US, p. 124)100 The justice mentioned here is entirely unrelated to any kind of norm or finality. It concerns the ontological equality of the figures taken by the gener ic human subject. Speaking of the moments in which one is either tormentor or victim and thereby concerned with the extortion of a word or a story -Beckett declares that they relate to 'life in stoic love'. This establishes a double lin k that makes 'love' into the true name of a subject's encounter of its other or lost one and connects this encounter to the tender fables of the past. Having traversed -thanks to the fictional set-up of the encounter with an other -the terrorising limits ofthe solipsistic cogito, we discover both the potentiality of love and the resources of nostalgia. 8. Love The event in which love originates is the encounter. From the thirties onwards -in Murphy -Beckett emphasises that the power of the encounter is such that nothing, either in feeling or in the desiring body, can measure up to it: And to meet [...] in my sense exceeds the power offeeling, however tender, and of bodily motions, however expert (M, p. 124; M US, p. 222).101 Ifthe question ofthe existence and difference ofthe other is so charged, it is because the very possibility of the encounter is played out within it. It is wit h regard to this point that Beckett constructs set-ups of literary experience in order to evaluate the negative hypothesis (as in Company, whose last word is 'alone') or to hold the positive hypothesis (as inEnough and Happy Days, in which the figure of the couple is indisputable and gives rise to a strange and powerful form of happiness). The encounter brings forth the Two; it fractures solipsistic seclusion. Is this primordial Two sexuated? We are not speaking here of the numerous and mostly carnivalesque sexual scenes that can be found in Beckett's stories, III which the dilapidation of the elderly is regarded with tenderness and li pn..scnted with joy. Rather, we are trying to see if love and the encounter I"IIV idc us with sexuated figures. It has often been claimed that Beckett's 'couples' are in fact asexual or III1 L..cllline and that there is something interchangeable -or homo-sexual -in 1I1l' positions of the partners. I think this is entirely mistaken. Of course, Ikckctt generally does not start out from the empirical evidence that divides 1IIIII1an animals into men and women. The methodical ascesis forbids him 1111111 doing so; often, he makes careful use ofthe pronouns and articles so as 111.1 10 permit a decision regarding the sex of the speaker or 'character'. But fllC effect of the encounter truly does fix two absolutely dissimilar positions. ( IIIC can therefore say that for Beckett the sexes do not pre-exist the amorous

"I Icounter, being instead its result, What does this dissimilarity consist in? We have seen that in How It Is, ;Ilicr a human animal has pounced upon another, there is the figure of the I,'Imentor and that ofthe victim. Let us agree to call the first 'masculine' and IIIL.. second 'feminine' (though it is true that Beckett refrains from uttering Ihcse words). We must insist that this distinction is entirely unrelated to any ,';lIpposed 'identity' of the subjects. For all that, under the condition of an ellcounter in which 'she' would pounce on an other, a victim could become a lurmentor. But from within a given amorous situation (let us call 'love' what proceeds from an encounter) there necessarily are these two figures. However, these figures are far from being reducible to the opposition hetween the active and the passive. Here we must keep the complexity of llcckett's construction firmly in mind. For example, after an indeterminate time, it is the victim who goes away, leaving the tormentor 'immobile in the dark'. Therefore, we must IIllderstand that whoever is travelling with his or her sack is on the side ofth e 'Ieminine', or at least coming from the feminine. Conversely, someone who is abandoned immobile in the dark is on the side of the 'masculine', or at least can be said to stagnate in this position. We can therefore oppose the lI10bility that defines the feminine to a tendency within the male to morose immobility. Likewise, it is certain that the figure of the tormentor is that of the commandment, ofthe imperative. But what is the content of this figure? It is 10 be found in the extraction from the victim of stories and reminiscences, scraps of everything that may touch on what Beckett magnificently names 'the blessed days of blue' (CSP, p. 153; GSP, p. 197).102 We are therefore , nI," , ,1I 64 65

.. _._--

, . ' Alain Badiou On justified in saying that ifon the masculine side we rediscover the (half-joyous and half-torturous) imperative to 'go on', it is on the female side that the power of the story, the archives ofwandering, and the memory ofbeauty are set out. Ultimately, every encounter prescribes four main functions: the force of wandering, the pain of immobility, the enjoyment [jouissance] of the imperative, and the invention of the story. It is on the basis of these four functions that the encounter determines the emergence of sexuated positions. The combination ofthe imperative and immobility will be called 'masculine'; the combination ofwandering and the story will be called 'feminine'. 11"" In Enough, we find an even deeper determination ofthe duality ofthe sexes, as elicited by love. Here, the masculine position is specified by a constant desire for separation. The heroine (I don't exactly call the one who holds the inseparable position a 'woman') says: We were severed ifthat is what he desired (CSP, p. 141; GSP, p. 188).103 InHappyDays, it is evidently Willie who keeps himselfaloof, invisible and absent, whilst it is Winnie who proclaims the eternity -day after day -of the couple, and declares its legitimacy. I : ! I I II " , , In effect, the masculine position fosters the desire for a break. It is no t a question of returning to solipsism, but rather ofthe Two being experienced and re-experienced [eprouve re-prouve] in the between [entre-Deux], in what distinguishes the two terms ofthe couple. Masculine desire is affected here infected by the void that separates the sexuated positions in the very unity of the amorous process. The 'man' desires the nothing of the Two, whilst the 'woman' -the wandering guardian and narrator oforiginal unity, ofthe pure point of the encounter -desires nothing but the Two, that is, the infinite tenacity of a lasting Two. She is 'the lasting desire to last',104 whilst the masculine is the perpetual temptation to inquire about the exact location ofthe void that passes between One and One.

But the most admirable part ofthe text is the examination ofthe relation between love and knowledge [connaissance], between the happiness oflove and thejoy ofknowledge. We have already cited the passage where the couple sustain each other in their walk by means of vast arithmetical reflections. 66 I l lils ligure of free knowledge [savoir], of the encyclopaedia -in which the ,I.. V emerges upon the mirror of thought -is 'masculine', and as such it is Illved by the woman. Thus we read in Enough: , In order from time to time to enjoy the sky he resorted to a little round I mirror. Having misted it with his breath and polished it on his calf he looked in it for the constellations. I have it! he exclaimed referring to the Lyre or the Swan. And often he added that the sky seemed much the same (CSP, p. 142; GSP, p. 190).105 Love is this interval in which a sort ofinquiry about the world is pursued I'l infinity. Because in love knowledge [savoir] is experienced and transmitted I letween two irreducible poles ofexperience, it is subtracted from the tedium orobjectivity and charged with desire. Knowledge is the most intimate and 111()st vital thing that we possess. In love, we are not seized by what the worl d I..; . it is not the world that holds us captive. On the contrary, love is the paradoxical circulation -between 'man' and 'woman' -of a wondrous knowledge that makes the universe ours. Love then is when we can say that we have the sky, and that the sky has I lIothing.106 9. Nostalgia Because Beckett wrote a brilliant essay on Proust in 1931, it has often heen deemed possible to conclude that there is some analogy between the two writers in what concerns the treatment of memory. This conviction is reinforced when one notes that in Beckett the emergence ofthe past presents itselfin blocks, episodes ofprosodic isolation, and that childhood is privileged with regard both to places (Ireland) and to characters (Mother and Father). I believe that this analogy is misleading. This is because the function of involuntary memory, which in Proust is bound up with a metaphysics of time, in Beckett -besides the fact that one should instead speak of a 'voluntarism of remembrance' -constitutes an experimentation of alterity. It follows that the fragments of childhood -or the amorous memories , are always signalled by an abrupt change in the tone of the prose (a calm beauty made up of rhythmic fluidity, assonance, and an elemental certainty: the night, the stars, the water, the meadows... ), and never reflect what the 67

'. I" 'I " Alain Badiou On presented situation (the place of being) could harbour in terms of truth 01' eternity. We are dealing with another world, with the hypothesis whereby the ,I grey-black of being is juxtaposed, in an improbable and distance place, to a , " colourful and sentimental universe. The narration of this universe puts solipsism to the test and forces literature to refect upon the theme of pure difference (or of the 'other life'). It is essential to note that we are dealing here not with an experience of consciousness but with a story that is materially distributed at a distance from the subject. What this story proposes can touch upon three distinct dimensions of the universe of nostalgia: the existence of a 'voice' that would come to the subject from outside; what a real encounter allows one to hear, by way of fables and tender beauties, from the mouth of an other; a I " I stratification ofthe subject itself, whose origin is by no means to be found in childhood or youth, which instead constitutes the subject's interior aIterity. This interior aIterity refers to fact that an existence has no unity, that it is

I,

, , ! I ! ' I I composed of heterogeneous sediments; it thus lends greater consistency to -upper lake, with the punt, bathed off the bank, then pushed out into the the thesis concerning the impossibility of a cogito that would be capable of counting the subject as One. These three uses of nostalgia are systematically set out, one at a time, in three of Beckett's works. Krapp s Last Tape (1959) presents a 'character' -Krapp -who listens to various stories and reflections recorded onto magnetic tapes. The voice that reaches us is thus in general a 'Strong voice, rather pompous, clearly Krapp s at a much earlier time' (CDW, p. 217; SP, p. 57).107 Krapp listens to fragments from these old tapes, comments upon them and records these commentaries. Thus the distance between these fictionalised fragments of the past and his real situation is staged: Krapp is an old man who eats nothing but bananas and -in line with the favourite occupation of the inhabitants of the grey-black ofbeing -it is beyond doubt that he must die interminably. Whether they are gestural or practical, Krapp's commentaries are for the most part not very affable. This is especially the case when the tape's prose appears to rise to the level of philosophical formulation, like in the following: -unshatterable association until my dissolution of storm and night with the light ofthe understanding and the fire -(CDW, p. 220; SP, p. 60).108 68 stream and drifted. She lay stretched out on the floorboards with her hands , under her head and her eyes closed. Sun blazing down, bit of a breeze, water nice and lively. I noticed a scratch on her thigh and asked her how

she came by it. Picking gooseberries, she said. I said again how I thought it was hopeless and no good going on and she agreed, without opening her eyes. [Pause.] I asked her to look at me and after a few moments -[Pause. ] _ after a few moments she did, but the eyes just slits, because of the glare. I bent over her to get them in the shadow and they opened. [Pause. Low. ] Let me in. [Pause.] We drifted in among the flags and stuck. The way they went down, sighing, before the stem! [Pause.] I lay down across her with my face in her breasts and my hand on her. We lay there without moving. But under us all moved, and moved us, gently, up and down, and from side to side (CDW, p. 221; SP, p. 61),u o At first, Krapp struggles to annul nostalgia by recourse to pure distance: Just been listening to that stupid bastard I took myself for thirty years ago, hard to believe I was ever as bad as that. Thank God that's all done with anyway (CDW, p. 222; SP, p. 62).111 But the remainder of the play shows that the insistence of the fragment is not damaged by this abstract protest. The other life radiates beneath thc 69

_.------.-------_. _-------------

I: Alain Badiou On \) II" These are limpid stories, whose biographical dimension is underlined ';!I'"1 insult. Certainly, Krapp is brought back to the classical couple of silence and , the void (this is the end of the play: 'Krapp motionless staring before him. i ll lirst in a parodic way, as in the paragraph that starts: 'You first saw the The tape runs on in silence', CDW, p. 223; SP, p. 63).112 No true link is III,ht in the room you most likely were conceived in' (C, p. 15; NO, p. 7).117 -.. l illie by little, however, the nostalgic tonality takes hold of the prose. established between nostalgia and the course ofthings. Memory is not a saving function. But, once it is captured in a story, memory is simply what attests to , ,", 'II : the immanent power of the Other. ," "" , , , , ,, 'II , II In How It Is, this power of the story derives from a real Other -Pim, the 'victim' -who gives the 'hero' his own life, whether real or invented it does not matter: that life then said to have been his invented remembered a little ofeach no knowing that thing above he gave it to me I made it mine what I fancied skies especially and the paths he crept along how they changed with the sky and where you were going on the Atlantic in the evening on the ocean

going to the isles or coming back the mood ofthe moment less important the creatures encountered hardly any always the same I picked my fancy good moments nothing left (HII, p. 80; HII US, p. 72)113 This time the story is a transmission of existence, the possibility of fabulating one's own life using the most intense fragments ofthe other's life as material. Nostalgia abides, because for those who crawl in the dark these fragments remain inaccessible, they are 'above', like stigmata oflight. But the possibility ofdemanding the story, ofextorting it from the one with whom 'it was good moments good for me we're talking of me for him too we're talking of him too happy too' (RII, p. 57; RII US p. 51)1I4 guarantees for prose its function as a measure. This measure concerns the gap between the other life and the real, between the dark and the light, and thus inscribes within being itselfthe possibility of difference: I nothing only say this say that your life above YOUR LIFE pause my life ABOVE long pause above INTHE in the LIGHTpause light his life above in the light almost an octosyllable come to think of it a coincidence (HU, p. 79; HU US p. 72)1l4 In Company, the construction of the text is carried out on the basis of seventeen 'memorial' sequences, all of which are connected to the initial supposition, which is that 'A voice comes to one in the dark' (C, p. 7; NO, p. 70 111..ht: A strand. Evening. Light dying. Soon none left to die. No. No such thing then as no light. Died on to dawn and never died. You stand with your back to the wash. No sound but its. Ever fainter as it slowly ebbs. Till it slowly flows again. You lean on a long staff. Your hands rest on the knob and on them your head. Were your eyes to open they would first see far below in the last rays the skirt of your greatcoat and the uppers of your boots emerging from the sand. Then and it alone till it vanishes the shadow ofthe staffon the sand. Vanishes from your sight. Moonless starless night. Were your eyes to open dark would lighten (C, pp. 75-76; NO, pp. 39-40).118 Nostalgia gives rise in the prose to fragments of beauty, and, even if Ihe certainty always returns that the other life is separated, lost, a light fro m elsewhere, the force of nostalgia lies in giving us the power to suppose that one day (before, afterward, time is of no importance here) the eye will open and, under its astonished gaze, in the nuances of the grey-black of being, something will lighten. 10. Theatre Theatre, and especially Waitingfor Godot, is the source of Beckett's fame. Today Godot is a classic, along with Endgame and Happy Days. Nevertheless, we cannot say that the exact nature of Beckett's theatre has been rendered entirely clear. Nor can this be said of the relation (or nonrelati on) between the theatre and the movement of that prose which it constantly accompanied -given that a play like Catastrophe, for examplc, can be considered a late work (1982). Ofcourse, the major themes ofBeckett's work can, without exception, be found in the theatre.

71

'I" ,

is that not enough for you? [Calmer.] They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more (CDW, p. 83; WG, p. 103).123 ( )11 the other, that of Vladimir, who will never give up on the hypothesis of ( ,odot's arrival (the caesura of time and the constitution of a meaning), so thal the duty of humanity is to hold onto an uncertain, but imperative, I,I I The estimations of the importance of language, as in Happy Days: Illjunction: 'I , I ,II' I' 'I , Words fail, there are times when even they fail. [Turning a little towards WILLIE.] Is that not so, Willie? [Pause. Turning a little further.] Is not that so, Willie, that even words fail, at times? [Pause. Back front,] What is one to do then, until they come again? (CDW, p. 147; HD, p. 24)120 The torture of the cogito, prey to the uncontrolled imperative of saying, a perfect example of which is Lucky's long monologue in Waitingfor Godot (this is especially the case if we recall that Lucky only begins to speak when Pozzo, pulling him by his leash, commands him: 'Think, pig!' ,121 CDW, p. 41; WG, p. 28): [Oo.] the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite ofthe tennis the labours abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard [Melee, final vociferations] tennis ... the stones ... so calm ... Cunard ... unfinished ... (CDW, p. 43; WG, p. 47)122 What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come [ ...] Or for night to fall. [Pause.] We have kept our appointment, and that's an end to that. We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much? (CDW, p. 74; WG, p. 91)124 Obviously, the question of others is incessantly brandished on stage, whether under the effect of an encounter (meeting Pozzo and Lucky, Vladimir and Estragon speak to them in order to evade being 'alone once more, in the midst of nothingness,'12s CDW, p. 75; WG, p. 52); or because the apparent

ligure of the monologue, like in Happy Days, presupposes an interlocutor, someone whom the voice reaches and who might respond (,Oh he's coming to speak to me today, oh this is going to be another happy day! '); or because, as in Play -in which the characters (two women and a man) are stuck up to their necks in urns -it is only a question of their links, which become the eternal material of these stereotypical stories that they ceaselessly lavish upo n us; stories that are borrowed, even in their style, from the repertoire of gutte r I I ,II i I' I "' !I"' I' ' I , talk: . M: She was not convinced. I might have known. I smell her off you, she kept saying. There was no answer to this. So I took her in my arms and swore I could not live without her. I meant it, what is more. Yes, I am sure I did. She did not repulse me. Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day like any other day, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, 72 WI: Judge then of my astonishment when one fine morning, as I was sitting stricken in the morning room, he slunk in, fell on his knees before me, buried his face in my lap and ... confessed (CDW, p. 309; SP, p. 149).126 73

,,,,,,II ! i" I:I , II, 'I We have shown how nostalgia, which gives rise to calm blocks of beauty within the prose, haunts Krapp s Last Tape. But even a text as harsh and impenetrable as Endgame can sometimes open up to the metaphor of the inventions of childhood: Then babble, babble, words, like the solitary child who turns himself into children, two, three, so as to be together, and whisper together, in the dark (CDW, p. 126; E, p. 70).127 As for love, conceived as what a 'tormentor' and a 'victim' are capable of, it is the subject of most ofthe plays, and it must be noted that the couple, or the pair, forms its basic unit. Willie and Winnie in Happy Days, Hamm and Clov (flanked by Nagg and Nell) in Endgame, Vladimir and Estragon (flanked by Pozzo and Lucky) in Waitingfor Godot... Even Krapp forms a duo with his magnetic tape, pairing up with his own past. What's more, this is where the singularity of Beckett's theatre can perhaps be seen to reside. There is theatre only so long as there is dialogue, discord and discussion between two characters, and Beckett's ascetic method restricts theatre to the possible effects ofthe Two. The display ofthe unlimited resources of the couple -even when it is aged, monotonous and almost despicable -and the verbal capture of all the consequences of duality are Beckett's fundamental theatrical operations. If these duettists have often been compared to clowns, it is precisely because in the circus one already ignores situations or intrigues, exposition or denouement; what matters is the production of a powerfully physical inventory ofthe extreme figures of duality (symbolised by the juxtaposition of Auguste and the white clown). This physical immediacy is very evident in Beckett's theatre, in which the stage directions that describe the postures and gestures of the characters occupy as much, if not more, space than the text itself. Besides, let us not forget tha t Beckett was always tempted by mime, as testified by Acts Without Words (1957). From this point of view, Beckett is indisputably the only serious writer of the last century to belong to a major tradition within comic theatre: contrasted duos, anachronistic costumes (falsely 'posh' outfits, bowler hats, etc.), sequences of skits rather than the development of an intrigue, trivialiti es, insults and scatology, parodies oflofty language (in particular philosophical

language) indifferent to any verisimilitude, and above all the relentlessness 74 . Alain Badiou On Beckett 11I:llli tested by the characters in persevering in their being, in maintaining 1 1 1I11t: hell or high water -a principle of desire, a vital power that circumsta nces .ITIIl to render illegitimate or impossible at each and every instant. The handicap is not a pathetic metaphor for the human condition. Comic IIll'alre swarms with libidinous blind figures, with impotent old men Iltt:ntlessly following their passions, with battered but triumphant maid-slaves, IV iIh imbecilic youths, with crippled megalomaniacs ... It is in this '-;lI"Ilivalesque heritage that we must situate Winnie, buried up to her neck alld singing the praises ofthe happy day; Hamm -blind, paralytic and mean hitterly playing out his uncertain part to the very end without faltering; or , Ilit: duo of Vladimir and Estragon, amused and revived by a mere nothing, 11'1 , , ," l"!nnally capable as they are of keeping the 'appointment'. ' Beckett must be played with the most intense humour, taking advantage ()f" the enduring variety of inherited theatrical types. It is only then that th e Irllc destination of the comical emerges: neither a symbol nor a metaphysics , III disguise, and even less a derision, but rather a powerful love for human ()bstinacy, for tireless desire, for humanity reduced to its stubbornness and I' !' malice. Beckett's characters are these anonymous figures of human toil which I, Ihc comedy renders at once interchangeable and irreplaceable. This is indeed Ihc meaning of Vladimir's exalted tirade: It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not (CDW, p. 74; WG, p. 90).128

On the stage, embodied by couples acting out all the postures of visible humanity, two by two, for the laughter of all, we have this 'here and now' I which gathers us together and authorises thought to grasp that anyone is the I cqual of anyone else [n 'importe qui est /'egal de n'importe qUI]. Doubtless, we will never know 'who' Godot is, but it is enough that he I is the emblem of everyone's obstinate desire for something to happen. However, when Pozzo asks: 'Who are you?', one easily understands -in the lineage of Aristophanes and Plautus, of Moliere and Goldoni, but also of Chaplin -why Vladimir will respond in the following way (which, as Beckctt notes in the directions, provokes a silence): 75 -" "----"'''--'''

54).129 ,:ack the little fables ofabove littIescenes a little blue infernalhomes . We are men (CDW, p. 76; WG, p. (1 111, p. 140; HII US, p. 128)132 . . I [ I'D without . ? d meanIng?) 111,-;lIling (andwhywouldh.fehaveameamng.lsltsuch a godsen , 11. Beauty, Again . h' htheweakness, h t f I . "I I. I illS a super-existence comparabletot a 0 ga aXles, 1ll w IC ' . . . O moreman a pt'lition and obstmacy of hfe, disappears, becommg nothmg lI' . the ( ;It'at Bear at the end of Mallanne's Coup de des: Bossuet: so long, in Enough. Sudden enough. Suddenall far. No move and suddenallfar.All ing . And it is least. Three pins. One pinhole. Indimmost dim. Vasts apart.Atbouuosof boundless void (WH, pp. 46-47; NO, p. 116).133 is born in the silent world, reproaching you affectionately vvith having despaired too late (T, p. 278; TN, p. 277).130 [the dlnI. No

I d' h . . ' d kind of lethal glue' (T, p. 264; TN, p. 262).134 . Art's . 111 ission is to shelter these pomts ofexceptIOn rom w IC . patience. sort I , III I _ The beauty of frOID the I. I ,I I II I ' . III I

II I I IIII' I h

. saymg. and courage come to us. , , .re to II I think. 78; HII US, p. 70),131 but there is also: .. ' , bo also Without doubt this is because he was lIke Moran mMo/lo), w . , ., [. . .] the journey the couple the abandon when the whole tale :is told the tonnentor you are said to have had then lost the journey you

said to , III ,II, '! ,.I .. For it was only by transferring it to this atmosphere, how shall I say, of 76 77 , II

-..-.. -----------.-,I . >=..-------..-..-.. -,

, Alain Badiou On Beckett ..,ack the little fables of above little scenes a little blue infernal homes. (l lll, p. 140; HII US, p. 128Y32 We are men (CDW, p. 76; WG, p. 54).129 11. Beauty, Again Despair, you say? I am reminded of this magnificent passage from Malone Dies, in which prose attains cadences that recall the writings of Bossuet: The horror-worn eyes linger abject on all they have beseeched so long, in a last prayer, the true prayer at last, the one that asks for nothing. And it is then a little breath of fulfillment revives the dead longings and a murmur is born in the silent world, reproaching you affectionately with having despaired too late (T, p. 278; TN, p. 277).130 Butwhen it is seized by beauty this acceptable material of a life without IIwalling (and why would life have a meaning? Is it such a godsend, meaning?) 1111:1 iliS a super-existence comparable to that of galaxies, in which the weakn ess, H'pdition and obstinacy oflife, disappears, becoming nothing more than a pili II! oflight in the dim of being. At the end of the methodical ascesis, the Illilowing happens, which is entirely comparable to the emergence of the ( Ireat Bear at the end of Mallarrn6's Coup de des: Enough. Sudden enough. Sudden all far. No move and sudden all far. All least. Three pins. One pinhole. In dimmost dim. Vasts apart. At bounds of boundless void (WH, pp. 46-47; NO, p. 116).133 For Beckett, like for Mallarrne, it is false that 'nothing will take place hut the place' . Existence is not dissolved in the anonymity of the dim. No IIlOre does it coincide with solipsism. And neither is it enslaved to the , , , , . I ,

rciationship with others and to imprescriptible laws -be they the supposed , , , laws ofdesire or oflove. Love, which as Malone says, is to be 'regarded as a kind oflethal glue' (T, p. 264; TN, p. 262).134 It happens that something happens. That something happens to us. Art's , I, I, Illission is to shelter these points of exception from which truth proceeds, to Illake them shine and retain them -stellar -in the reconstituted fabric of our patience. This is a painstaking task. The element of beauty is necessary, as a sort ,, , of diffuse light within words, a subterranean lighting that I have named the , , latent poem of prose. A rhythm, a few rare colours, a controlled necessity in , the images, the slow construction ofa world fashioned so as to allow one to ,

see -in a far-away point -the pinhole that saves us: through this hole truth and courage come to us. Beckett fulfilled his task. He set out the poem of the tireless desire to . Without doubt this is because he was like Moran inMolloy, who also needed the element of beauty. Beauty, whose Kantian definition Moran is [. . . ] the journey the couple the abandon when the whole tale is told the well aware of, as the following remark amusingly testifies: tormentor you are said to have had then lost the journey you are said to

have made the victim you are said to have had then lost the images the For it was only by transferring it to this atmosphere, how shall I say, of 76

,I',l -----..------------------, Alain Badiou On finality without end, why not, that I could venture to consider the work I had on hand [Ie travail a executer] (T, p. 112; TN, p. 11 1).135 Beckett, for us who hardly dare to, took this work into consideration. The slow and sudden execution of the Beautiful. Translated by Nina Power Revised by Alberto Toscano Bibl iograp hy to 'Ti rel ess De sire' BATAILLE, Georges, 'Le silence de Molloy', Critique 58 (1951) ['Molloy's Silence', in Samuel Beckett 's Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, ed. by Harold Bloom (London: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988), pp. BECKETT, Samuel Cahiers de I 'Herne (Paris: Livre de poche, 1976). BLANCHOT, Maurice, 'OU maintenant? Qui maintenantT ,NR.F. 10 (1953), reprinted in Le Livre a venir (Gallimard) [The Book to Come, trans. by Charlotte Mandell (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002)]. , DELEUZE, Gille s, 'L'Epuise', introduction to Quad (Paris: Minuit, 1992) ['The Exhausted', inEssays Critical and Clinical, trans. by Daniel Smith (London: Verso, 1997), pp. 152-174]. MAURIAC, Claude, L 'Alitterature Contemporaine (Paris: Albin Michel, 1969) [The New Literature, trans. by Samuel I. Stone (New York: George Braziller, 1959), pp. 75-90]. MAYOUX, Jean-Jacques, 'Samuel Beckett et l'univers parodique' ,Les Lettres nouvelles 6 (1960), reprinted in Vivants piliers (Julliard, 1960) [' Samuel Beckett and Universal Parody', in Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), pp. 77SIMON, Alfred, Samuel Beckett (Paris: Belfond, 1983). 78 ,I' , ,;'1 Being, Existence, Thought: Prose and Concept136 a) The Between-Lang uages and the Shorthand of Being , Samuel Beckett wrote Worstward Ho in 1982 and published it in 1983. I I,I, II, Ii,' , "I ! ,! ' , "1!I' ,II I' " , , It is together with Stirrings Still, a testamental text. Beckett did not transla te it in..o French so that Worstward Ho expresses the real ofthe English language as Samuel B:ckett's mother-tongue. To my knowledge, all ofhis texts ..tten in French were translated by Beckett himself into English.137 There are mst..ad some texts written in English that he did not translate into French, and WhICh, for this exceptional artist of the French language, are aki . n ..o t..e remnants of something more originary within English. Nevertheless, It IS Said that Samuel Beckett considered this text 'untranslatable'. We can therefore say that II , ,II ,I',l -----..------------------,

Alain Badiou On finality without end, why not, that I could venture to consider the work I had on hand [Ie travail a executer] (T, p. 112; TN, p. 11 1).135 Beckett, for us who hardly dare to, took this work into consideration. The slow and sudden execution of the Beautiful. Translated by Nina Power Revised by Alberto Toscano Bibl iograp hy to 'Ti rel ess De sire' BATAILLE, Georges, 'Le silence de Molloy', Critique 58 (1951) ['Molloy's Silence', in Samuel Beckett 's Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, ed. by Harold Bloom (London: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988), pp. BECKETT, Samuel Cahiers de I 'Herne (Paris: Livre de poche, 1976). BLANCHOT, Maurice, 'OU maintenant? Qui maintenantT ,NR.F. 10 (1953), reprinted in Le Livre a venir (Gallimard) [The Book to Come, trans. by Charlotte Mandell (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002)]. , DELEUZE, Gille s, 'L'Epuise', introduction to Quad (Paris: Minuit, 1992) ['The Exhausted', inEssays Critical and Clinical, trans. by Daniel Smith (London: Verso, 1997), pp. 152-174]. MAURIAC, Claude, L 'Alitterature Contemporaine (Paris: Albin Michel, 1969) [The New Literature, trans. by Samuel I. Stone (New York: George Braziller, 1959), pp. 75-90]. MAYOUX, Jean-Jacques, 'Samuel Beckett et l'univers parodique' ,Les Lettres nouvelles 6 (1960), reprinted in Vivants piliers (Julliard, 1960) [' Samuel Beckett and Universal Parody', in Samuel Beckett: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), pp. 77SIMON, Alfred, Samuel Beckett (Paris: Belfond, 1983). 78 ,I' , ,;'1 Being, Existence, Thought: Prose and Concept136 a) The Between-Lang uages and the Shorthand of Being , Samuel Beckett wrote Worstward Ho in 1982 and published it in 1983. I I,I, II, Ii,' , "I ! ,! ' , "1!I' ,II I' " , , It is together with Stirrings Still, a testamental text. Beckett did not transla te it in..o French so that Worstward Ho expresses the real ofthe English language as Samuel B:ckett's mother-tongue. To my knowledge, all ofhis texts ..tten in French were translated by Beckett himself into English.137 There are mst..ad some texts written in English that he did not translate into French, and WhICh, for this exceptional artist of the French language, are aki . n ..o t..e remnants of something more originary within English. Nevertheless, It IS Said that Samuel Beckett considered this text 'untranslatable'. We can therefore say that II , ,II Critica l 13-21]. 91].

I!III !II'I II III . ..-----Alain Badiou On Beckett Alain Badiou On Worstward Ho is tied to the English language in such a singular manner that its linguistic migration proves particularly arduous. Since in this essay we will study the French version of the text, WI.) II" " ,, I cannot consider it in terms ofits literal poetics. The French text we are dealin g with, which is altogether remarkable, is not exactly by Samuel Beckett. II belongs in part to Edith Fournier, the translator. We cannot immediately approach the signification of this text by way of its letter, for it really is a

translation. 138 In Beckett's case, the problem oftranslation is complex, since he himself was situated at the interval oftwo languages. The question ofknowing which I I text translates which is an almost undecidable one. Nevertheless, Beckett always called the passage from one language to another a 'translation', even b) Saying, Being, Thought " if, upon closer inspection, there are significant differences between the French Cap aupire (an admirable French translation for the title ofWorstward

and English 'variants', differences bearing not only on the poetics oflanguage, but on its philosophical tone. There is a kind ofhumorous pragmatism in the " ,, ) presents us with an extremely dense plot, organised -like in all the late r IlL:ckett -into paragraphs. A first reading shows us that this plot develops English text that is not exactly present in the French, and there is a conceptua l l , ,I , I , our central conceptual themes into their respective questions (I will explain I sincerity to the French text which is softened and sometimes, in my view, ' I ! I, III a moment what must be understood by 'question'). just a bit watered down in the English. In WorstwardHo, we have an absolutely The first theme is the imperative ofsaying. This is a very old Beckettian I English text, with no French variant, on the one hand, and a translation in the

,I Ihcme, the most recognisable but in certain regards also the most unrecognised usual sense, on the other. Hence the obligation of finding support for our argument in the meaning rather than the letter. or his themes. The imperative of saying is the prescription of the 'again', IInderstood as the incipit of the written text, and determining it as a Asecond difficultyderives from the fact that this text is -in an absolutely conscious fashion -a recapitulatory text, that is, one takes stock ofthe whole

continuation. In Beckett, to commence is always to 'continue'. Nothing commences which is not already under the prescription ofthe again or ofre of Samuel Beckett's intellectual enterprise. To study it thoroughly it would commencing, under the supposition of a commencement that itself never commenced. We can thus say that the text is circumscribed by the imperativeof sa ying. It begins by: be necessary to show how it is woven out ofa dense network of allusions to prior texts, as well as of returns to their theoretical hypotheses to be re _ examined, possibly contradicted or modified, and refined -and, moreover, that it functions as a sort of filter through which the multiplicity ofBeckett's writings is made to pass, thereby reducing Beckett's work to its fundamental hypothetical system. Having said this, if we compound these two difficulties, it is entirely . pOSSIble to take WorstwardHo as a shortphilosophical treatise, as a treatment in shorthand ofthe question ofbeing. Unlike the earlier texts, it is not governe

On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on (p. 7; p. 89).139 And ends by: , Said nohow on (p. 47; p. 116).140 ,, ,, by a sort oflatent poem. It is not a text that penetrates into the singularity a nd like III Seen III Said, for Therefore, we can also sunnnarise Worstward Ho by the passage from power of comparison that belong to language example. It maintains a very deliberate and abstract dryness, which is offset, especially in the English original, by an extreme attention to rhythm. We II ' , !Ii 'I 'Be said on' to 'Said nohow on'. The textpresents the possibility ofthe 'nohow on' as a fundamental alteration ofthe 'on'. The negation ('nohow') attests to the fact that there is no more 'on'. But in truth, given the 'be said', the could thus say that as a text it tends to offer up the rhythm of thought rather 80 , ,

Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On of saying. . , 1II IIdy of what appears, as follows: a void infested by shades. This manner 111;ll lil.. void has of being infested by shades means that it is reduced to be ing IIII' figure of an interval amongst the shades. But let us not forget that this 1IIInvai amongst the shades is ultimately nothing but the dim, what returns II:: I() the dim as the archi-original exposition of being. We can also say that the inscribed in being -the shades -is what allows 11,;,.11" to be counted. The science of number -of the number of shades -is a 1IIIHIamental theme in Beckett. What is not being as such, but is instead III' Iposed or inscribed in being, is what lets itself be counted, what pertai.. s to pimality, what is ofthe order of number. Number is obviously not an attnbute ,111 he void or the dim: void and dim do not let themselves be counted. Instead, " " I, II is the inscribed in being that lets itself be counted. It lets itself be coun ted , priIllordially: 1, 2, 3. ,I A last variant: the inscribed in being is what can worsen. 'Worsening' -, I . Void cannot go [Disparition du vide ne se peut]. Save dim go. Then all go (p. 18; p. 97).141 ;111 essential theme in Worstward Ho, where worsening is one of the text's I I adieal operations -means, amongst other things, but above all, to be iller ',1,1 'I" :::Iid than said before [etreplus mal dit que deja ditl Once it is obliged to prove itself through the crucial ordeal of

Under this multiplicity ofattributes -what is apparent in the dim, what disappearance, the void has no autonomy. It is dependent on the disappearance ofthe all, which is, as such, the disappearance ofthe dim. Ifthe 'all go' -i.e the 'there is' thought as nothingness -is named by the dim, the void is , n Hlstitutes an interval with respect to the void, what lets itself be counted, .! ! wllat is susceptible to worsening or to being iller said than said -there is the ,Ii 'I" l',cneric name: 'the shades'. We can say that the shades are what is exposed in ,! IItc dim. The shades are the exposed plural of the 'there is', which manifests , necessarily a subordinate nomination. Ifwe accept that the 'there is' is what is there in the ordeal of its own nothingness, the fact that disappearance is i itsclfhere under the name of dim. subordinated to the disappearance of the dim makes 'dim' into the eminent name of being. The third theme is what could be referred to as 'the inscribed in being'. This is a question of what is proposed from the standpoint of being [du point de l'etre], or again, a question about what appears in the dim. The inscribed is what the dim as dim arranges within the order of appearance. Insofar as 'dim' is the eminent name of being, the inscribed is what appears in the dim. But one can also say that it is what is given in an interval ofthe void. This is because things will be pronounced upon according to the two possible names of the 'there is'. On the one hand, there is what appears in the dim, what the dim allows to appear as a shade -as a shade in the dim [I 'ombre dans la penombre]. On the other, there is what makes the void appear

as an interval, in the gap of what appears, and consequently as a corruption of In Worstward Ho, the presentation of shades will be minimal: the count will go up to three. We shall see why it can go no lower. Categorially, once .you count what lets itself be counted, you must at least count to three. The first shade is the standing shade, which counts as one. In truth, it is the one. The standing shade will also be found 'kneeling' -these metamorphoses should elicit no surprise -or 'bowed'. These are different Ilames. They are not so much states as names. Of this shade that counts as one, it is said -from page 34 (108) on -that it is an old woman: . t a w man 'S 142 Nothmg to s how a woman 's and ye o . And Beckett immediately adds (this will be clarified later): woman s. the void -if the void is determined as being nothing but difference or . ft h d Oozed from softenmg so t e wor ,

separation. This explains how Beckett could name the universe, that is, the 82 ,I , 83

, , Alain Badiou On These are the fundamental attributes ofthe one: the one is the kneeling shade and it is a woman. ,':: , I Then there is the pair, which counts as two. T he pair is the sole shade that counts as two. Beckett will say: 'Two free and two as one' -one shade. ,I,'," ..nd once the pair is named, it is established that the shades which constitute ill' It are an old man and a child. , I Let us remark that the one is not called woman until much later whilst , , ' " the two is named 'old man and child' right away. What will be said later instead, is tha.. nothing has proven that we were indeed dealing with an old , man a..d a chlld. In all these instances -with regard to the question of the . ..etermmatlO..s 'man', 'woman', 'child' -nothing provides proof, and yet it IS the case. SImply put, the modality of saying is not the same for the one ,I, wo..a..and for the two-man-child. Of the one it is not said until much later that It IS an old wom..n, whilst the composition of the pair is immediately declared (ol d ..a..-chtld); the crucial statement returns: nothing proves that, . and yet. ThIS mdlcates that the masculine sexuated position is evident and t..at the impo ssibility of proving it is difficult to understand. On the con..r ary, . .

..1..ce the femmme sexuated position is not evident, the impossibility ofproving It IS. In the pair it is obviously a question of the other, of 'the-one-and-the-1'1: , ' other'. Th.. other is here designated by its internal duplicity, by the fact that it . IS two. It IS a two that is the same. It is, let us say it again: 'Two free [sha des] and two as one.' But, a contrario, it is the one that turns into two: the old ma n , and the chil... We must suppose that old man and child are the same man qua shade, that IS to say, human life qua shade in its extreme of infancy and its extr....e of old age; a life given in what splits it in two, in the unity ofthe pair that It IS qua alterity to itself. In the end, we can say that the inscribed in being is visible humanity: wo..an as one and as inclination, man as double in the unity of number. The pertment ages are the extreme ones, as is always the case in Beckett: infant and old ..an. The adult is almost an ignored category, an insignificant category . Fmally, the fou..h theme i.. thought -as is to be expected. In and by . th..ug..t the configuratlOns of vIsIble humanity and the imperative of saying eXIst sImultaneously. I , T..ought is the recollection of the first and third themes: there is the , , !'I' ,! " . Imperative of saying, there is the inscribed in being, and this is 'for' and 'in ' thought. Let us note right away that Beckett's question is the following one: 85 84

,I "

'I' ',ncs, woman and man. These are the constitutive relations ofthe shades that populate the dim required is the possibility that something appear in its being. This possibility

, , is not constituted by the void, which is instead the name ofbeing qua being. The name of being qua possibility of appearance is 'dim' .146 ,' I! ,11111 infest the void. : I II,: The dim is being to the extent that a question can be formulated as to the being ofbeing, that is, to the extent that being is exposed to the question qua reserve of being for appearance [ressource d'etre de l'apparaftre]. This is why there must be two names (void and dim) and notjust one. For a question to be, being must have two names. Heidegger saw this too, in his concepts ofSein and Seiende. The second condition for a question is that there be thought. A skullthought, let us call it. Skull-thought is an ill seeing and an ill saying or a clenched staring eye and an oozing ofnames. But, and this point is essential, ", the skull-thought is itselfexposed. It is not subtracted from the exposition of being. It is not simply definable as that for which there is being -it participa tes in being as such, it is caught in its exposition. In Beckett's vocabulary one will say that the head (seat and terminus ofall) or the skull are in the dim. Or '

that skull-thought is the third shade. Or, again, that the skull-thought lets itselfbe counted in the uncountable dim. Does this not leave us exposed to an infinite regress? Ifthought as such co-belongs with being, where is the thought ofthis co-belonging? From where is it said that the head is in the dim? It seems that we are on the edge of the necessity -if one can hazard this expression -of a meta-head. One must count four, and then five, and so on to infinity. The protocol of closure is given by the cogito; it is necessary to admit that the head is counted by the head, or that the head sees itself as head. Or again, that it is for the clenched staring eye that there is a clenched staring eye. Here lies the Cartesian thread running through Beckett's thought. Beckett never denied this thread, which is present from the beginning of his work, but in Worstward Ho it is identified as a kind of halting rule which alone allows thatjor which there is the dim to also be in the dim. Finally, and still remaining within the register ofthe minimal conditions for a question, there must be -besides the 'there is' and the skull-thought insc riptions of shade within the dim. Shades are ruled by three relations. First, that ofthe one or the two, or ofthe same and the other. In other terms, the relation ofthe kneeling one and the walking pair, taken, like Platonic categories, as figures of the same and the other. Second, that of the extremes of age, infancy and senescence, extremes which also make it so that the pair is one. Third, the relation ofthe 88 Aparenthesis: there is a point, only alluded to in Worstward Ho, which I:; Ilevertheless crucial; it is that, as we have seen, the sexes are without pr oof. ii I Morc specifically, they are the only thing to be without proof. The fact that I Ihis shade turns out to be old woman or old man, this is always without I'roof, whilst nevertheless being certain. This means that, for Beckett, the 1 d i ITerentiation of the sexes is, at one and the same time, absolutely certain ' ;Illli absolutely beyond proof. This is why I can call it a pure disjunction. , I II ,I I Why a pure disjunction? It is certain that there is 'woman' and there is , !llan' -in this case the old woman and the old man -but this certainty does

I ! , lIot let itselfbe deduced or inferred on the basis ofany particular predicative , ' Irait. It is therefore a pre-linguistic certainty, in the sense that it can be s aid, hilt that this saying does not in turn have any other saying as its source. It i s a lirst saying. One can say that there are woman and man, but at no time can (mc infer this from another saying, and in particular not from a descriptive, (lr empirical, saying. e) Being and Existence , , , ! Under these relations -of the one and the two, ofthe extremes of age, and of the sexes -the shades attest not to being but to existence. What is cxistence, and what distinguishes it from being? Existence is the generic attribute ofwhat is capable ofworsening. What can worsen exists. 'Worsening' is the active modality of any exposition to the seeing of the clenched staring eye and to the oozing of words. This exposition is existence. Or, perhaps at a more fundamental level, what exists is what lets itselfbe encountered. Being exists when it is in the guise of the encounter. Neither void nor dim designate something that can be encountered, , because every encounter is under two conditions: on the one hand, that there be a possible interval of the void to section off what is encountered; on the other, that there be the dim, the exposition of everything that exposes itself. The shades are what lets itselfbe encountered. To let oneselfbe encountered and to worsen are one and the same thing, and it is this that designates the existence of shades. Void and dim -the names of being -do not exist. 89

1'1 , Badiou On , j; " Therefore, the minimal set-up will also be referred to as follows: being, thought, existence. When one possesses the figures of being, thought and existence, or the words for this set-up, or, as Beckett would say, the words to , " ''':1 seeing/saying complex. " ill say it -that is, when one possesses the minimal and experimental set-upof sa ying -one can construct questions, one can set the -ward. , ,i ii f) The Axiom of Saying The text will therefore organise itselfby way ofhypotheses concerningthe -ward, that is, the direction of thought. These hypotheses will concern , I I ,I what binds, unbinds, or affects the triad of dim-being, shade-existence, and skull-thought. WorstwardH will treat the triad being/existence/thought under the categories of the void, ofthe same and the other, ofthe three, and of the I

I , ,I,!' " I Before formulating any hypotheses, one must seek support in a certain number ofaxioms that establish the primary bindings or unbindings. Almost the only axiom of Worstward Ho, which moreover generates its title, is an ,, ,, old axiom of Beckett's. It is by no means invented here and perhaps even constitutes one of his oldest axioms. This axiom goes: to say is to ill say. It is necessary to fully understand that 'to say is to ill say' establishes an essential identity. The essence of saying is ill saying. III saying is not a failure ofsaying, but precisely the contrary: all saying is, in its very existen ce as saying, an ill saying. The 'ill saying' is implicitly opposed to the 'well saying'. What is the:well sa ying'? 'Well saying' constitutes a hypothesis ofadequation: the sayingIS adequat e to the said. But Beckett's fundamental thesis is that the saying i , that is adequate to the said suppresses saying. Saying is only a free saying, and in particular an artistic saying, to the extent that it does not coalesce wi th the said, to the extent that it is not subject to the authority ofthe said. Sayi ng is under the imperative ofsaying, it is under the imperative ofthe 'on', and is If there is no adequation, if the saying is not prescribed by 'what is said' but only governed by saying, then ill saying is the free essence ofsaying, or the affirmation ofthe prescriptive autonomy of saying. One says in order , to ill say. The apex of saying -which is poetic or artistic saying -is then precisely the controlled regulation of ill saying, what brings the prescriptivea

utonomy of saying to its culmination. 90

I, I ' I' , Alain Badiou On leave existence once and for all, to return to being. But Beckett corrects and ultimately rejects this possibility. Here is a text in which he evokes the hypothesis of an access to going and to the void by means of an excess of failure, an excess of failure that would be indistinguishable from the absolute success of saying: Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where neither for good. Good and all (p. 8; p. 90).148 I I This is the temptation: to go where all shade is gone, where nothing is exposed to the imperative of saying any longer. But in numerous passages, further on in the text, this temptation will be challenged, revoked, prohibited. For example on page 37 (110), where the :, idea of the 'but worse more ... ' is declared to be inconceivable: 'I Back unsay better better worse more worse may no less said? Same thing. worse by no stretch more. If more dim less light then dim. Unsaid then better worse by no stretch more. Better than less be more. Better worse what? The say? The Same nothing. Same all but nothing.149

The fundamental point is that the 'throw up for good, good and all' does not exist, because every 'same nothing' is really a 'same all but nothing'. The hypothesis of a radical departure that would subtract us from the humanity of the imperative the essential temptation at work in the prescription of silence cannot succeed for ontological reasons. The 'same nothing' is really

always a 'same all but nothing', or a 'same almost nothing', but never a 'same nothing' as such. Thus, there are never sufficient grounds for subtracting oneself from the imperative of saying, in the name either of the advent of a pure 'nothing' or of absolute failure. h) The Laws of Worsening From this point onwards, the fundamental law that governs the text is that the worst that language is capable of the worsening .. never lets itself be captured by the nothing. One is always in the 'same all but nothing', but never at the point ofthe 'go for good', where a capture by the nothing would Worse less. By no stretch more, Worse for want of better less. Less best. No. Naught best. Best worse. No. Not best worse. Naught not best worse. Less best worse. No. Least. Least best worse. Least never to be naught. Never to naught be brought. Never by naught be nulled. Unnullable least. Say that best worse. With leastening words say least best worse. For want ofworser worst. Unlessenable least best worse (pp. 31-32; p. 106).150 'Least never to be naught' is the law of worsening. 'Say that best worse' is the 'unnullable least'. The 'unlessenable least best worse' can never be confused with abolition pure and simple, or with the nothing. This means that the 'one must remain silent', in Wittgenstein's sense, is impracticable. We must hold the worstward ho. Worstward Ho: the title is an imperative, and not simply a description. . . The imperative of saying thus takes the guise of a constant repnse; It belongs to the regime of the attempt, of effort, of work. The book itself will try to worsen everything that offers itself up to the oozing of wo..ds. A considerable amount ofthe text is devoted to what could be called expenmcnts in 'worsening'. Worstward Ho is a protocol of worsening, presented as a figurcof the self-affirmation of the prescription of saying. Worsening is a sovereign procedure of naming in the excess offailure; it is the same as arousing thought by 'never direct, allusive words', and carries with it the same impassablc 92

I III'" I ' I proximity to nothingness as Mallanne's poetry. Worsening, which is the exercise of language in its artistic tension, takes place through two contradictory operations. What in fact is worsening? It is the exercise of the sovereignty of saying with respect to the shades. Therefore, it is both saying more about them and restricting what is said. This is why the operations are contradictory. Worsening is saying more about less. More words to better leasten. Whence the paradoxical aspect of worsening, which is really the substance of the text. In order to leasten 'what is said' so that -with regard t o this purging [epuration] -failure may become more manifest, it will be necessary to introduce new words. These words are not additions -one does not add, one does not make sums -but one must say more in order to leasten, and thus one must say more in order to subtract. Here lies the constitutive operation of language. To worsen is to advance the ' saying more' in order to leasten. i) Exercises in Worsening The text lavishly multiplies worsening exercises over the entire phenomenal field of shades, over the configuration of generic humanity. These can be briefly categorised as follows: -worsening the one, or, worsening the kneeling woman; -worsening the two, or, worsening the pair of the old man and the child; -worsening the head, or, worsening the eyes, the oozing brain, and the skull. These are the three shades that constitute the phenomenal detenninations of shade. Worsening the one: this is the exercise that occupies page 21 (99): First one. First try fail better one. Something there badly not wrong. Not that as it is it is not bad. The no face bad. The no hands bad. The no-. Enough. A pox on bad. Mere bad. Way for worse. Pending worse still. First worse. Mere worse. Pending worse still. Add a-. Add? Never. Bow it down. Be it bowed down. Deep down. Head in hat gone. More back gone. Greatcoat cut off higher. Nothing from pelvis down. Nothing but bowed back. Topless baseless hindtrunk. Dim black. On unseen knees. In the dim 94 void. Better worse so. Pending worse stilU51 The deployment of names that marks out this first shade with a great

I HImber of subtractive attributes is, at the same time, its leastening or reduc tion. , lis reduction to what? Well, to what should be named a mark of the one [un , I I imit d'un], a mark that would give the shade with nothing else besides. The words demanded for this mark are 'bowed back'. A simple curve. Nothing I )ut a curve, such would be the ideality of the 'worse still'; knowing that I' lIlore words are needed in order to make such a curve arise, because words "I alone operate the leastening. We can thus say that an operation of nominal ()ver-abundance -over-abundance always being relative in Beckett -aims hcre at an essential leastening. This is the law of worsening: one cuts the legs, the head, the coat, one (;uts all that one can, but each cut is in truth centred on the advent -by way o f supplementary subtractive details -of a pure mark. One must supplement so as to purge the last mark of failure. ',I And now the worsening exercise of the two: , Next two. From bad to worsen. Try worsen. From merely bad. Add -. I , Add? Never. The boots. Better worse bootless. Bare heels. Now the two right. Now the two left. Left right left right on. Barefoot unreceding on. Better worse so. A little better worse than nothing so (p. 23; p. 100).152 The boots -there aren't many names like 'boots' in this piece, whose texture is extremely abstract. When there are such names, it is a sure sign that we are dealing with a risky operation. In a moment we will see this with a (;oncrete and essential word, the irruption of 'graveyard'. Nevertheless, the boot, which appears all of a sudden, is only there in order to be crossed out, crased: 'The boots. Better worse bootless.' A part of things is only given so as to fail, to be crossed out; it only (;omes to the surface of the text so as to be subtracted; here lies the wntradictory nature of the operation. The logic of worsening, which is the logic of the sovereignty of language, equates addition and subtraction. Mallanne did not proceed otherwise. Mallanne, for whom the very act of the poem consists in bringing about the emergence of an object (swan, star, rose ... ) whose arrival imposes its own tennination. Beckett's 'boot' is the supporttenn of such an act.

Finally, worsening the head. This passage concerns the eyes (rc(;all 95

Alain Badiou On that the skull is composed of eyes on a brain): The eyes. Time to try worsen. Somehow try worsen. Unclench. Say staring open. All white and pupil. Dim white. White? No. All pupil. Dim black holes. Unwavering gaping. Be they so said. With worsening words. From now so. Better than nothing so bettered for the worse (p. 27; p. 103).153 The logic of the writing in this passage is altogether typical. On the basis of the syntagm 'clenched staring' -whose meaning I've already discussed -we have the attempt at an opening. We will pass from 'clenched staring' to 'staring open', which is a semantically homogenous datum. 'Open' will in tum give us white, and white will be terminated, giving us black. This is the immediate chain. We pass from clenched to open, from open to white, and then white is crossed out in favour of black. The outcome of the operation -the operation of worsening -is that in place of 'clenched staring' we will have 'black holes', and that, from now on, when it will be a question of eyes, it will no longer even be in terms of the word 'eyes' -Beckett will simply mention two black holes. Note that the open and the black only emerge within the sequence of the operation in order to pass from eyes to black holes, and that this operation of worsening aims at ridding us of the word 'eyes' -too descriptive, too empirical, and too singular -so as to lead us, by way of diagonal worsening and deletion, to the simple acceptance of black holes as blind seats of visibili ty. The eye as such is abolished. From this point onwards, there is only a pure seeing linked to a hole, and this pure seeing linked to a hole is constructed by means of the abolition of the eye with the (supplementary and exemplary) mediation of the open and the white. j) Holding Worstward Worsening is a labour, an inventive and arduous effectuation of the imperative of saying. Being an effort, holding to the worstward ho demands courage. Where does the courage of effort come from? I think this is a very important question, because it is in general the question of knowing where the courage of holding to any procedure oftruth comes from. The question is ultimately the following: where does the courage of truth come from? 96 For Beckett, the courage oftruth could not come from the idea that we will be repaid by silence or by a successful coincidence with being itself. We have seen this already: there will be no termination of saying, no advent of t he void as such. The on cannot be effaced. So, where does courage come from? For Beckett, courage comes from tile fact that words have the tendency to ring true. An extreme tension, which perhaps constitutes Beckett's vocation as a writer, results from the fact that courage pertains to a quality ofwords that is contrary to their use in worsening . 'I 'here is something like an aura of correspondence in words from which (paradoxically) we draw the courage to break with correspondence itself, that is, to hold worstward. The courage of effort is always drawn out against its own destination. I ,et us call this the torsion of saying: the courage of the continuation of eff ort is drawn from words themselves, but from words taken against their genuine destination, which is to worsen. Effort -in this case, artistic or poetic effort -is a barren work on language, undertaken in order to submit language to the exercises of worsening. But this barren effort draws its energy from a fortunate disposition of language: a sort ofphantasm of correspondence that haunts language and

to which one returns as if it were the possible place in which to draw from language itself, but wholly against the grain of its destination, the courage of its treatment. In Worstward Ho this tension gives rise to some very beautiful passages. Here is the first: The words too whosesoever. What room for worse ! How almost true they sometimes almost ring! How wanting in inanity! Say the night is young alas and take heart, Or better worse say still a watch of night alas to come. A rest of /ast watch to come. And take heart [Et prendre courage] (pp. 2021; p. 99).154 It is to the extent that one can say something that rings almost true that one ean say what in the poem is 'like' the true, and take heart -that one holds worstward. 'Say the night is young alas and take heart. ' How magnificent! Here is a variation on the theme: What words for what then? How almost they still ring. As somehow from some soft ofmind they ooze. From it in it ooze. How all but uninanc. To last unlessenable least how loath to leasten. For then in utmost dim to 97 I ,II Alain Badiou On that the skull is composed of eyes on a brain): The eyes. Time to try worsen. Somehow try worsen. Unclench. Say staring open. All white and pupil. Dim white. White? No. All pupil. Dim black holes. Unwavering gaping. Be they so said. With worsening words. From now so. Better than nothing so bettered for the worse (p. 27; p. 103).153 The logic of the writing in this passage is altogether typical. On the basis of the syntagm 'clenched staring' -whose meaning I've already discussed -we have the attempt at an opening. We will pass from 'clenched staring' to 'staring open', which is a semantically homogenous datum. 'Open' will in tum give us white, and white will be terminated, giving us black. This is the immediate chain. We pass from clenched to open, from open to white, and then white is crossed out in favour of black. The outcome of the operation -the operation of worsening -is that in place of 'clenched staring' we will have 'black holes', and that, from now on, when it will be a question of eyes, it will no longer even be in terms of the word 'eyes' -Beckett will simply mention two black holes. Note that the open and the black only emerge within the sequence of the operation in order to pass from eyes to black holes, and that this operation of worsening aims at ridding us of the word 'eyes' -too descriptive, too empirical, and too singular -so as to lead us, by way of diagonal worsening and deletion, to the simple acceptance of black holes as blind seats of visibili ty. The eye as such is abolished. From this point onwards, there is only a pure seeing linked to a hole, and this pure seeing linked to a hole is constructed by means of the abolition of the eye with the (supplementary and exemplary) mediation of the open and the white. j) Holding Worstward Worsening is a labour, an inventive and arduous effectuation of the imperative of saying. Being an effort, holding to the worstward ho demands courage. Where does the courage of effort come from? I think this is a very important question, because it is in general the question of knowing where the courage of holding to any procedure oftruth comes from. The question is ultimately the following: where does the courage of truth come from? 96 For Beckett, the courage oftruth could not come from the idea that we will be repaid by silence or by a successful coincidence with being itself. We

have seen this already: there will be no termination of saying, no advent of t he void as such. The on cannot be effaced. So, where does courage come from? For Beckett, courage comes from tile fact that words have the tendency to ring true. An extreme tension, which perhaps constitutes Beckett's vocation as a writer, results from the fact that courage pertains to a quality ofwords that is contrary to their use in worsening . 'I 'here is something like an aura of correspondence in words from which (paradoxically) we draw the courage to break with correspondence itself, that is, to hold worstward. The courage of effort is always drawn out against its own destination. I ,et us call this the torsion of saying: the courage of the continuation of eff ort is drawn from words themselves, but from words taken against their genuine destination, which is to worsen. Effort -in this case, artistic or poetic effort -is a barren work on language, undertaken in order to submit language to the exercises of worsening. But this barren effort draws its energy from a fortunate disposition of language: a sort ofphantasm of correspondence that haunts language and to which one returns as if it were the possible place in which to draw from language itself, but wholly against the grain of its destination, the courage of its treatment. In Worstward Ho this tension gives rise to some very beautiful passages. Here is the first: The words too whosesoever. What room for worse ! How almost true they sometimes almost ring! How wanting in inanity! Say the night is young alas and take heart, Or better worse say still a watch of night alas to come. A rest of /ast watch to come. And take heart [Et prendre courage] (pp. 2021; p. 99).154 It is to the extent that one can say something that rings almost true that one ean say what in the poem is 'like' the true, and take heart -that one holds worstward. 'Say the night is young alas and take heart. ' How magnificent! Here is a variation on the theme: What words for what then? How almost they still ring. As somehow from some soft ofmind they ooze. From it in it ooze. How all but uninanc. To last unlessenable least how loath to leasten. For then in utmost dim to 97 I ,II

II' Ii ! unutter leastmost all (p. 33; p. 107).155 dimmer still [plus obscur encore]. To dimmost dim. Leastmost in dimmost dim. Utmost dim. Leastmost in utmost dim. Unworsenable worst (p. 33; , , Everything here shows to what extent one is 'loath to leasten', to what p. 107).156 , extent this effort is barren. One loaths to leasten because words are 'all but !II, 'I ', uninane', because the word sounds true, because it rings clear and it is from Thought can move in the leastmost, in the utmost dim, but it has no the word that we take heart, that we draw our courage. But taking heart for access to the obscure as such. There is always a lesser least -so let us state what? Well, precisely in order to ill say; to challenge the illusion that it rin gs true, the illusion that summons us to courage. The torsion of saying is thus both what clarifies the barrenness of effort (one must overcome, towards the worst, the clarity of words) and the courage with which we treat this barrenness. Nevertheless, there is another reason why holding worstward proves I , difficult: being as such resists, being rebels against the logic of the worst. A s worsening comes to be exercised upon the shades, one reaches the edge of the dim, the edge of the void, and there to continue to worsen becomes more and more difficult. As if the experience of being were witness, not to an impasse of worsening, but to a difficulty, to a growing effort -ever more exhausting -in this worsening.

When one is led to the edge of being by a barren and attentive exercise in the worsening of appearances, a sort of invariance comes to confound saying, exposing it to an experience of suffering -as if the imperative of saying encountered here what is furthest away from it, or most indifferent.

This will be said in two ways: according to the dim or according to the void. This relation between the dim, the void and the imperative of saying brings us to the core of our ontological questions. Let us recall that dim is the name of what exposes being. It follows from this that the dim can never be a total darkness, a darkness that the imperative of saying desires as its own impossibility. The imperative of saying, which desires the leastmost, is polarised by the idea that the dim could become the obscure, the absolutely dark. The text makes several hypotheses concerning how this desire can be satisfied. But these hypotheses are ultimately rejected, for there is always a minimal exposition ofbeing. The being of void being is to expose itself as dim; in other words, the being of being is to expose itself, and exposition rules out the absoluteness ofthe dark or obscure. Even if one can lessen the exposition, one can never attain the obscure as such. Of the dim, it will be said that it is an 'unworsenable worse': So leastward on. So long as dim still. Dim undimmed. Or dimmed to ii, the fundamental axiom once again: 'least never to be naught'. The argument I is simple: because the dim, which is the exposition of being, is a condition of II the worstward ho -what exposes it to saying -it can never be entirely given ,I' over to it. We may go worstward, but we can never go voidward [Nous ne !. .' ,Ii!.. '.' pouvons mettre cap sur Ie neant, seulement sur Ie pire]. There can be no voidward precisely because the dim is a condition of the -ward. Thus one i i , , , ,

can argue for the quasi-obscure, the almost obscure, but the dim in its being , . remains dim. Ultimately, the dim resists worsening. , k) The Unworsenable Void 'I' I , The void is given in experience. It is given in the interval of shades ,I" within the dim. It is what separates. In fact, the void is the ground [fond] of , being, but in its exposition it is a pure gap [ecart]. With respect to the shade s or the pair, Beckett will say: 'vast of void atween'. Such is the figure in which the void is given . The worsening aims to get closer to the void as such, no longer to have the void in its mere dimension of interval, but the void as void -being as retracted from its exposition. But if the void is subtracted from its own exposition it can no longer be the correlate of the process of worsening, because the process of worsening only works on shades and on their void intervals. So that the void 'in itself' cannot be worked upon according to the laws of worsening. You can vary the intervals, but the void as void remains radically unworsenable. Now, if it is radically unworsenable, it means that it cannot even be ill said. This point is a very subtle one. The void 'in itself' i s what cannot be ill said. This is its definition. The voidcannot but be said. In it, the saying and the said coincide, which prohibits ill saying. Such a coincidence finds its reason in the fact that the void itself is nothing but its own name. Of the void 'in itself' you have nothing but the name. Within Beckett's text this is expressly formulated in the following form: 98 .. . '

The void. How try say? How try fail? No try no fail. Say only-(p. 17; p. 96Y57 That the void is subtracted from ill saying means that there is no art of the void. The void is subtracted from that which suggests an art within language: the logic of worsening. When you say 'the void' you have said all that can be said, and you possess no process that could elicit the metamorphosis of this saying. In other words, there is no metaphor for the void. In the subjective register, the void, being but a name, only arouses the desire for its disappearance. In the skull the void arouses not the process of worsening -which is impossible in its regard -but the absolute impatience of this pure name, the desire that the void be exposed as such, annihilated, something which is nevertheless impossible. As soon as one touches upon a void that is not an interval, upon the void 'in itself', one enters what in Beckett constitutes the figure of an ontological desire that is subtracted from the imperative of saying: the fusion in nothingness of the void with the dim. It will also be remarked that, in a manner resembling the functioning of drives, the name of the void sets off a desire for disappearance, but that this desire for disappearance is without object, for there is here nothing but a name. The void will always counter any process of disappearance with the fact that it is effectively subtracted from worsening; this subtraction results from a property of the void, which is that in it the 'maximum' and the 'almost' are the same thing. Let us note that this is not the case with the dim, so that the two names of being do not function in the same way. The dim can be dimmost, leastmost dimmost; the void cannot. The void cannot but be said, seized as pure name and subtracted from every principle of variability, and therefore of metaphor or metamorphosis, because, within it, the 'maximum' and the 'almost' coincide absolutely. Here then is the great passage on the void: All save void_ No. Void too. Unworsenable void. Never less. Never more. Never since first said never unsaid never worse said never not gnawing to be gone. Say child gone [ ... ] (p. 42; p. 113).158 'Say child gone': Beckett attempts to approach the question at an angle. The unworsenable void cannot disappear, but if, for example, one makes a shade disappear, since one is dealing with a shade-infested void, perhaps a greater void will ensue. This growth would deliver the void over to the process 100 ilill I' " , , orlanguage. It is this experiment that the continuation of the text describes: Say child gone. As good as gone. From the void. From the stare. Void then

not that much more? Say old man gone. Old woman gone. As good as gone. Void then not that much more again? No. Void most when almost. Worst when almost. Less then? All shades as good as gone. If then not that much more than that much less then? Less worse then? Enough. A pox on void. Unmoreable unlessable unworseable evermost almost void (pp. 42-43; p. 113).159 ,, ,1: , , The experiment, as one can see, fails. The void qua pure nomination Ii, ' i:I remains radically unworsenable and thus unsayable. ' , I) Appearing and Disappearing. Movement Together with the supposed movements of appearance and disappearance, the argument tied to the void summons all of the Platonic , supreme ideas. We have being, which is the void and the dim; the same, which is the one-woman; the other, which is the old man/child-two. The question is that of knowing what becomes of movement and rest, the last two categories in the five primordial genera of The Sophist. The question of movement and rest presents itself in the form of two interrogations: What can disappear? And: What can change? There is an absolutely essential thesis, which says that absolute disappearance is the disappearance of the dim. If one asks: What can disappear absolutely? The response is: The dim. For example: On back to unsay void can go [disparition du vide]. [As I've already said, the disappearance of the void is subordinated to the disappearance of the

dim.-AB] Void cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go. All not already gone. . ,i i Till dim back. Then all back. All not still gone. The one can go. The twain can go. Dim can go. Void cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go (p. 18; p. 97).160 There always remains the possible hypothesis of an absolute disappearance that would present itself as the disappearance of exposit ion itself, and therefore as the disappearance of the dim. But one must not forget 101

that this hypothesis is beyond saying, that the imperative of saying has nothing to do with the possibility of the disappearance of the dim. Hence the disappearance of the dim, like its reappearance, is an abstract hypothesis that can be fOImulated but which does not give rise to any experience whatsoever. There is a horizon of absolute disappearance, thinkable in the statement ' dim can go'. Nevertheless, this statement remains indifferent to the entire protocol of the text. The problem will therefore centre upon the appearance and disappearance of shades. This is a problem of an altogether different order which is associated to the question ofthought. On the contrary, the hypothesi.. of the disappearance of the dim is beyond saying and beyond thought. More generally, this new problem is to do with the movement of shades. The investigation ofthis point is very complex, and I will limit myself here to presenting my conclusions alone. First, the one is not capable ofmovement. The figure ofthe old woman which is the mark of the One, will certainly be termed 'stooped' and the.. 'kneeling', all of which seems to express change. But the crucial proviso is that we are dealing here only with prescriptions of saying, rules of the worst, and never with a movement proper. It is not true that the one stoops or kneels. The text always states that one [on] will say kneeling, sunk, etc. All this is ..re..cribed by the logic of lessening within worsening, but does not thereby mdIcate a capacity of the one [I 'un] to any sort of movement. The first thesis is therefore Parmenidean: what is counted as one insofar ' as It IS only counted as one, remains indifferent to movement. Sec?nd statement: thought (the head, the skull) is incapable of . dISappearIng. There are a number of texts concerning this point. Here is one: The head. Ask not if it can go. Say no. Unasking no. It cannot go. Save dim go. Then all go. Oh dim go. Go for good. All for good. Good and all (p. 19; p. 98).161 This 'Oh dim go' remains without effect. As we've seen, you can always say 'Oh dim go', the dim does not care in the least. What is important for us then is that the head is incapable of disappearing, save of course the dim go, but then all go. Consequently, we must note that the head has the same status as the void when it comes to the question of disappearance. This is exactly Parmenides' maxim: 'It is the same to think and to be'. Parmenides designates 102

----,,--_._--Alain Badiou On ofmigration, which is at the same time a migration unto oneself. Such is the

ofsaying. essence of love. The migration does not make one pass from one place to another. Instead, it is a delocalisation internal to the place, and this immanen t delocalisation finds its paradigm in the two of love. This explains why the passages on the old man and the child are marked by a muted emotion, which is very particular to Worstward Ho: the immobile migration designates what could be called the spatiality oflove. Here is one ofthese texts, in which a powerful and abstract tenderness " ' " -echoing Enough -can be heard: 'i I'I Hand in hand with equal plod they go. In the free hands -no. Free empty hands. Backs turned both bowed with equal plod they go. The child hand raised to reach the holding hand. Hold the old holding hand. Hold and be held. Plod on and never recede. Slowly with never a pause plod on and never recede. Backs turned. Both bowed. Joined by held holding hands. Plod on as one. One shade. Another shade (p. 13; p.93).I64 n) Appearing and Disappearing. Change. The dim. Therefore we cannot presume that everything has disappeared in the skull. The hypothesis ofradical doubt, which would affect the shades with a total disappearance -subject to the prescription to be made by the skull -cannot be maintained, for the same reasons that force Cartesian radical doubt ,I to impose limits upon itself. Here is the passage in question:

In the skull all gone [disparu]. All? No. All cannot go. Till dim go. Say then but the two gone. In the skull one and two gone. From the void. From i the stare. In the skull all save the skull gone. The stare. Alone in the dim Skull A hypothesis accessible to the skull would be that the shades -between " , void. Alone to be seen. Dimly seen. In the skull the skull alone to be seen. , , The staring eyes. Dimly seen. By the staring eyes (pp. 25-26; p. 102).166 I , " a disappearance and a reappearance -have been modified. This hypothesis is evoked and worked through, but it is expressly presented as a hypothesis of . saymg: The hypothesis of the disappearance of the shades, based on the fact that they would have gone from the skull -and thus that they would no They fade [disparaissent]. Now the one. Now the twain. Now both. Fade longer be of the order of seeing or of ill seeing -does not entail the disappearance of the all, the 'all go'; in particular, it does not entail the back [reapparaissent]. Now the one. Now the twain. Now both. Fade? disappearance of all the shades, because the skull, which itself is a shade, No. Sudden go. Sudden back. Now the one. Now the twain. Now both. Unchanged? Suddenbackunchanged? Yes. Say yes. Each time unchanged. cannot itself disappear or 'go'.

The Cartesian matrix is necessarily stated as follows: 'In the skull all Somehow unchanged. Till no. Till say no. Sudden back changed. Somehow changed. Each time somehow changed (p. 14; p. 94).165 save the skull gone'. I think, therefore I am a shade in the dim. The skull is the shade-subject, and cannot disappear; it cannot 'go'. That there can be real changes, that is, changes caught between appearance and disappearance, is not a hypothesis liable to affect the being of a shade;

0) Of the Subject as Skull. Will, Pain, Joy rather, it is a hypothesis that the prescription of saying might formulate. It i s somewhat like above with 'Oh dim go', or when one says 'kneeling', , , The subje ct as skull is fundamentally reducible to saying and seeing; 'stooped', etc. It is necessary to distinguish what is an attribute ofthe shade , , , ". " 1': 104 I ;. 105

Alain Badiou On the skull brings together staring eyes and a brain. But there are, as in Descart es, other affections. In particular, there are the will, pain and joy, all of whose places are assigned in the text. Each of these affections will be studied in accordance with the method of worsening, that is, in their essential 'unlessenable least' . What is the essential unlessenable least of the will? It is the will given in its ultimate form, which is to will the non-will, or to will that there shall be no more willing, that is, to will itself as non-will. In Beckett's own words thi s is the 'longing that vain longing go': Longing the so-said mind long lost to longing. The so-missaid. So far somissaid. Dint of long longing lost to longing. Long vain longing. And longing still. Faintly longing still. Faintly vainly longing still. For fainter still. For faintest. Faintly vainly longing for the least of longing. Unlessenable least of longing. Unstillable vain least of longing still. Longing that all go [que tout disparaisse]. Dim go. Void go. Longing go. Vain longing that vain longing go (p. 36; p. 109).167 -. '------------------------------------------------_ , II! ' are so few words to say what there is to say. Joy is always the joy of the poverty of words. The mark of the state of joy or of rejoicing -of what rejoices -is that there are exceedingly few words to say it. Upon reflection, this is entirely true. Extreme joy is precisely what possesses few or no words to speak itself. Whence the fact that in the figure of the declaration of love I 'I, ' II ,!!I, there is nothing to say but 'I love you' -an extremely meagre statement, I because it finds itself in the element of joy. I am thinking, in Richard Strauss 's Elektra, of the scene of the recognition of Orestes by Elektra, in which Elektra sings a very violent 'Orestes!' and the music is suddenly paralysed. Here we encounter a musical passage injortissimo, but one that is absolutely formless and rather lengthy. I have always liked that quite a lot. It is as if an unspeakable and extreme joy were musically presented in the self-paralysis ofthe music, as if its internal

melodic configuration (which later on will present itself, over and over again, in saccharine waltzes) were stricken by powerlessness: here is a moment of iIli, ' 'I I, 'rejoicing', understood as an impoverished disposition of naming. Beckett says this very clearly. It is evidently linked to the fact that there are poor remains of mind, and poor words for these poor remains: Many comments could be made regarding the correlations between this passage and the canonical doctrines of will. We could say that willing is , I shaped by the imperative of saying and that the 'all go' -the will that the 'vain longing that vain longing go' itself go or disappear -is the irreducible trace of will, or that the will, as the imperative of saying, cannot but go on. Pain is ofthe body (whilst joy comes from words). In the body, pain is what provokes movement, and this is what makes it the first witness of the remains of mind. Pain is the bodily proof that there are remains of mind, inasmuch as it is what arouses the shades to movement: It stands. What? Yes. Say it stands. Had to up in the end and stand. Say So much for the subjective faculties other than seeing and saying, and above all the three main ones (will, pain, joy). All things considered, what we have here is a classical doctrine ofthe passions. bones. No bones but say bones. Say ground. No ground but say ground. So as to say pain. No mind and pain? Say yes that the bones may pain till no choice but stand. Somehow up and stand. Or better worse remains. Say remains of mind where none to permit of pain. Pain of bones till no choice but up and stand. Somehow up. Somehow stand. Remains ofmind where none for the sake of pain. Here ofbones. Other examples if needs must. Of pain. Relief from. Change of (p. 9; p. 90).168 Joy, in the end, is on the side of words. To rejoice is to rejoice that there 106

p) How can a Subject be Thought? Given what we have just said, if we wish to proceed in the study of the subject, we must do so subtractively. Fundamentally, Beckett's method is like Husserl's epoche turned upside down. Husserl's epoche consists in subtracting the thesis of the world, in subtracting the 'there is' in order to then turn towards the movement or the pure flux of that interiority which is directed at this 'there is'. Husserl's lineage originates in Cartesian doubt. The thetic character of the universe of the intentional operatio ns or 107

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host of other things. In Wo rstward Ho, there is an entire doctrine of time, of I' , ' , consciousness is retracted in order to try to apprehend the conscious structure

that governs these operations, independently of any thesis concerning the world. Beckett's method is precisely the opposite: it is a question ofsUbtracting or suspending the subject so as to see what then happens to being. The hypothesis of a seeing without words will be forwarded. A hypothesis of points. ,,:ords without seeing will also be made, together with a hypothesis of a dIsappearance of words. And it will be noted that there is then a better seen q) The Event [du mieux vu]. Here is one ofthe protocols ofthis experiment: I Blanks for when words gone. When nohow on. Then all seen as only then. , , Undimmed. All undimmed that words dim. All so seen unsaid. No ooze then. No trace on soft when from it ooze again. In it ooze again. Ooze alone for seen as seen with ooze. Dimmed. No ooze for seen undimmed. For when nohow on. No ooze for when ooze gone (p. 40; p. 112).170

, , ,, Here it would be necessary to explain the text in greater detail. We are dealin..with a protocol ofseeing that remains undimmed when the hypothesis of a dIsappearance of words is made, the hypothesis of the real end of the " " imperative ofsaying. Like Husserl's epoche, this is a pure abstract hypothesis, , , as well as an untenable hypothesis, one that is actually impracticable. In this I hypothesis, some light is shed on being. The inverse experiment can also be ca..ied out: subtracting sight and then asking oneselfwhat is the destiny of an III saying that is disconnected from seeing, from ill seeing. , , .1 shall not develop these experiments any further. Ultimately, if we , I I' recapItulate our argument about the question ofdisappearance we can obtain Same stoop for all. Same vasts apart. Such last state. Latest state. Till three propositions. , somehow less in vain. Worse in vain. All gnawing to be naught. Never to First ofall, the void is unworsenable once it is caught in the exposition ,'I.

" " I of the dim. This means that there is no experience of being, only a name of , I . I bem... Aname commands a saying, but an experience is an ill saying and not a saymg proper. S..con..ly, the skull or subject cannot really be subtracted from seeing and ..aymg; It can only be subtracted in formal experiments [experiences], in partIcular because for itself it is always 'not gone'. ' artIstIc exposItion. Here is what is exposed, said and outlined in the text, together with a 109 108 , ,

of the Constellation at the end of Mallarme's Coup de des. In my view, the analogy is a conscious one -we shall see why. In this moment when there is nothing more to say but 'behold the state ofthings, the things ofbeing' (which Mallarme says in the form: 'Nothing has taken place but the place') -when one thinks that the text will stop there, that this maxim represents the last word on what the imperative of saying is capable of-it is as though a kind of addition took place. This addition is sudden, abrupt, in rupture, and takes place on a scene situated at a remove from the one at hand, a scene in which a metamorphosis ofexposition is presented -a sidereal metamorphosis, or a 'siderealisation' [sideration]. It is not a question of the disappearance of the dim, but ofa retreat ofbeing to its very limit. Just as in Mallarme the question ofthe dice-throw results in the appearance of the Great Bear, likewise what was counted in the dim will here be fixed in pinholes -a closely related metaphor. Here is the passage introduced by the clause ofrupture, 'Enough': Enough. Sudden enough. Sudden all far. No move and sudden all far. All least. Three pins. One pinhole. In dimmost dim. Vasts apart. At bounds of boundless void. Whence no farther. Best worse no farther. Nohow less. Nohow worse. Nohow naught. Nohow on. Said nohow on (pp. 46-47; p. 116).173 I would simply like to insist upon a few points. The intratextual, evental character of this limit-disposition is marked by the fact that the 'sudden' is devoid of movement: 'Sudden all far. No move and sudden all far'. Therefore it is not a change, but a separation; it is another scene, doubling the scene that was primordially established. Secondly -making me think that the Mallarmean configuration is conscious -there is the passage: 'Vasts apart. At bounds ofboundless void'. This sounds very close to 'on high perhaps, as far as place can fuse with the beyond...a constellation.'174 I am absolutely convinced that Beckett's three pins and Mallarme's seven stars are the same thing. For thought, they are in fact the same thing: at the moment in which there is nothing more to say but the stable figure ofbeing, there emerges, in a suddenness that amounts to a grace without concept, an overall configuration in which one will be able to say 'nohow on'. Not an 'on' ordained orprescribed to the shades, but simply 'nohow on' -the 'on' ofsaying reduced, or leastened, to the purity of its possible cessation. 110 , , , ' :1! However, the configuration of possible-saying is no longer a state of , , heing, an exercise in worsening. It is an event, creating an afar. It is an incalculable distancing. From the point ofview ofthe poetics ofthe text, we

, , ,, would need to demonstrate that this evental configuration -this ' sudden' -is acsthetically or poetically prepared by a specific figure. In Mallarme, the Constellation is prepared by the figure of the master, drowning himself on the surface of the sea. In Beckett, this figural preparation, which deserves to be admired, consists in the altogether unpredictable metamorphosis of the one-woman into the gravestone, in a passage whose imagery ofdiscontinuity should alert us. Immediately prior to this passage, a page before the event at , the limits, we find the following: ;", I i', Nothing and yet a woman. Old and yet old. On unseen knees. Stooped as ,I, loving memory some old gravestones stoop. In that old graveyard. Names gone andwhen to when. Stoop mute overthe graves ofnone (p. 45; p. 115).175 , ,, , , This passage is absolutely singular and paradoxical in relation to what , Ii !I" we have argued hitherto. First of all, because it makes a metaphor emerge , ' \'-" with regard to the shades. The one-woman, the stoop of the one-woman, I" literally becomes a gravestone. And on the stoop ofthis gravestone, the subject is now given only in the erasure of its name, in the crossing out of its name , II! -:' " I ,

, , and date of existence. " , It could be said that it is on the background of these 'graves ofnone', , on this new stoop, that the 'enough' indicates the possibility ofthe event. The II' stoop opens onto the sudden, the anonymous tomb opens onto the astral pin. " In Coup de des, it is because the element of the place has managed to metamorphose into something other than itselfthat the evental rupture ofthe constellation is possible. In Worstward Ho, we have a grave; the old woman herselfhas become " I a grave, a one-grave. Likewise, in Mallarme's poem we have the foam becoming vessel and, in so doing, call1ing forth the vessel's captain, etc. We , I " have a transmigration ofthe identity ofthe shade into the figure ofthe gravc, and when you have the grave, you also have the migration ofthe place: what was dim, void, or unnameable place, becomes a graveyard. I call this a figural preparation. In effect, we can say that every event admits of a figural preparation, that it always possesses a pre-eventalfigure. In our text, the figure is given , from the moment that the shades become the symbol ofbeing ofan existel1cc. ; , II,' 111 'I 11 ' ;" '. " ;; " ,,

AIai n Bad iau On Beckett What is the symbol of being of an existence, if not the gravestone, on which we find the name, as well as the dates of birth and death, effaced? This is the moment when existence is ready to present itself as symbol of being and when being receives its third name: neither void nor dim, but graveyard. The grave presents the moment when, by a mutation internal to saying, existence attains a symbolism of being, such that the nature of what one will be able to pronounce with regard to being changes drastically. An altered ontological scene doubles the last state, which proves to be not the last, but only the latest. There is a state supernumerary to the last state -precisely the one that constitutes itself all of a sudden. Having been figurally prepared, an event is what happens so that the latest state ofbeing will not be the last. And what will remain in the end? Well, a saying on a background [fond] of nothing or of night: the saying of the 'on', of the 'nohow on', the imperativ e of saying as such. Ultimately, this saying is the terminus of a sort of astral language, floating above its own ruin and on the basis of which all can begin again, all can and must recommence. This ineluctable recommencement can be called the unnameable of saying, its 'on'.176 And the good -that is, the proper mode of the good within saying -is to sustain the 'on'. That is all. To sustain it without naming it. To sustain the ' on' and to sustain it at the extr eme, incandescent point at which its sole apparent content is: 'nohow on'. But in order for this to be, an event must go beyond the last state of being. Then and only then can I and must I continue. Unless, in order to recreate the conditions for obeying this imperative, one must fall asleep a little; the time necessary to conjoin, in a simulacrum of the void, the dim half-light of being and the intoxication of the event. Perhaps the entire difference between Beckett and Mallarme lies here. The first forbids sleep, like he forbids death. One must remain awake. For the second, after the work of poetry one can also return to the shade -through the suspension of the question, through the saving interruption. This is because Mallarme, having posited, once and for all, that a Book is possible, can rest content with 'tries in view of better' [d'essais en vue du mieux], and sleep between attempts. In this regard, I approve of his being a French faun, rather than an Irish insomniac. 177 Translated by Alberto Toscano Revised by Nina Power 112 ' I ',I, Ii , I ,I, i

i! Ii , I What Happens178 , I. I!'

Yes, of course, there is in Beckett what does not happen, what insists on not happening -like Godot, like Molloy in search of his mother. A..d . there is also repetition, like in the discouragement that afflIcts the bodIes busy looking for their lost one in the cylinder of the world. . . But why not begin instead with what happens, with thIS fIgure 01 , , " suddenness that seizes the prose, disrupting both its rhythm and its image? Why not begin with the link between the impatience of the 'Eno..gh! ' and the caesura of the 'sudden', of which Rimbaud was the foundmg poet ? , A

: suddenness that also summons the distant, that constitutes the disappropriation of our enslavement to the monotony of the near. Let us listen to the almost stellar ending of Worstward Ho: Enough. Sudden enough. Sudden all far. No move and sudden all far. All least. Three pins. One pinhole. In dimmost dim. Vasts apart. At bounds of boundless void (WH, p. 46; NO, p. 116).179 Alternatively, we could begin with the naming of what happens. After all, for Beckett, to find the name of what does not happen is a matter of comedy -like in the amusing facility of the proper name 'Godot', this occasional God of the theatre. On the contrary, to find the name of what happens demands an invention within language, a poetic forcing. Like when -in III Seen III Said-a sound comes to unsettle the inspection of proximity and awaken the mind. Beckett's question is: How can this sound be said? In other words: How can the sound be said as the event is waning? This is his answer: Forthwith the uncommon common noun collapsion. Reinforced a little later if not enfeebled by the infrequent slumberers. A slumberous collapsion (ISIS, p. 55; NO, p. 83).180 And having matched -in order to name what happens -the uncommon to the infrequent, we are accorded the gift, as the paragraph concludes, of a 'gleam of hope. By the grace of these modest beginnings' (ISIS, p. 55; NO, p. 83).181 Where then are these 'modest beginnings'? In the prose, in the beauty of the prose, through which courage is incessantly renewed. For if the paradoxical exactitude of an ill said in prose comes to correspond to the ill seen of experience, then the awakening of mind under the injunction of 'what happens' gives us, at least, the courage to continue. Ofcourse, the function things, because things everything is but void ho, to ill say the ill : of words is that of bringing about the failure of themselves are failures of being. The ground of and dim. The aim of the prose is to hold the worstward seen, to fail in words the failure of experience. It must

Say that best worst. With leastening words say least best worse. For want of worser worst. Unlessenable least best worst (WH, p. 32; NO, p. 106).182 114 " But the whole problem is that this failure of prose is by no means given. " I

, I t is an effort and an ascesis, because words themselves ring clear. As Beckett , " , says: 'How almost true they sometimes almost ring! How wanting in inanity! , Say the night is young alas and take heart' (WH, pp. 20-21; NO, p. 99).183 Artistic or poetic effort is a work upon language whose aim is to bring language under the rule of the worst. But this barren effort draws its energy from a lortunate disposition oflanguage, a sort ofaura of correspondence that haunts language, and which is where -in a figure of torsion -the writer looks for , , the courage to break with correspondence itself. ' " This is why we must begin with beauty. What is beauty? It is the trace , -within the ascetic effort to submit saying to the 'unlessenable least best i worst' -of the paradoxical courage that feeds this effort, and which is nourished by the 'ringing clear' of words, by their lack of 'inanity', and by their fallacious virtue of correspondence. Beauty surges forth when we understand that the path of words goes counter to the demand of thought. , This is because words bear the courage of the mUltiple and the true, whilst , th ought obstinately seeks to approach the void. Beauty takes place when the poetic naming of events seizes thought at the edge of the void. I " I By surprise, beauty superimposes the path of words onto the counterpath of thought. In other words, it superimposes the multiple onto the void. This is why in Beckett we find three regimes of prose, three configurations of beauty. The first comes forth when words settle upon the inertia of being, upon the still surface of what there is, respecting the countours of thought whilst modifying its colour, like a golden dust spread upon the gray rock of the planet. Let us listen to Lessness: Earth sky as one all sides endlessness little body only upright. One step more one alone all alone in the sand no hold he will make it. Ash grey little body only upright heart beating face to endlessness. Light refuge sheer white blank planes all gone from mind. All sides endlessness earth sky as one no sound no stir (eSp, p. 156; GSP, p. 201).184

But we also find it -this prose brought to it greatest calm -when what. remains of humanity walks the world without pain, benefiting from a gracecompati ble with the surest of maladies. Such is the case with the two loyers in Enough, as she who renders their chronicle declares: 115

I I \ ' II1,I1 , " Alain Badiou On ' 11' , iil i' I'l I don't know what the weather is now. But in my life it was eternally mild.

As if the earth had come to rest in spring (CSP, p. 143; GSP, p. 191).185 Yes, we can certainly call this regime of prose that of mildness [douceur]. Because within it everything happens, for a time, as ifthe path of words doubled, almost silently, the counter-path ofthought -the one matched by the other in a sort of immobile movement. At the other extreme, we find what I will call Beckett's sarcastic prose.

, , I i Built almost entirely on rhythm, it gratingly utters -a little as with some of Mahler's allegros, with a touch ofthe lop-sided and incongruous -that words '/, 'I

, I " ' " ' are an inadequate vehicle, that ill saying is always already too much of a well saying, and that the counter-path of thought can only be rediscovered by throttling words, SUbjecting them to a syntactical ordeal that forces them to " ill ring. Here is an altogether typical example of this regime (in From an 62)187 Abandoned Work): Ah my father and mother, to think they are probably in paradise, they were so good. Let me go to hell, that's all I ask, and go on cursing them there, and them look down and hear me, that might take some of the shine off sarcasm, the constructor ofmetamorphoses. their bliss. Yes, I believe all their blather about the life to come, it cheers . me up, and unhappiness like mine, there's no annihilating that (CSP, p. 133; GSP, p. 159). 186 : I , , , , , We should understand that the prosodic regime of mildness seeks the slowness of a coincidence, whilst the sarcastic regime attempts to establish a . perpetual lag [dlxalage], and is therefore in need of an acceleration of saying,

of an energy that must be ceaselessly nourished. Words always bum when they are forced to counter thought. But Beckett, in his own sovereign way, knows that there is the slow combustion that takes place in the mild and , nocturnal embers of prose, on the one hand, and there is the dry fire of incinerating sarcasm, on the other. Finally, where can we find the entanglement of these two regimes; the melding, in the long run, of these contrasting fires? It is in Beckett's most ambitious prose, which holds together the two primordial regimes, oscillating I as it does between the emaciated primacy of the void and the proliferation of terms, between mildness (be it the mildness of tears) and violence (be it the "I violence of laughter). This is a prose thoroughly recast in order to follow a 117 116

, Badiou, Beckett and Contemporary Criticism Andrew Gibson IIII

, Ii I'

Alain Badiou's work on Beckett radically takes issue with what he takes to be a distinct and coherent tradition running through Beckett criticism. Badiou argues that the tradition has too often made ofBeckett an absurdist or existentialist, a nihilist or tragic pessimist. In doing so, it has effectively always contemplated Beckett as its own opposite, as the negative to the unrelenting positivity of its own discourse. For it has invariably adopted the point of

--..--....---..-....-.... .. , i ! I Badiou On Beckett ' . war French thought which would place him on one side, perhaps surprisingly, ill the company of Sartre and Lacan (a Sartre and Lacan one must imagine read in Badiou's own distinctive terms), and, on the other side, contemporary I lcideggerians, Bergsonians and those heirs to the linguistic tum that, in his , Manifesto for Philosophy, he calls 'the sophists'. I shall proceedby identifying what I take to be five principal concerns in the dominant discourses in Beckett eriticism over the past fifteen years. I call these concerns: the logic of rever sal; the general economy; repetition; the instability of the name; the dissolution , of the subject. These five themes are by no means clearly and consistently , distinct from one another: they play against each other, and sometimes overlap. Nor are they necessarily discoverable in all the positions to which I shall refer: indeed, I will simplify matters by associating each theme with one I , Beckett critic in particular, scattering references to others here and there. In , one form or another, however, the themes recur. I would maintain that, taken together, they represent a kind of disposition within Beckett criticism at the current time, a set ofparameters within which it has been operating. By and large -and one would have to except here, for instance, Leslie Hill's emphasis " on the ' emotional fervour' and 'intellectual disarray' to be found in Beckett's I, , work (Hill, p. x) -the tendency of the disposition in question has been to , rethink the Beckettian project as determined less by mood (the angst or despair , ", , . , of the existentialist, for example) than by what I would term the diagnostic I

, attitude. I shall counterpose the five themes to five emphases that I take to be " central to Badiou's account of Beckett. There can be no question of , systematically opposing Badiou's Beckett at every point to what we might I, call the postmodern or poststructuralist Beckett. There are clearly occasions , on which Badiou and at least some of the new Beckett criticism have a certain I" ground in common. Towards the end, too, I shall argue that, whilst Badiou's I own terms of reference constitute a significant contribution to Beckett studies, II" , they are not themselves immune to question and -more importantly -neither il is the overall philosophical structure in which he locates them. To some extent, , Badiou's terms may seem to ask for a rather different set of applications or II distributions to those proposed by Badiou himself. I shall nonetheless claim that Badiou's work has the power to orient Beckett studies in a different direction: towards understanding Beckett's work, neither as determined by mood nor as engaged in a practice of theoretical diagnosis, but rathcr as a project of thought, one whose implications are ultimately ethical. According to the concept of a logic of reversal, in Beckett's work I opposite terms are exchangeable, implode, cannot be kept apart. The III 120 121

Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Beckett architecture that once cemented them in place, baldly confronting one another, has come asunder. Its joints have sprung loose. From now on, interminably and indeterminably, there is play within the system. Beckett sees this before others; alternatively, he sees it -and articulates it -with special penetration. Leslie Hill in particular has meticulously traced the logic of reversal through a range of Beckett's works. Indeed, I have borrowed the term from him. Beckett is committed to defending the autonomy of literary texts, says Hill. His commitment leads him to define fiction 'as an activity oflanguage in which, paradoxically, the foundations of meaning are attacked by the uncontrollable, self-inverting character of meaning itself' (Hill, p. 6). Beckett is concerned with 'what could be called indifference'. that which is in-between positions of meaning, neither positive nor negative, constantly shifting and irreducible the to subject or object'. He therefore understands a logic of circularity and the existentialist and humanist criticism that preceded it, looks narrower than it may initially have appeared to be. Where Beckett's concern was I()rmerly deemed to be an absence of sense ('absurdity'), recent criticism now takes it to be the activity of sense-making, understood as differentiation. I n either instance, the question of an already existent meaning is of cardinal importance. By contrast, Badiou has been much concerned to turn philosophy dccisively away from hermeneutics and towards an interest in the emergence of truths in their radical newness. If, as we will shortly see, this interest al so involves a reduction of experience to a finite set of minimal functions, these are established as beyond interpretation. Not surprisingly, therefore, Badiou does not read Beckett as engaged in a more or less deconstructive kind of work. For he experiences the weight of doxa more oppressively than most I current deconstructionists appear to, and understands Beckett as labouring , I 'purgatorial cycle' (Hill, p. 10) -as being what constitutes a modem literary text. There is no dialectical union of opposites in Beckett's work, but rather a movement of constant displacement. Thus at the very heart of Murphy, for example, there lies paradox, oxymoron and chiasmus, contradictory apposition and rhetorical inversion, an unstoppable play ofconvergences and divergences. So, too, in Molloy, binaries become 'both crucial and indeterminate, significant yet devoid of meaning' (Hill, p. 62). The significance of that great Beckettian figure, aporia -partiCUlarly in the Trilogy -is that it both describes and challenges the possibility of a 'moment of passage' (Hill, p. 63), at once

articulating and suspending a structure of opposition. Theatre allows Beckett under the same oppression. In Badiou's terms, Beckett 'makes holes' in I, knowledge. In contradistinction to contemporary Beckettians, Badiou stresses "I I historicity on the one hand and a principle of antagonism on the other. Here , I the cardinal sentence appears on the first page of Tireless Desire: 'thought only subtracts itself from the spirit of its time by means of a constant and delicate labour'. Badiou's Beckett is not primarily engaged in an activity of constatation, that is, in the registering and diagnosis of a general structure o f I sense. With a force and decisiveness that, after all, might make him finally seem closer to Sartre than to Derrida, he rather commits his art to opposition, ! ,I , I, I a scrupulous but fiercely corrosive assault on contemporary orthodoxies, to move even further away from dialectics (Hill, p. 132). Later prose texts particularly as they are couched in language. Of course, one can hardly claim like The Lost Ones fall prey to 'aporetic contradiction' or 'a powerful that this assault has gone unnoticed by previous or indeed by contemporary identificatory ambivalence' (Hill, pp. 155, 157). Logically enough, the critics. Hill notes, for example, the 'peremptory and polemical' references to switchback afflicts the difference-indifference dyad itself. Thus in Watt, Watt' s quest is for 'the impossible difference' (Hill, p. 29) that will serve as anchor , security, foundation, but instead encounters Knott, a figure of indifference, 'engulfment and indeterminacy, apathy and invisibility' (Hill, p. 27). At the , l' ' same time, however, indifference in Watt becomes an uncontrollable proliferation of difference: Beckett 'dramatises the threat of engulfment by indifference by multiplying all manner of differences, contrasts, distinctions

in his own text' (Hill, p. 34). In effect, the logic of reversal instigates a hollowing or emptying out of value; except that, for Hill, it is not so much value as 'positions of meaning' that are at issue. This way of putting matters seems to me to be quite characteristic of recent Beckett criticism. Here the gap between that criticism,

122 'received opinion' in Beckett's essay 'Dante ... Bruno. Vico ... Joyce' and in his monograph on Proust (Hill, p. 2). He asserts quite rightly that Beckett's attitude of 'indifference' is also an 'abdication from the world's commercial round' (Hill, p. 9). Similarly, recent critics like Richard Begam have reminded us ofand indeed done much to refine our sense ofthe extent to which Beckett's art works to undermine established codes of representation. None the less, the deconstructive bent of recent criticism has made it wary of attributing to Beckett's art a rigorously negative power. Badiou, by contrast, has no such qualms. The key term in the sentence from Tireless Desire that I have just quotcd is subtraction. It is subtraction, in effect, that Badiou counterposes to tl1(; logic ofreversal. Badiou asserts that, 'since Plato, philosophy is a brcak with 123

, ' --' ,, ', AI a i n opinion. For the philosopher, everything that is consensual is suspect'. In Badiou's philosophy, what he calls truths are not objects of knowledge but holes made in the orders of knowledge and representation and indiscernible to them. They appear as a subtraction from the particularity of what is currentl y known. With Lacan in mind, Badiou calls this process a reduction of the density of knowledge. Truths do not destroy a previous knowledge. They rather traverse and fracture it. A truth is always distinct from the realm of what Badiou calls opinion, the realm customarily occupied by the human animal going about its ordinary business and according to which this animal sustains itself in its social existence. Truths appear as subtractions from opinion. Philosophy formalises truths and places them in relation to one another. It understands that they emerge in relation to the void (which is precisely what means that they are always possible) and therefore takes its bearings from a 'subtractive' conception of being. But philosophy itself does not produce truths. By the same token, it does not exactly subtract. Truths appear in four domains; in other words, there are four spheres oflife in which subtraction can take place: the political, the romantic, the scientific and the '"

, kss those of selfuood than ofthe delusive cornucopia of extant knowledge. I II I 111 any case, as we shall shortly see, Badiou's account of Beckett's development I

'I, Idoes not precisely correspond to his own very specific conception of , slIbjectivation. There is a sense in which, unlike what we might term Badiou's paradigmatic subject -Cantor would perhaps be the most obvious example his Beckett never decisively moves beyond 'working with impotence, ignorance', in Beckett's own famous phrase. In any event, in his suspensionofall that is inessential, for Badiou, Beckett has long been exemplary, perhaps above all others. But if subtraction operates as a kind of clearing of the ground, what is I ,I the thought that proceeds from or along with it? Badiou describes it as what, i,liI following Mallarme, he calls a mode of 'restricted action' (action restreinte). This concept may be pointedly contrasted with the shift in recent Beckett criticism away from a Beckett understood in terms of a restricted economy towards a Beckett whose work refers us to the general economy. The shift is evident, above all, in Trezise's book Into the Breach, which is where these , : , terms chiefly figure. For Trezise, the general economy -as opposed in artistic. It is clear that, for Badiou, Beckett's work constitutes a primary particular to the restricted economy of phenomenology -'produces the world ,, instance of art as an activity of subtraction. Beckett is concerned with ... and exceeds it' as a 'strangeness constitutive of all familiarity' (Trezise,

p. I ,I, subtraction as a patient, disciplined, vigilant elimination ofdoxa. In a fine phrase, Badiou even suggests that Beckett's prose is itselfthe very movement of 'negligence' ofthe mundane. It is seldom, if ever, writes Badiou, that one finds a writer of Beckett's calibre so little exposed to the world and so little

compromised by his relations with it. Badiou partly shares the continuing emphasis in recent criticism on Beckett's quarrel with Descartes. He would also partly assent to Trezise's case for an anti-phenomenological Beckett. He sees Beckett as inverting the Husserlian epoche and breaking with 'Cartesian terrorism'. But the inversion and break are finally less important than a fundamental allegiance, a shared commitment to subtraction. In this respect, for Badiou, it would be crucial to register what Beckett once said about the active force of his own will to self-impoverishment (in speaking of'my desire 30). Since phenomenology conceives of subjectivity as a 'separation from , i , exteriority', the general economy is irreducible to its terms (Trezise, pp. 6, 8). For his part, however, Beckett understands that, however originary it I I

presents itself as being, all separation is itself conditioned. This is why he gives up on an art of 'the feasible': he recognises that literature 'in its very

secondarity belies the priority of that world that originates in the dis appearance ofthe sign' (Trezise, p. 31). Beckettian art exposes the 'illusory priority of consciousness' and 'its pre-originary involvement in an economy ofsignification' that escapes it (Trezise, p. 32). It dramatises the immemorial i' dispossession of subjectivity as 'an involvement with an outside' that is always

'already within' (Trezise, p. 33). Thus Molloy reverses the reversal by virtue of which closure or separation appears to precede, found and condition 'its to make myself still poorer'). Self-impoverishment would be an austere and own genesis' (Trezise, p. 48); Malone Dies reverses the phenomenological necessary clearing of the ground for thought, as distinct from the incorrigible,

pour-soi into the pour I' autre ofsignification; and the 'non-self-coincidental muddy complicities of daily life (for Badiou insists that we are bound to voice' of the Unnamable 'thematizes literature itself as the ex-pression ofa inhabit the world of opinion, we cannot do otherwise). True, the principle of SUbjectivity beyond separation' (Trezise, p. 97). The personages in the Trilogy methodical ascesis to which Badiou is committed has no immediate are powerless because they cannot escape an ironical knowledge that, as

implication for subjectivity. But the structures that Beckettian self speaking subjects, they articulate themselves only on the basis of a more impoverishment itself is concerned so rigorously to undermine are arguably fundamental intersubjectivity that they cannot articulate. In this manner, I 124 125 , I i

Beckett calls to account 'the era in which the philosophy of separation has striven to totalize the very alterity that conditions and exceeds it' (Trezise, p. 65). The point is not exactly that Trezise's concept of alterity has no meaning for Badiou, but rather that he sees alterity as banally self-evident, and theref ore as without any great importance. 'Infinite alterity,' he writes, in his Ethics, 'is quite simply what there is'. What matters crucially is not alterity or 'the infinite multiplicity of differences', but sameness, understood as a feature 1 not of what exists already but ofwhat 'comes to be' .87 Badiou would certainly have no interest in mounting a defence specifically of phenomenology or phenomenological readings of Beckett. Yet his own account ofBeckett takes a very different direction to Trezise's. For Badiou's Beckett is not concerned with a concept of the general, but rather with the 'restricted action' of what Badiou calls 'writing the generic'. Beckett's work is therefore not read as a diagnosis of its own condition. The Beckettian project is rather a question of determination and therefore also a mode of action. It constitutes itself as a form of thought that is self-grounding or self-constituent, establishing its own internal samenesses or consistencies. (We shall note a little later that this emphasis creates certain problems for Badiou). It is worth reflecting here on what Badiou says about the poem .. and, above all, the Mallarmean poem .. in 'Que pense Ie poeme?': the poem or work cannot be general or 1 refer to any generality.89 In its singularity, it proffers not knowledge but thought. The work has no object or objectivity. In its self-constitution, as its own universe, it aims rather to deny or depose the object. What emerges in this denial of objectivity is pure thought or the Mallarmean 'pure notion'. Nothing confirms the universe -constituted by and as the work -as having a right to exist. In this respect, the work of art is pure affirmation (which is how Badiou can claim that 'in an almost aggressive way, all of Beckett's genius tends towards affirmation', and yet, in doing so, mean something quite different by affirmation to what the existential humanists meant). This is generic work, in Badiou's understanding of it: Beckett reduces experience to a set of significant minima, 'to certain major functions or axiomatic terms' (Movement, Rest, the Same and the Other, the Logos); to certain questions about these functions (the place of being, the subject, 'what happens', the existence of the pair); to certain responses to these questions (the grey-black of Being, the solipsistic torture of the subject, the event and its nomination, love). It is thus that he produces what Badiou calls his axiomatics of humanity. Like Rimbaud and Mallarme, Beckett decides a universe into existence, and 126 Alain Badiou On Beckett proceeds to make it consistent on the basis of that decision. Beckett writes, says Badiou, at the very point at which the decision as to the being of the Ihing in question is made. He commits himself to a treatment of that which

alone constitutes an 'essential determination' (see 'The Writing of the Generic' in this volume). This 'determination' is neither an objective essence nor established in its right to existence. It proceeds axiomatically, on the basis o f a soit, mettons, disons, or supposons que. If, as Badiou adamantly maintains, his is a philosophy of sameness rather than alterity, this does not mean that it is a philosophy of inexorable recurrence. Something like the reverse is true: Badiou is intent on sustaining a thought of the radical break -ifwithin a set of rigorous conditions -under the rubric of the event. Here again, his thinking takes a different tack to the new Beckett criticism, particularly with regard to what has tended to be its concern with repetition. Richard Begam, for example, reads Beckett in terms of a Derridean scepticism according to which every attempt to move 'beyond' or 'outside' metaphysics, humanism, anthropologism insistently returns to 'a set of ideas ... which themselves participate in the anthropocentrism they are meant to transcend'. For Begam's Beckett, there is no rupture that is not a repetition. But the most significant and influential study of repetition in Beckett has been Steven Connor's Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text. Connor does not simply assert the power of repetition over that of newness in Beckett's work, but rather suggests that they share a complex and problematic interrelationship. Repetition does not necessarily have a stymying effect on Beckett's world. It is not an index of an essential paralysis . Nor does Connor read it as a centring or unifying force in Beckett's work. Indeed, he suggests that Beckett's practice 'instances the powerful possibilitie s of reproduction over the sterile compulsions of replication' (Connor, p. 201). He argues that repetition brings with it 'a principle of difference' , in Becket t, that it even activates a 'perverse dynamism of difference' (Connor, p. 13). This is hardly surprising, since, according to Connor, Beckett tends to dissolve the difference between repetition and difference itself. Yet it is none the less the case that Beckett's work 'shows a self-constraining movement in which sameness always inhabits or inhibits what may initially present itself as novelty' (Connor, p. 2). Connor's concept of a Beckettian 'self-constraint' actually bears a certain resemblance to what Badiou means by 'restricted action'. But Connor's Beckett can imagine nothing beyond the 'selfconstraining movement' of his art. This means that that art is everywhere intrinsically ambivalent: in Murphy, for example, 'repetition enacts a 127 'II I" , ,: !ii "'1 :,, 1

' , : I ' I ..i , ' ' I I!,i ,

, .. doubleness, asserting both the fr eedom of the language fr om referentialconstra ints and its internal emptiness and exhaustion' (Connor, p. 23). 111Krapp sLast Tap e, as Krapp listens to himself, repetition opens up possibilities,in that he recognises his 'ironic non-coincidence with himself', the truth ofself-differen ce (Connor, p. 128). On the other hand, it closes possibilitiesdown, in that the play also demonstrates the Derridean principle ofthe graft,according to which ' every utterance can be taken up or enveloped by someother occasion' (Connor, p. 130). The effects of repetition thus also tendtowards inertia, a reminder of 'th e death into writing of every living word'(ibid.). As Connor describes it, the ineluctable ambivalence of repetition inBeckett thus traps him, again, in the endlessness ofHill's 'purgatorial cycle'.There is no e xterior to this purgatory. There cannot be, because the power ofthe relationship s between repetition and difference transcends time and history.For Badiou, howe ver, this is not the case, because there is always the possibilityof an event. T he event is an 'extra-being'. 'Every singular truth', writesBadiou, 'has its ori gin in an event. Something must happen, in order for thereto be something new. E ven in our personal lives, there must be an encounter,there must be something wh ich cannot be calculated, predicted or managed,there must be a break based only on chance'. An event is a substancelessfragment ofpure fortuitousness. It is als o ephemeral, and therefore preciselyhistorical. It arrives as a supplement to be ing, in that it both pertains to agiven situation and yet is also outside and de tached fr om the latter 's 'rules',constraining us to decide on a new way ofbein g which conservatism woulddecree to be impossible. Ofcourse, no newness is absol utely new: the eventmust compose with elements ofthe situation as given. In this respect, Badioudoes not so much oppose the very terms in which Begam and Connor constructtheir Becketts as alter the proportions of those terms. Nonetheless, w hat..ist..nguishes Badiou's account ofthe 'purgatorial cycle' -which he interpre ts,III hIS own way, as a seemingly interminable oscillation between the dim orgr ey-black ofbeing and the solipsistic torture ofthe cogito -is that it ultimately presents Beckett with an impasse from which he gradually recognises that hemust work his way free. Thus, from Te xts fo r No thing onwards, Beckett'swork begins to open itselfup to the event: to chance, the incident, 'suddenmodifications of the given', even to the possibility of happiness and love.Beck..tt effects this , not least, to return to an earlier point, by abandoning thequestIon of meaning . This is evident in later work fr om Th e Lost Ones toEnough to III Seen III Sa id. Wo rstward Ho even presents us with a kind of128 -,. , "" , , .. doubleness, asserting both the fr eedom of the language fr om referentialconstra ints and its internal emptiness and exhaustion' (Connor, p. 23). 111Krapp sLast Tap e, as Krapp listens to himself, repetition opens up possibilities,in that he recognises his 'ironic non-coincidence with himself', the truth ofself-differen ce (Connor, p. 128). On the other hand, it closes possibilitiesdown, in that the play also demonstrates the Derridean principle ofthe graft,according to which ' every utterance can be taken up or enveloped by someother occasion' (Connor, p. 130). The effects of repetition thus also tendtowards inertia, a reminder of 'th e death into writing of every living word'(ibid.). As Connor describes it, the ineluctable ambivalence of repetition inBeckett thus traps him, again, in the endlessness ofHill's 'purgatorial cycle'.There is no e xterior to this purgatory. There cannot be, because the power ofthe relationship s between repetition and difference transcends time and history.For Badiou, howe ver, this is not the case, because there is always the possibilityof an event. T he event is an 'extra-being'. 'Every singular truth', writesBadiou, 'has its ori gin in an event. Something must happen, in order for thereto be something new. E ven in our personal lives, there must be an encounter,there must be something wh ich cannot be calculated, predicted or managed,there must be a break based only on chance'. An event is a substancelessfragment ofpure fortuitousness. It is als

o ephemeral, and therefore preciselyhistorical. It arrives as a supplement to be ing, in that it both pertains to agiven situation and yet is also outside and de tached fr om the latter 's 'rules',constraining us to decide on a new way ofbein g which conservatism woulddecree to be impossible. Ofcourse, no newness is absol utely new: the eventmust compose with elements ofthe situation as given. In this respect, Badioudoes not so much oppose the very terms in which Begam and Connor constructtheir Becketts as alter the proportions of those terms. Nonetheless, w hat..ist..nguishes Badiou's account ofthe 'purgatorial cycle' -which he interpre ts,III hIS own way, as a seemingly interminable oscillation between the dim orgr ey-black ofbeing and the solipsistic torture ofthe cogito -is that it ultimately presents Beckett with an impasse from which he gradually recognises that hemust work his way free. Thus, from Te xts fo r No thing onwards, Beckett'swork begins to open itselfup to the event: to chance, the incident, 'suddenmodifications of the given', even to the possibility of happiness and love.Beck..tt effects this , not least, to return to an earlier point, by abandoning thequestIon of meaning . This is evident in later work fr om Th e Lost Ones toEnough to III Seen III Sa id. Wo rstward Ho even presents us with a kind of128 -,. , "" , Alain Badiou On Beckett ';lIl1l1nary of Beckett's trajectory, in this respect, tracing the course of a l ong lahour that ends in an impasse. This impasse, however, is decisively broken prccisely by an event. If the event is not to sink back unnoticed into the grey-black of being, Ii()wever -if it is to inaugurate what Badiou calls a truth procedure -it must hc held, stabilised in a trace. This means that it must be named. For Badiou, ill Beckett's later work, the activity of naming becomes very important. Here, again, Badiou seems at odds with recent critics, who have repeatedly in..isted on the instability of the name or what Carla Locatelli calls 'the realIty of semantic instability' (Locatelli, p. 229), with Watt's deliberations on the word 'pot' as a kind of locus classicus or textual crux. For Locatelli, 'the rundamental dichotomy between words and things' is what powers the theoretical interrogation sustained by Beckett's art (Locatelli, p. 51). She pit s Beckett unstintingly against naIve referential fallacies and logocentric closure . In Locatelli's account, Beckett moves steadily towards a 'literature of the unword' by means of a process of 'active and lucid "unwording'" (Locatelli, p. ix). His art does not exactly repudiate the practice of naming, however. Instead, he institutes a 'suspension of designation' (Locatelli, p. 6) which, by means of paradox, contradiction, lacunae, 'pseudo-referents' (Locatelli, p. 58), 'comic slippage', 'irresolution' (Locatelli, pp. 100-1) and other devices produces 'a type of verbal art that faces the problem of the visibility ofreali. . by deconstructing the unity of saying' (Locatelli, p. 228). In fact, LocatellI also describes 'designative suspension' as a process of 'subtraction'. But the context for what she means by the term is not what Badiou sees as a given order of knowledge pertaining to a situation but, as in other recent studies of Beckett, the 'logocentric orientation that characterises Western thought' (pp. Badiou puts this familiar emphasis into reverse. For Badiou -and this makes him quite remarkably distinct from many of his philosophical and theoretical contemporaries -there is at least one domain in which language must be deemed to 'come after', to have a secondary or subordinate function. 'There exists a realm of the thinkable', he asserts, 'that is inaccessible to th e

so-called total jurisdiction oflanguage'. As Badiou affirms the sheer radicality of the event in its rarity, so too he also affirms its radically heterogeneous relation to the orders of language. The event is hors loi (outside the law) and a supplement to the situation at hand. As such, it is irreducible to the terms o f that situation, and is thus subtracted from any and every regime of sense. It must therefore be named; in effect, it calls for a name, and this namc serves

..--..

-Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Beckett This way ofthinking Beckett in relation to subjectivity is quite foreign to Badiou. For one thing, it takes Beckett's 'characters' to be representative of the generalised conditions of subjectivity. But, as I observed earlier, for Badiou, like Mallann6's poems, Beckett's art cannot be general or refer to any generality. Beckett decides a world into existence, in all its singularity. The question of subjectivation needs to be approached quite differently, principally in relation to Beckett himself. Badiou's conception of the subject is very different from the one on which Katz depends. There is no universal or general subject whose deconstruction would now be imperative. Subjects are subjects of events, and specific to them. A truth -in what we saw earlier is Badiou's sense of the term -is the consequence of an event. Truths persist because of the allegiance of their subjects, who commit themselves to truths and insist upon them. The subject is constructed in a process of supplementation that makes the subject more and other than he or she has ,I i II ,. ; II ' hitherto been; or, better still, it even 'induces' a subject. Ordinarily, the hu man animal comports itself in terms of Spinoza's 'perseverance in being', the I', , , , , , : I pursuit of interests, self-preservation. Individual consciousness is indeed , always already 'deconstructed'; it is an indeterminate and heterogeneous flux.

, , , ' Identity is no more than a given state of this flux, a representation expressing

' , i . , a more or less habitual preference for certain features of the flux at the expen se of others. The representation in question is what one customarily takes for . , the stable structure of a self. But this perseverance is the law of one's being only insofar as one knows oneself. The experience of the event and the 'process' of a truth do not fall under this law. Routine perseverance in being can be broken by an event, an encounter with something that refuses to i ,, correspond to what one has taken for the law of one's being and is not representable in its terms. It is thus that subjectivation begins. But there is an oddity, here. As I suggested earlier, Badiou's account of Beckettian fidelity does not exactly correspond to his larger account of the I , , , I I, structure of subjectivation itself. Subjectivation begins with an event, to whic h

A concept of fidelity is therefore crucial to Badiou's thought. The subjects of a truth remain faithful to the event that inaugurated the truth in , I Ii -the subject then declares his or her fidelity. But Beckett is not the subject o f " ! , an event, for Badiou; at least, he has given no indication that he sees Beckett question. Fidelity is the 'process' of continuing within a situationfrom the point of view of the event that has come to supplement it. It is the determinati on i! in this way. Rather, Beckett is faithful to an exteriority, to what lies outside

, to think a world according to the principle of what has come to change it, to make it new. SUbjectivation is fidelity to the interruption constituted by the event and therefore a continuing resistance to the law. Subjectivity is perseverance in what has broken one's perseverance in being. In a phrase of Lacan's that Badiou returns to repeatedly, the imperative undergone in subjectivation is 'nepas ceder sur son desir' ('not to give up on one's desire') . The question is: how am I to continue to exceed my own being, to remain 132 the particularity of what is currently known. Initially, this commitment appears only in negative form, in the austere operations of subtraction and the

' ' : , singularity of 'restricted action'. After Texts for Nothing, however, it becom es a commitment to the possibility of the event. But neither commitment is precisely an instance of fidelity, since there is a sense in which Beckett has , I' nothing to which to be faithful. Indeed, Badiou has preferred to speak of Beckett's courage, rather than his fidelity. One might propose of course that 133

--------------------------,.Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Beckett the very extent to which Badiou's version of Beckett departs or differs from the terms of his own philosophy actually makes him look less open than the new Beckett criticism to the charge of using Beckett as an exemplification of a prior set of decisions. The very rift between Badiou's philosophical system and his version of Beckett's art helps to preserve an aesthetic practice in its specificity, as a procedure whose truth is sui generis, both immanent and singular. This would be consistent with Badiou's assertion, notably in 'Art and Philosophy', from the Petit manuel d'inesthetique, that philosophy does not produce truths, as art does, but rather grasps, announces and displays them; that its relation to a n artistic truth will therefore always be in some sense secondary.190 Such arguments, however, do not wholly dispose of the problem. Badiou has a quite unBeckettian attachment to the clarity of narrative sequence. His accounts of the progress of a truth or the process of subjectivation and of Beckett's career both take the form oforderly, sequential narrative. The trouble is that the second narrative does not conform to the first. Furthermore, the narrative of Beckett's career will hold good only if modified to the point where it hardly looks like a plausible narrative at all. The early Beckett does not commit himself to subtraction, for instance, without waverings and demurrals. As I have argued elsewhere, Murphy is an ironic account of the problematics of subtraction understood, in this instance, as a principle central to modernism. For all Badiou's claims that, in How It Is and The Lost Ones, we find a Beckett concerned to tum away from the agonistics of the cogito and towards the other, both are principally later instances of a practice of 'restricted action' which offer no more obvious hope of liberation than did the Trilogy. This is indicative: Badiou appears reluctant to countenance the possibility that there might be a paradoxical or problematic aspect to his twin insistence on the self-founding character of Beckettian thought on the one hand and Beckett's desire to open his art up to the event or encounter on the other. Is the relationship between these two principles not partly contradictory ? Is there not, in Beckett's work as a whole, a kind of sporadic, irregular oscillation between them that cannot be reduced to logical or chronological order? So, too, Badiou's account of the place of the event in Beckett seems unduly confining, both in terms of period (with the exception ofWatt, Beckett after 1960) and modality (the event happens, and is named). Is there no sense of events in the Trilogy? If not, is that just the case because Badiou can only understand the event in one particular, narratable dimension, as founding the progress ofa truth? Does not Badiou's theory of the event actually also require 134 a theory of a play in being, 'eventfulness', a version or, better, an equivalent of Heideggerian Ereignis? Might not Beckett be concerned with this play, and thus with other kinds of event, as well as the one that interests Badiou? Might he not be much concerned, in Texts for Nothing, for example, with what Bennington has called 'writing the event?' Might Badiou' s understanding of the Beckettian event need to be supplemented from elsewhere, notably, perhaps, from Lyotard? Beckett's treatment of the event is arguably

multifarious, heterogeneous and uneven, and cannot be encapsulated in narrative form. Leslie Hill has stressed the danger of taking 'a misleading teleological approach to Beckett's literary project' (Hill, p. 121). For all his own distrust ofteleological assumptions, it seems to me that Badiou has not been altogether successful in avoiding this trap. In fact, I would suggest that his narrative of Beckett needs to be worked over in an awareness of the very principle of disunity and complicating incoherence in Beckett's work to which the new Beckett criticism has so effectively successfully alerted us. In this respect, a t least, the two critical dispositions should not be placed in polar opposition. That said, however reworked and redistributed, Badiou's terms of reference -subtraction, 'restricted action', the event, naming-as-missaying and fidelity or courage -seem to me to offer an important new framework for ,<' , 1 , -understanding Beckett. This framework is ethical. Recent Beckett criticism -::.: has found in Beckett a writer concerned to elucidate or to deconstruct -to diagnose -the generalised conditions within which meaning or truth is produced. In Badiou's own specific sense, he and Beckett, too, are interested in sets of conditions for truths. They are partly concerned with the conditions ruptured by truths, or upon which truths supervene, as in the case of the Beckettian concern with the reduction of experience to a set of major functions. They are also much preoccupied with the formal criteria for the appearance of truths. But the postmodern or post-structuralist Beckettian's attention to the conditions of truth necessarily problematises truth itself. At the very leas t, it shrinks truth's scope. In Badiou, by contrast, truths are added on to their conditions, to the world. This is the case because truths are singular not gener al. They are historically inexistent or 'indiscernible' before their emergence, if universal in their trajectory in so far as they are available to all. This convi ction , "', categorically determines Badiou's reading of Beckett. Beckett's art is founded on a fierce resistance to doxa. It opens up a space for a different construction of the world through an axiomatic procedure whose mode is hypothesis. Whilst failure never ceases to haunt this project, tentatively, contradictorily, fitful ly, 135 I I I

' i I C

, Alain Badiou On and by a variety ofdifferent means, Beckett edges towards a faith in possibility . This is also a faith in transformation whose token is the transformation of language itself. To return to the Sartre with whose project Badiou partly identifies his own, one might think of Badiou's Beckett as granting at least a kind of minimal credibility to the assertion, in the Critique of Dialectical Reason, that 'man exists only in flashes'. Such a project -a project whose ultimate bearing is surely on the legacy of a century of disaster, one of what Beckett calls 'the times of the great massacres' -could only be undertaken with the extraordinary and selfless courage that has long been attributed to Beckett. As Badiou's writings help us see, this project is, in the highest degre e, an ethical one. Bibliography BEGAM, Richard, Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) CONNOR, Steven, Samuel Beckett: Repetition, Theory and Text (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988) HILL, Leslie, Beckett's Fiction: In Different Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) KATZ, Daniel, Saying 'J' No More: Subjectivity and Consciousness in the Prose ofSamuel Beckett (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1999) LOCATELLI, Carla, Unwording the World: Samuel Beckett 's Prose Works After the Noble Prize (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990) TREZISE, Thomas, Into the Breach: Samuel Beckett and the Ends of Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990) Alain Badiou On Beckett Notes 1 ['L'ecriture du generique: Samuel Beckett', in Conditions (Paris, Editions du Seuil: 1992), pp. 329-366. This text was read out in 1989, in the context of the Confer ences du Perroquet (a series oflectures set up by I'Organisation politique in Paris). It was published as a conference pamphlet and has long been out of print. It will be no ted that, since this lecture was given, Samuel Beckett has died. And that Worstward Ho has been admirably translated into French by Edith Fournier, under the title Cap au ,

pire (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1991).] 2 [Mirlitonnade is a Beckettian neologism used as the title for a set of poems w ritten for the mostpart between 1976 and 1978, which Beckett himself described as 'gloo my French doggerel' (quoted in James Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life o/Samuel ,I .: " I, II!: , I , , , , , ., I

136 , ,

Alain Badiou On Beckett 19 [We are here following Beckett's usage for the translations of (monce and enoneiation, following a suggestion byAnne Banfield. Badiou's discussion here ec hoes Michel Foucault's distinction (itself originating with Benveuiste) between an 'enunciating subject' [sujet del 'enoneiation] and a 'subject of the statement' [sujet de I 'enonce]. See The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1989) p.l07.] 20 [ ...]je croyais par moments que ce serait la ma recompense d 'avoir si vaill amment parte, entrer encore vivant dans Ie silence [ ... ] (p. 183). 21 Ma pensee s 'est pensee et [ ... ]je suis parfaitement mort [letter to Cazali s, May 14, 1867]. 22 Moi je ne pense, si c' est la cet affolement vertigineux comme d 'un guepier qu 'on enfume, que de passe un certain degre de terreur (p. 106). 23 [ ... ] ilfaut continuer,je ne peux pas continuer,je vais continuer(p. 213). 24 [ ... ] un qui parle en disant, tout en parlant, Quiparle, et de quoi, et un qui entend, muet, sans comprendre, loin de tous [ ... ]. Et cet autre [ ... ] qui divague ai nsi, a coups de moi a pourvoir et de lui depourvus [ ... ]. Voila un joU trio, et dire que to ut 9a ne fait qu 'un, et que cet un ne fait que rien, et quel rien, il ne vaut rien (p. 199). 25 Fut-il jamais un temps ou plus question de questions? Mort-nees jusqu 'a la derniere. Avant. Sitot con9ues. Avant. OU plus question de repondre. De ne Iepou voir. De ne pouvoir ne pas vouloir savoir. De ne Ie pouvoir. Non. Jamais. Un reve. Voi la la reponse (p. 46). scxuation, see Jacques Lacan, SeminarXX: On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Lo ve and Knowledge, 1972-1973, ed. by Jacques-Alain Miller, trans. by Bruce Fink (London: w.w. Norton, 1998).] 31 [By adding in the French '(Monsieur Noeud, Monsieur Noue) ' -literally Mister Knot, Mister Knotted -Badiou is alluding to the link between the concept of stru cture and the theory of knots in late Lacan.] 32 [ ... ] a la maison de Monsieur Knott rien ne pouvait etre ajoute, rien soust rait,

mais que telle elle etait alors, telle elle avait ete au commencement, et telle elle resterait jusqu 'a la fin, sous tous les rapports essentiels, et cela parce qu 'ici a chaq ue instant toute presence significative, et iei tout presence etait significative, meme si l'on ne pouvait dire de quoi, impliquait cette meme presence a tout instant [. .. ] (pp. 135136).

33 [ ... ] brillants de clarte formelle et au contenu impenetrable (p. 75). 34 [ ... ] la signification attribuee a cet ordre d'incidents par Watt, dans ses relations, etait tantot la signification originale perdue et puis recouvree, et tan tot une signification tout autre que la signification originale, et tantot une signification degagee, dans un delai plus ou moins long, et avec plus ou moins de mal, de l'originale absence d e signification (p. 80). 35 Hamm: Qu 'est-ce quise passe? / Clov: Quelque chose suit son cours. /Un temps . /Hamm: Clov! / Clov (agace): Qu 'est-ce que c 'est? /Hamm: On n 'est pas en trai n de ... de ... signifier quelque chose? / Clov: Signifier? Nous, signifier! (Rire br ei) Ah elle est bonne! (p. 49) ' ,'1 , I , i II I I I , , 26 [For a meta-ontological presentation of Bad iou's theory of orientations in t hought,

", see Meditation 27 ofL'etre et l'evenement (Paris: Seuil, 1988), pp. 311-315.] -i 36 Pendant l'inspection soudain un bruit. Faisant sans que celle-la s'interro mpe I'' ' ! -que I 'esprit se reveille. Comme l'expliquer? Et sans aller jusque-la comment I e dire? 27 [On the relationship between the concepts of generic and indiscernible, a cru cial Loin en arrit'!re de I '(Ril la quete s' engage. Pendant que I' evenement palit. Quel qu 'il feature of Badiou's philosophy, see Manifesto for Philosophy, 'Conference sur la

I ' ' fut. Mais voila qu ' a la rescousse soudain il se renouvelle. Du coup Ie nom com mun : I 1"1' soustraction' in Conditions, and L 'etre et l'evenement, Meditations 33 and 34.]

peu commun de croulement. Renforce peu apres sinon affaibli par I 'inusuel langu ide. , Un croulement languide. Deux. Loin de l'oeil tout a sa torture toujours une lueu r 28 [ ... ] on est ce qu ' on est, en partie tout au moins (p. 81).

d'espoir. Par la grace de ces modestes debuts (p. 70). 29 Terre ingrate mais pas totalement (p. 35). [This can be translated literally as , ," " 37 [The 'out-of-place' [horlieu], together with the 'space of placements' [espla ce], 'Ungrateful earth but not entirely.'] provides the conceptual matrix for Badiou's attempt to re-found dialectics as a theory , ofpolitical subjectivation in his Theorie du sujet (Paris: Seuil, 1982).] 30 [For Lacan's concept of the 'Not-All', originating in his mathemes of(feminin e) I I ' , 140 141 j ! " II, : ' I ' : , 'i ,

. ..8 [In the lines that follow, Badiou plays on the French title ofthe text,Le De peupleur, lIterally, 'The Depopulator'.] 39 Sejour ou des corps vont cherchant chacun son depeupleur (p. 7). 40 [ ...] dans Ie cylindre Ie peu possible la ou it n 'est pas n 'est seulement plus et dans Ie moindre moins Ie rien tout entier si cette notion est maintenue (p. 28). 41 [The notion of a mi-dire is discussed by Lacan in Seminar XXIII.] 42 [ ... ] la voix etant ainsi faite je cite que de notre vie totale eUe ne dit que les trois quarts (p. 202) , Alain Badiou On Beckett barque s' est coincee. Comme its se pliaient, avec un soupir, devant la proue! J e me suis coule sur elle, mon visage dans ses seins et ma main sur elle. Nous restion s lii, couches, sans remuer. Mais, sous nous, tout remuait, et nous remuait, doucement, de haut en bas, et d'un cote a l'autre. / Passe minuit. Jamais entendu -(pp. 24-26) 49 II causait rarement geodesie. Mais nous avons du parcourir plusieurs fois l'equivalent de l'equateur terrestre. A raison d'environ cinq kilometres par jou r et nuit en moyenne. Nous nous refugiions dans I 'arithmetique. Que de calculs menta ux efJectues de concert plies en deux! Nous elevions ainsi a la troisieme puissance des nombres ternaires en tiers. Parfois sous une pluie dituvienne. Tant bien que mal se gravant au fur et a mesure dans sa memoire les cubes s 'accumulaient. En vue de I'operation inverse a un stade ulterieur. Quand Ie temps aurait fait son oeuvre (pp. 38-39). . . ,, 50 Par une rampe de cinquante pour cent sa tete frolait Ie sol. Je ne sais pas a quoi it devait ce gout. A I 'amour de la terre et des milles parfums et teintes des f leurs. Ou plus betement a des imperatifs d'ordre anatomique. Il n 'ajamais souleve la ques tion. Le sommet atteint helas it faUa it redescendre. / Pour pouvoir de temps a autre jouir du ciel il se servait d 'une petite glace ronde. L' ayant voitee de son souffle et ensuite

frottee contre son mollet il y cherchait les constellations. Je I 'ail s 'ecriai t-i! en parlant 44 [ ... ] la vie dans I 'amour stoique [ ... ] (p. 97) (p. 159). . 46 [ ... ] que de marivaudages, de frayeurs et de farouches attouchements, dont il importe seulement de retenir ceci, qu 'ils firent entrevoir a Macmann ce que sig nijiait l'expression etre deux (p. 144). 47 soit en clair je cite ou bienje suis seul etplus de probleme ou bien nous som mes en nombre infini et plus de probleme non plus (p. 192) 48 -Ie haut du lac, avec la barque, nage pres de la rive, puis pousse la barque au large et laisse aller a la derive. Elle etail couchee sur les planches dufond, l es mains sous la tete et les yeux fermes. Soleil flamboyant, au brin de brise, I 'eau un peu clapoteuse comme je I 'aime. J'ai remarque une egratignure sur sa cuisse et lui ai de,:ande comment elle se l' etait faite. En cueuillant des groseilles a maquerea u, m a-:-elle repondu. J'ai dit encore que c,:a me semblait sans espoir et pas la p eine de continuer et elle a fait oui sans ouvrir les yeux. Je lui ai demande de me regar der et apres quelques instants -apres quelques instants elle I 'a fait, mais les yeux c omme desfentes a cause du solei!. Je me suis penche sur elle pour qu 'i!s soient dans I' ombre et i!s se sont ouverts. M'ont laisse entrer. Nous derivions parmi les roseaux et la 142 de la Lyre ou du Cygne. Et souvent it ajoutait que Ie ciel n 'avait rien (p. 42) . 51 [Badiou's statement resonates far more with the last line in the French versi on (Et souvent i! ajoutait que le ciel n 'avail rien) than with the far more ambivalent , if not altogether deflationary, tone of 'the sky seemed much the same' in the English. Whilst the English could be said to retain the ultimate indifference of being (the sky) to the event of love ('the sky has nothing', 'the sky seemed much the same') it seems t o offer a less confrontational and heroic figure of the Two. Perhaps this shift in emphasis i " -could be summarised by saying that in the English version the sky is indiff erent to the event of love, whilst in the French text love allows us to become indifferent to

the indifference of being, by fixing it into a 'constellation' that we can possess.] 52 [The theme of the Constellation is one that Badiou draws from the thinking of Stephane Mallarme. For Badiou's thinking on Mallarme, see 'La methode de Mallarm e: soustraction et isolement', in Conditions, pp. 108-129, 'Philosophie du faune', in Petit Manuel d'Inesthetique (Paris: Seuil, 1998), pp. 189-215, as well as the ea rlier 'Est-il exact que toute pensee emet un coup de des' ,Les conferences du perroque t 5 (January 1986), pp. 1-20.] 53 Tu es sur Ie dos au pied d 'un tremble. Dans son ombre tremblante. EUe couche e a 143

Alain Badiou On Beckett Alain Badiou On ecoutez les feuilles. Dans leur ombre tremblante (p. 65-66). 79 Penombre obscure sourcepas suo Savoir Ie minimum. Ne rien savoir non. Sera it trop beau. Tout au plus Ie minime minimum (p. 10). 69 De sa couche elle voit se lever Venus. Encore. De sa couche par temps clair e lle voitse lever Venus suivie du solei!. Elle en veut alors au principe de toute vie . Encore.

Le soir par temps clair elle jouit de sa revanche. A Venus. Devant I 'autre fene tre. Assise raide sur sa vieille chaise elle guette la radieuse (p. 7). 70 Je m 'en vais maintenant tout effacer sauf les fleurs. Plus de pluies. Plus d e mamelons. Rien que nous deux nous trafnant dans les fleurs. Assez mes vieux sein s sentent sa vieille main (p. 47). 71 Travail, famille, troisieme patrie, his to ires de fesses, finances, art et n ature, for interieur, sante, logement, Dieu et les hommes, autant de desastres (Fragment de thM.tre II, in Pas, p. 39). 72 soit en clair je cite ou bien je suis seul et plus de probleme ou bien nous s ommes en nombre infini etplus de probleme non plus (p. 192) 73 les dejections non elles sont moi mais je les aime les vieilles boftes mal vi dees mollement McMes non plus autre chose la boue engloutit tout moi seul elle me por te mes vingt kilos trente kilos elle cede un peu sous c;a puis ne cedeplus je nefui s pasje m 'exile (p. 60) 74 [See notes 2 and 3.] ' 75 Endroit clos. Tout ce qu 'ilfautsavoir pour dire est su (Pour finir encore et autres fOirades, p. 57)[See note 8 on the title of this text]. 76 Ciel gris sans nuage pas un bruit rien qui bouge terre sable gris cendre. Pet it corps meme gris que la terre Ie ciel les ruines seul debout. Oris cendre a la ro nde terre ciel confondus lointains sans fin (p. 70).

77 [It is far easier to identify this 'conceptual' consistency in Beckett's Fren ch work, where the name of the place of being is quite consistentlypenombre. As many of t he , ') quotations presented here demonstrate, in the English works there is some variat ion 80 Disparition du vide ne se peut. Sauf disparition de la penombre. Alors dispar ition de tout (p. 22). 81 Je Ie crois, oui, je crois que tout ce qui est faux se laisse davantage redui re, en notions claires et distinctes, distinctes de toutes les autres notions (p. 110). 82 [ ... ] c'est un reve, c' est peut-etre un reve, c;a m' etonnerait, je vais m e reveiller, dans Ie silence, ne plus m 'endormir, ce sera moi, ou rever encore, rever un sil ence, un silence de reve [ ... ] (p. 212). 83 Moi je ne pense, si c' est la cet affolement vertigineux comme d 'un guepier qu' on enfume, que depasse un certain degre de terreur (p. 106). ,, 84 [ .. . ] un quiparle en dis ant, tout en parlant, Qui parle, et de quoi, et u n qui entend, muet, sans comprendre, loin de tous [ ... ]. Et cet autre [ ... ] qui divague ai nsi, a coups de moi a pourvoir et de lui depourvus [ .. . ]. Voila un joti trio, et dire que tout c;a ne fait qu 'un, et que cet un nefait que rien, et quel rien, il ne vaut rien (p. 199). 85 [Badiou's theory of the count-as-one [compte-pour-un] constitutes one of the foundational moments in his ontology, as can be seen in Meditation 1 of L 'etre et I 'evenement.] 86 [ . . .] ilfaut continuer, je ne peux pas continuer, je vais continuer (p. 21 3). 87 [ .. .] a la maison de Monsieur Knott rien ne pouvait etre ajoute, rien soust rait, mais que telle elle etait alors, telle elle avait ete au commencement, et telle elle resterait jusqu 'a lafin, sous tous les rapports essentiels [. . . ] (pp. 135-136).

88 [ ... ] brillants de clarteformelle et au contenu impenetrable (p. 75). 89 [... ] la signification attribuee a cet ordre d 'incidents par Watt, dans ses relations, ii, ,II : I etait tant6t la signification originale perdue et puis recouvree, et tant6t un e signification ' ',',, in Beckett's designation of this 'place'. See the translators' introduction for further .' tout autre que la signification originale, et tant6t une signification degagee, dans un discussion of the concept of place in light of Badiou's recent theory of appeara nce.] delai plus ou moins long, et avec plus ou moins de mal, de l'originale absence d e signification (p. 80). 78 Ce qui frappe d'abord dans cette penombre est la sensation de jaune qu 'elle donne pour ne pas dire de soufre a cause des associations (p. 32). 147 146 ,, , ,

Alain Badiou On Beckett Alain Badiou On 90 Quelque chose suit son cours (p. 49). 91 Signifier? Nous, signifier? Ah elle est bonne! (p. 49). 92 [Badiou fonnulates the distinction between presentation and representation in L' etre et [' evenement, see especially Meditations 1, 8 and 9.] 93 Pendant ['inspection soudain un bruit. Faisant sans que celle-fa s'interrompe que I 'esprit se reveille. Comment l'expliquer? Et sans aUer jusque-Ia comment I e dire? Loin en arriere de I 'adl la quete s 'engage. Pendant que I 'evenement pal it. Quel 102 [.. .] Ie temps beni du bleu [ ... ] (Sans, p. 70). 103 Nous nous etions scindes si c' est cela qu 'it desirait (p. 38). 104 [Le dur desir de durer is the title of a collection of poetry by Paul Eluard , published in 1946.] 105 Pour pouvoir de temps a autre jouir du ciel if se servait d 'une petite glac e ronde. qu'ilfot. Mais voila qu'a la rescousse soudain il se renouvelle. Du coup Ie nom commun peu commun de croulement. Renforce peu apres sinon affaibli par I 'inusuel langu ide. Un croulement languide. Deux. Loin de I'ceil tout a sa torture toujours une lueu r d 'espoir. Par la grace de ces modestes debuts (p. 70). 94 Nous nous refugiions dans l'arithmetique. Que de calculs mentaux effectues de concert plies en deux! (p. 38) L 'ayant voilee de son soujJle et ensuite frottee contre son mollet iI y chercha it les constellations. Je I' ail s' ecriait-il en parlant de la Lyre ou du Cygne. Et so uvent if ajoutait que Ie ciel n 'avait rien (p. 42). 106 [See note 50] 107 voix forte, un peu solennelle, manifestement celle de Krapp a une epoque tre s anterieure (p. l3).

108 indestructible association jusqu 'au dernier soupir de la tempete et de la n uit _ avec la lumiere de l'entendement et lefeu-(p. 23). 109 Krapp debranche impatiemment I'appareil [...] (p. 23). 110 -Ie haut du lac, avec la barque, nage pres de la rive, puispousse la barque au large et laisse aller a la derive. Elle etait couchee sur les planches du fond, les mains sous la tete et les yeux fermes. Solei! flamboyant, un brin de brise, I 'eau un peu clapoteuse comme je l'aime. J'ai remarque une egratignure sur sa cuisse et lui a i demande comment elle se I' etail faite, En cueillant des groseilles a maquereau, m 'a telle repondu. J' ai dit encore que 9a me semblait sans espoir et pas lapeine de conti nuer et elle a fait oui sans ouvrir les yeux. Je lui ai demande de me regarder et apr es quelques instants ... apres quelques instants elle l'afail, mais les yeux comme des 149 95 [...] de marivaudages, de frayeurs et de farouches attouchements, dont if imp orte seulement de retenir ceci, qu 'ils firent entrevoir a Macmann ce que signifiait l'expression etre deux (p. 144). 96 [In this respect, it is interesting to note the 'philological' debate over th e exact dimensions of the cylinder, discussed in the 'Notes on the Texts' ofthe Grove Pr ess edition of the Complete Short Prose, edited by S.E. Gontarski (p. 282). The orig inal French text mistakenly gives the dimensions as 80,000 square centimeters, whilst the correct figure (given a height of 16 meters and a circumference of 50) should be of approximately 12,000,000 square centimeters. As Beckett wryly noted upon being presented with the error (which had emerged on the occasion of a stage adaptatio n of The Lost Ones): 'After all, you can't play fast and loose withpi. ' ] 97 Sejour ou des corps vont cherchant chacun son depeupleur (p. 7). 98 Vus sous un certain angle ces corps sont de quatre sortes. Premierement ceux qui circulent sans arret. Deuxiemement ceux qui s 'arretent quelquefois, Troisiememe nt ceux qui a moins d 'en etre chasses ne quittent jamais la place qu'its ont conqu ise et chasses se jettent sur la premiere de fibre pour s y immobiliser de nouveau. [ . . . ]

Quatriemement ceux qui ne cherchent pas ou non-chercheurs assis pour la plupart contre Ie mur [ ... ] (pp. 12-13). 148 I I ,' :, i

Alain Badiou On fentes a cause du solei!. Je me suispenche sur ellepour qu 'ils soient dans I 'o mbre et ils se sont ouverts. M'ont laisse entrer. Nous derivionsparmi les roseaux et la barque s 'est coincee. Comme ils sepliaient, avec un soupir, devant laproue!Je me suis coule sur elle, mon visage dans ses seins etma main sur elle. Nous restons la, couches , sans remuer. Mais, sous nous, tout remuait, et nous remuait, doucement, de haut en ba s, et d'un cote a I'autre (pp. 24-26). 111 Viens d'ecouter ce pauvre petit cretin pour quije me prenais il y a trente a ns, dijJicile de croire quej'aiejamais be con a cepoint lao 9a au moins c'estjini, D ieu merci (p. 27). 112 Krapp demeure immobile, regardant dans Ie vide devant lui. La bande continue Alain Badiou On Beckett disparaisse a ta vue. Nuit sans lune ni boiles. Si tes yeux venaient a s 'ouvrir Ie noir s'eclaircirait (pp. 74-75). 119 Bleme, quoique nullement invisible, sous un certain eclairage. Donne Ie bon eclairage. Gris plutot que blanc, gris blanc (p. 14). 120 Les mots vous ldchent, il est des moments ou meme eux vous ldchent. Pas vrai , Willie? Pas vrai, Willie, que meme les mots vous ldchent, par moments? Qu 'est-c e qu 'on peut bienfaire alors, jusqu 'a ce qu 'ils reviennent? (p. 30) 121 Pense, pore! (p. 55) a se derouler en silence (p. 33). 113 cette vie qu 'il aurait eue inventee rememoree unpeu de chaque comment savoi r cette chose la-haut il me la donnaitje lafaisais mienne ce qui me chantait les c iels surtout les chemins surtout ou il se glissait comme ils changeaient suivant Ie c iel et ou on allait dans I 'atlantique Iesoirl'ocean suivant qu 'on allait auxlies ou e n revenait 58)

est msense.' I de temps. I 'humeur du momentpas tellement les gens trespeu toujours les memesj'en prenais

j'en laissais de bons moments il n'en reste rien (pp. 113-114) , .., , , ,, 114 c 'bait de bons moments bons pour moi on parle de moi pour lui aussi onparle de lui aussi heureux [...J (p. 79) 115 moi rien seulement dis ceci dis cela ta vie la-haut TA VIE un temps ma vie L A , HA UTun temps long la-hautDANSLA dans laLUMIERE un temps lumiere sa vie lahaut dans la lumiere octosyllabepresque a toutprendre un hasard (p. 113) 116 Une voixparvient a quelqu 'un dans Ie noir (p. 7). 117 Tu vis Iejour dans la chambre ou vraisemblablement tufus conc;u (p. 15). 118 Une greve. Le soir. La lumiere meurt. Nulle bientot elle ne mourra plus. Non . Rien de tel alors que nulle lumiere. Elle allait mourantjusqu 'a l'aube et ne mo urait jamais. Tu es debout Ie dos a la mer. Seul bruit Ie sien. Toujoursplusfaible a m esure que tout doucement elle s 'etoigne. Jusqu 'au moment OU tout doucement elle revi ent. Tu t'appuies sur un long baton. Tes mains reposent sur Ie pommeau et sur elles t a tete. Tes yeux s'ils venaient as 'ouvrir verraient d'abord au loin dans les dern iers rayons lespans de ton manteau et les tiges de tes brodequins enfonces dans la sa ble. Ensuite et elle seule Ie temps qu 'elledisparaisse I'ombre du baton surla sable. Qu 'elle 150

nuit a nouveau (pp. 116-117). 124 Quefaisons-nous ici, voila ce qu'ilfaut se demander. Nous avons la chance de Ie savoir. Oui, dans cette immense confusion, une seule chose est claire: nous atte ndons que Godot vienne. [...J Ou que la nuit tombe. Nous sommes au rendez-vous, un poi nt c 'est tout. Nous ne sommespas de saints, mais nous sommes au rendez-vous. Combi en de genspeuvent en dire autant? (pp. 103-104) 125 [ ...J a nouveau seuls, au milieu des solitudes (p. 105). 126 H. Elle nefutpas convaincue. J'aurais pu m 'en douter. Elle t'a empeste, dis aitelle toujours, tu pues la pute. Pas moyen de repondre a c;a. Je la pris done dans mes bras et luijurai queje nepourrais vivre sans elle. Je Iepensais du reste. Oui,j 'en suis persuade. Elle ne me repoussa pas. / F1. Juges done de mon efJarement lorsqu 'un beau matin, m 'bant enfermee avec mon chagrin dans mes appartements, je Ie vois arriver, I'oreille basse, tomber a genoux devant moi, enfouir son visage dans mo n giron et...passer aux aveux (pp. 13-14). 151

Alain Badiou On 127 Puis parler, vite, des mots, comme I'enfant solitaire qui se met en plusieur s, deux, trois, pour etre ensemble, et parler ensemble, dans fa nuit (pp. 92-93). 128 Ce n 'est pas tous lesjours qu 'on a besoin de nous. Non pas a vrai dire qu 'on ait pYlkisement besoin de nous. D 'autres feraient aussi bien I 'affaire, sinon mieu x. L 'appef que nous venons d'entendre, c'est plutot a l'humanite tout entit.re qu'il s'adre sse. Mais a cet endroit, en ce moment, I 'humanite c' est nous, que c;a nous plaise o u non (p. 103). 129 Nous sommes des hommes (p. 107). 130 Les yeux uses d'offenses s 'attardent vils sur tout ce qu 'ils ont si longue ment prie, dans la derniere, la vraie priere enfin, celle qui ne sollicite rien. Et c 'est alors qu 'un petit air d'exaucement ranime les VIEUX morts et qu 'un murmure nait dans l'univers muet, vous reprochant affectueusement de vous etre desespere trop tard (p. 172). 131 Ie bleu qu' on voyait dans la poussiere blanche [ ... ] (p. 110). 132 [ ... ] Ie voyage Ie couple I 'abandon ou tout se raconte Ie bourreau qu 'on aurait eu puis perdu Ie voyage qu' on aurait fait la victime qu 'on aurait eue puis per due les images Ie sac les petites his to ires de la-haut petites scenes un peu de bleu i nfernaux homes (p. 199) [In Badiou's quotation the sentence reads infernaux hommes, 'men infernal' -however, it seems that Beckett has here, rather enigmatically, left t he English 'homes' in the French text, which Badiou has in turn read as an erratum.] 133 Assez. Soudain assez. Soudain tout loin. Nul mouvement et soudain tout loin. Tout moindre. Trois epingles. Un trou d'epingle. Dans l'obscurissime penombre. A des vastitudes de distance. Aux limites du vide illimite (p. 62). 134 [ .. . ] considere comme une sorte d'agglutinant mortel[ ... ] (p. 148). 135 C' hait seulement en Ie deplac;ant dans cette atmosphere, comment dire, de f inalite sansfin, pourquoi pas, que j 'osais considerer Ie travail a executer(p. 172). , 136 [Originally published as 'Etre, existence, pensee: prose et concept', in Pet it manuel d'inesthhique (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1998), pp. 137-187. Unless otherwise no

ted all references in this essay are to Worstward Ho. In the body ofthe text, the fi rst page number refers to the Calder edition, the second to the Grove edition.] 152 Alain Badiou On Beckett 137 [Molloy was in part translated in collaboration with Patrick Bowles, 'The Ex pelled' and 'The End' were translated in collaboration with Richard Seaver, and the two brief texts 'The Image' and 'The Cliff' were translated by Edith Fournier.] 138 [It ahnost goes without saying that by inverting the direction of Bad iou's operation our own translation has had to confront a number of serious challenges, often fo rcing us to test the resources of the English language in order to maintain the closen ess of Badiou's reading, as well as the way in which Beckett's own terminology is progressively appropriated into Badiou's prose. We shall try to deal with specif ic issues as they appear, in the notes. Hopefully, the singular distance provided b y passing through Fournier's translation will prove illuminating even when the discussion of the text is restored to the English language and the principal quotations are fr om Beckett's original.] 139 Encore. Dire encore. Soit dit encore. Tant mal quepis encore (p. 7). 140 Soit dit plus meche encore (p. 62). 141 Disparition du vide ne se peut. Sauf disparition de la penombre. Alors dispa rition de tout (p. 22). 142 Rien qui prouve que celui d'une femme et pourtant d'unefemme (p. 45). 143 Ont suinte de la substance molle qui s 'ammolit les mots d'unefemme (p. 45). 144 Desormais un pour I' agenouille. Comme desormais deux pour la paire. La pair e comme un seul s' en allant tant mal que mal. Comme desormais trois pour la tete (p. 24). :'if ,.. ..I 145 Ce que c 'est que les mots qu 'il secrete disent. Quoi l'ainsi dit vide. L ' ainsi dite penombre. Les ainsi dites ombres. L 'ainsi dit siege et germe de tout (p. 38). 146 [Badiou is currently developing a systematic approach to the relation betwee n being and appearance, to be presented in his forthcomingLogiques des Mondes (Par is: Seuil, 2004). Many of the themes anticipated in these writings on Beckett find t heir logical and mathematical formalisation in this work, sections ofwhich will appea r in English in Alain Badiou, Theoretical Writings, edited and translated by Ray Bras sier and Alberto Toscano (London: Continuum, 2003).] 153

Alain Badiou On 147 Dire pour soit dit. Mal dit. Dire desormais pour soit mal dit(p. 7). 148 Essayer encore. Rater encore. Rater mieux encore. Ou mieux plus mal. Rater plus mal encore. Encore plus mal encore. Jusqu 'a etre degoute pour de bon. Vomi r pour de bon. Partir pour de bon. La au ni I 'un ni I 'autre pour de bon. Une bon ne fois pour toutes pour de bon (p. 8). 149Retour dedire mieux plus mal plus pas concevable. Si plus obscur mains lumine ux alors mieux plus mal plus obscur. Dedit done mieux plus mal plus pas concevable. Pas mains que moins mieux plus mal peut etre plus. Mieux plus mal quai? Le dire? Le dit? Meme chose. Meme rien. Meme peu s 'en faut rien (p. 49). 150 Pire moindre. Plus pas concevable. Pire a defaut d'un meilleur moindre. Le meilleur moindre. Non. Neant Ie meilleur. Le meilleur pire. Non. Pas Ie meilleur pire. Neant pas Ie meilleur pire. Mains meilleur pire. Non. Le mains. Le mains meilleu r pire. Le moindre jamais ne peut etre neant. Jamais au neant ne peut etre ramene. Jamais par Ie neant annule. Inannulable moindre. Dire ce meilleur pire. Avec des mots qui reduisent dire Ie moindre meilleur pire. A defaut du bien pis que pire. L 'imminimisable moindre meilleur pire (p. 41). 151 D 'abord un. D 'abord essayer de mieux rater un. Quelque chose la qui ne clo che pas assez mal. Non pas que tel quel ce ne so it pas rate. Rate nul visage. Ratee s les nulles mains. Le nul -. Assez. Peste soit du rate. Minimement rate. Place au plu s mal. En attendant pis encore. D 'abord plus mal. Minimement plus mal. En attendant pi s encore. Ajouter un -. Ajouter? Jamais. Le courber plus bas. Qu 'a soit courbe pl us bas. Au plus bas. Tete chapeautee disparue. Long pardessus coupe plus haut. Rien du bassinjusqu 'en bas. Rien que les dos courbe. Trone vu de dos sans haut sans bas e. Nair obscur. Sur genoux invisibles. Dans la penombre vide. Mieux plus mal ainsi. En attendant pis encore (pp. 26-27). , :, "', 152 Puis deux. De rate a empirer. Essayer d' empirer. A partir du minimement rat e. Ajouter -. Ajouter? Jamais. Les bottines. Mieux plus mal sans bottines. Talons n us. Tant6t les deux droits. Tant6t les deux gauches. Gauche droite gauche droite enc

ore. Pieds nus s' en vont et jamais ne s' en eloignent. Mieux plus mal ainsi. Un peti t peu mieux plus mal que rien ainsi (pp. 28-29). 153 Les yeux. Temps d'essayer d'empirer. Tant mal que pis essayer d'empirer. Plu s clos. Dire ecarquilles ouverts. Tout blanc et pupille. Blanc obscur. Blanc? Non. Tout pupille. Trous nair obscur. Beance qui ne vacille. Soient ainsi dUs. Avec les mo ts qui empirent. Desormais ainsi. Mieux que rien a ce point ameliores au pire(pp. 34-35 ). Alain Badiou On Beckett 154 Les mots aussi de qui qu'ils soient. Que de place laissee au plus mal! Comme parfois as presque sonnent presque vrai! Comme l'ineptie leur fait defaut! Dire la nuit est jeune helas et prendre courage. Ou mieux plus mal dire une nuit veille encore helas a venir. Un reste de derniere veille a venir. Et prendre courage (pp. 25-2 6). 155 Quels mots pour quai alors? Comme as presque sonnent encore. Tandis que tant mal que pis hors de quelque substance moUe de I 'esprit as suintent. Hors c;:a e n c;:a suintent. Comme c' est peu s' en faut non inepte. Jusqu 'au dernier imminimisabl e moindre comme on rechigne a reduire. Car alors dans I 'ultime penombre finir par de-proferer Ie moindrissime tout (p. 43). 156 Ainsi cap au moindre encore. Tant que la penombre perdure encore. Penombre inobscurcie. Ou obscurcie a plus obscur encore. A I' obscurcissime penombre. Le moindrissime dans l'obscurissime penombre. L 'ultime penombre. Le moindrissime dans I 'ultime penombre. Pire inempirable (pp. 42-43). 157 Le vide. Comment essayer dire? Comment essayer rater? Nul essai rien de rate . Dire seulement-(p. 20) 158 Tout saufle vide. Non. Le vide aussi. Inempirable vide. Jamais moindre. Jama is augmente. Jamais depuis que d'abord dit jamais dedit jamais plus mal dit jamais sans que ne devore I 'envie qu 'a ait disparu. Dire I 'enfant disparu (pp. 55-56 ). 159 Dire I 'enfant disparu. Tout comme. Hors vide. Hors ecarquilles. Le vide alo rs n' en est-il pas d'autant plus grand? Dire Ie vieil homme disparu. La vieillefem me

disparue. Tout comme. Le vide n 'en est-ifpas d'autantplus grand encore? Non. Vi de au maximum lorsquepresque. Aupire lorsquepresque. Moindre alors? Toutes ombres tout comme disparues. Si donepas tellementplus que c;:a tellement mains alors? M ains pire alors? Assez. Peste soil du vide. Inaugmentable imminimisable inempirable sempiternelpresque vide (p. 56). [The US edition has 'then' instead of 'than' in the line 'ifthen not that much more than that much less then?'] 160 Encore retour pour dedire disparition du vide. Disparition du vide ne se peu t. Sauf disparition de la penombre. Alors disparition de tout. Tout pas deja dispar u. Jusqu 'a penombre reapparue. Alors tout reapparu. Tout pas a jamais disparu. Disparition de I 'une se peut. Disparition des deux se peut. Disparition du vide ne se peut. Sauf disparition de la penombre. Alors disparition de tout(p. 22). 161 La tete. Ne pas demander si disparition se peut. Dire non. Sans demander non . D 'elle disparition ne se peut. Sauf disparition de la penombre. Alors dispariti on de

154 155

Alain Badiou On Beckett 162 Tant mal que mal s 'en vont etjamais ne s 'eloignent(p. 15). 163 Nulfieu que I 'unique (p. 13). 164 Main dans la main its vont tant mal que mal d 'un pas egal. Dans les mains f ibres -non. Vides les mains fibres. Tous deux dos courbe vus de dos ils von! tant mal que mal d'un pas ega!. Levee la main de I 'enfant pour atteindre la main qui etreint . Etreindre la vieille main qui etreint. Etreindre et etre etreint. Tant mal que m al s 'en vont et jamais ne s 'eloign en!. Lentement sans pause tant mal que mal s' en von t et jamais ne s 'eloignent. Vus de dos. Tous deux courbees. Unis par les mains etrei ntes etreignant. Tant mal que mal s 'en vont comme un seul. Une seule ombre. Une autr e ombre (pp. 14-15). 165 Lentement ils disparaissent. TantOt I 'un. TantOt la paire. TantOt les deux. Lentement reapparaissent. Tantot l'un. TantOt la paire. TantOt les deux. Lentement? Non. Disparition soudaine. Reapparition soudaine. TantOt I'un. TantOt lapaire. TantOt les deux. /Inchanges? Soudain reapparus inchanges? Oui. Dire oui. Chaque fois inchanges. Tant mal que pis inchanges. Jusqu 'a non. Jusqu 'a dire non. Soudain reapparus changes. Tant mal que pis changes. Chaque fois tant mal que pis change s (p. 16). 166 Dans Ie crane tout disparu. Tout? Disparition de tout ne se peut. Jusqu 'a disparition de la penombre. Dire alors seuls di..parus les deux. Dans Ie crane u n et deux disparus. Hors du vide. Hors des yeux. Dans Ie crane tout disparu saufle cr ane. Les ecarquitles. Seuls dans la penombre vide. Seuls a etre vus. Obscurement vus. Dans Ie crane Ie crane seul a etre vu. Les yeux ecarquilles. Obscurement vus. Pa r les yeux ecarquilles (p. 32). 167 II voudrait I 'ainsi dit esprit qui depuis si longtemps aperdu tout vouloir. L 'ainsi mal dit. Pour I 'instant ainsi mal dit. A force de long vouloir tout vouloir env ole. Long vouloir en vain. Et voudrait encore. Vaguement voudrait encore. Vaguement vainem ent voudrait encore. Que plus vague encore. Que Ie plus vague. Vaguement vainement voudrait que Ie vouloirsoit Ie moindre. Imminimisable minimum de vouloir. Inapai sable vain minimum de vouloir encore. / Voudrait que tout disparaisse. Disparaisse la penombre. Disparaisse Ie vide. Disparaisse Ie vouloir. Disparaisse Ie vain voulo ir

que Ie vain vouloir disparaisse (pp. 47-48). [The US edition has 'last' not 'lea st' in the line 'Unstillable vain, least oflonging'.] 168 Il est debout. Quoi? Oui. Le dire debout. Force d la jin a se mettre et teni r debout. Dire des os. Nul os mais dire des os. Dire un sol. Nul sol mais dire un sol. Pourpovoir dire douleur. Nul esprit et douleur? Dire oui pour que les ospuissent tant lui douloir queplus qu 'd se mettre debout. Tant mal que pis se mettre et tenir debout. Ou mieux plus mal des restes. Dire des restes d'esprit OU nul auxjins de la doul eur. Douleur des os telle que plus qu 'a se mettre debout. Tant mal que pis s 'y mett re. Tant mal que pis y tenir. Restes d 'esprit ou nul auxjins de la douleur. Iei des os. D 'autres exemples au besoin. De douleur. De comment soulagee. De comment variee (pp. 9 10). 169 Restes d'esprit done encore. Assez encore. Tant mal a qui tant mal ou tant m al quepis assez encore. Pas d'esprit etdes mots? Meme de tels mots. Done assez enco re. Juste assezpour se rejouir. Rejouir! Juste assez encore pour se rejouir que seul ement eux. Seulement! (pp. 37-38) 170 Hiatus pour lorsque les mots disparus. Lorsque plus meche. Alors tout vu com me alors seulement. Desobscurci. Desobscurci tout ce que les mots obscurcissent. To ut ainsi vu non dit. Pas de suintement alors. Pas trace sur la substance moUe lorsq ue d'eUe suinte encore. En elle suinte encore. Suintement seulement pour vu tel que vu avec suintement. Obscurci. Pas de suintement pour vu desobscurci. Pour lorsque plus meche. Pas de suintement pour lorsque suintement disparu (p. 53). 171 [Badiou's doctrine ofthe state of a situation as are-presentation of being i s laid out in Meditations 8 and 9 ofL 'etre et l'evenement. The crux of this doctrine i s that events always take place despite the state and at a distance from it, whilst at the same time measuring the excess of re-presentation over presentation, of the state ove r the situation (or in Beckettian terms, of the dim over the void).] 172 Meme inclinaison pour tous. Memes vastitudes de distance. Meme hat dernier. Dernier en date. Jusqu ' a tant mal quepis moindre en vain. Pire en vain. Devore tout I 'en vie d'etre neant. Neantjamais ne se peut etre (p. 61). 173 Assez. Soudain assez. Soudain tout loin. Nul mouvement et soudain tout loin. Tout moindre. Trois epingles. Un trou d'epingle. Dans l'obscurissime penombre. A

des vastitudes de distance. Aux limites du vide illimite. D 'ou pas plus loin. M ieux plus malpas plus loin. Plus meche moins. Plus meche pire. Plus meche neant. Plus mech e encore. / Soit dit plus meche encore (p. 62). 174 [ ... ] d I 'altitude peut-etre aussi loin qu 'un endroitfusionne avec au-de la [ ... ] 156 157

Alain Badiou On une constellation [A Throw of the Dice/Un coup de des, in Stephane Mallarme, Collected Poems, translated and with a commentary by Henry Weinfield (Berkeley: University of Cali fomi a Press, 1994), p. 144]. 175 Rien et pourtant une femme. Vieille et pourtant vieille. Sur genoux invisibl es. Inclinee comme de vieilles pierres tombales tendre memoire s 'inclinent. Dans ce vieux cimetiere. Noms effaces et de quand a quand. Inclinees muettes sur les tombes de nuls etres (pp. 60-61). . et eux qu 176 [On the unnameable as a concept defining the ethic of truths, see 'La verite : fon,:age et innomable' in Conditions (pp. 196-212) and Ethics (pp. 80-87). It is worth noting that lately Badiou has abandoned this doctrine, thinking it too compromis ed with a diffuse culpabilisation of philosophy, and also much reconfigured his the ory of naming. See his forthcoming interview with Bruno Bosteels and Peter Hallward in Angelaki, 'Beyond Formalisation'.] 177 [In the collection from which this article is taken it is followed by a piec e entitled 'Philosophy of the Faun', a reading of Mallarme's poemL 'Apres-midi d'unfaune.] . 189 'Que pense Ie poeme?', in Roger-Pol Droit (ed.),L 'Art est-II. une connazssa nce.?

178 [Originally published as 'Ce qui arrive', in Regis Salgado and Evelyne Gross man, eds, Samuel Beckett, l'ecriture et la scene (Paris: SEDES, 1998), pp. 9-12.] 179 Assez. Soudain assez. Soudain tout loin. Nul mouvement et soudain tout loin. Tout moindre. Trois epingles. Un trau d'epingle. Dans I'obscurissime penombre. A des vastitudes de distance. Aux limites du vide illimite (p. 62). 180 Du coup Ie nom commun peu commun de craulement. Renforce peu apres sinon affaibli par I 'inusuellanguide. Un croulement languide (p. 70). 181 [ . . .] d'espoir. Par la grace de ces modestes debuts (p. 70).

182 Dire ce meilleur pire. Avec des mots qui rMuisent dire Ie moindre meilleur p ire. A defaut du bien pis que pire. L 'imminimisable moindre meilleur pire (p. 41). 183 Commepaifois ils presque sonnent presque vrai! Comme I 'ineptie leur fait de faut! Dire la nuit est jeune helas et prendre courage (p. 25). 184 Terre del confondus infini sans relief petit corps seul debout. Encore un pa s un seul tout seul dans les sables sans prise ille fera. Gris cendre petit corps seu l debout cceur battant face aux lointains. Lumiere refuge blancheur rase faces sans trace aucun

159 158

Alain Badiou On Alain Badiou On Beckett Index abstraction 6, 40 absurd, the xxii, 3, 38, 119, 133 activity 47, 63, 122-124, 129, 130 affirmation xii, xv, xix, xxix, 41, 90, 91, 93, 126 All, the 7, 10, 18, 77, 100, 101, 102, 105, 108-110, 114,En29 ascesis xxviii, 45, 46, 47, 59, 60, 65, 77, 115, 124, 133 , " ,. ' , i,'J. beauty xvi, xxvi, 29; 41, 42, 44, 46, : ' 66, 67, 71, 73, 75, 76, 77, 114, , ,1, " ' , 115, 117,En50,En76, En145, En170 being passim intro., passim ch. 1, passim ch.2, passim ch.3, 114, 115, 120, 124-130, 132, 134 Bergson, H. 121 Blanchot, M. xi, xii, xiv, 11 categories xiii, xiv, xv, xxv, 8, 15, 16, 23, 61, 88, 90, 101 chance xvi, xxiv, 17, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 31, 55, 128 , ,

------------------------------------------------------------------', Alain Badiou On cinema 40, 42 closed, the 5, 6, 10, 20, 28, 49, 51, 56 cogitoxiv-xxxii, 9-15, 19,28,33,51, 53,54,55,61,64,68,72,88, 104, 128, 131, 134 comedy xviii, xxix, 44, 75, 114 count, the 14, 54, 83, 84, 86, 88, 102, 110, En84 couple, the 6, 13, 60, 63, 64, 66, 74, 76 courage xii, xxi, xxiv, xxx, 40, 41, 77, 96, 97, 98, 114, 115 Dante xiv, 23, 61, 123 dark, the xvi, xxxi, 7, 25-29, 31, 32, 35, 47, 51, 63, 65, 70, 71, 74, 98 death 7, 11, 12, 24, 34, 40, 45, 47, 49, 56, 60, 111, 128 Descartes, R. xviii, xxi, xxvii, 9, 10, 44, 105, 124 desire xix, xxxiii, 3, 23, 24, 33, 34, 52, 61, 62, 66, 67, 74, 75, 77, 98, 100, 117, 124, 132, 133 despair 4, 15,38, 76, 120, 121 dialectic xxvii, 2, 51, 120, 122,En36 dim xxiii, xxv, xxix-xxxi, 50, 51, 54, 77, passim ch.3, 114, 128, 130, En 170 dying 12, 28, 45, 47, 52, 53 encounter passim intro., 15, 17, 23, 25-29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 38,47, 60, 63-66, 68, 70, 73, 89, 98, 106, 122, 128, 132-134 eternity 61, 66, 67, 77 eventpassim intro, 5, 18, 20, 21, 22, 28, 31, 32, 33, 50, 55-59, 62, 64, 72, 76, 108-112, 114, 115, 126130, 132-135, En50, En170 exhaustion 11, 13, 128 existence xvi, xvii, xxiii, xxv, 4, 5, 8,

9, 20, 26, 38, 40, 41, 47, 50, 54, 60, 64, 68, 70, 76, 77, 85, 89-91, 109, 111, 112, 126, 127, 132, 135 existentialism xiv, xxi, 39, 40 failure xvii, 10, 17, 25, 62, 90-95, 114, 115 figures xv, xvi, xx, xxii, xxiii, xxiv, xxx, 49, 60, 62-65, 74, 75, 88, 90 finitude xiv, 40 flux 1, 2, 45, 48, 107, 132 freedom 18, 22, 39, 55, 56, 62, 127 functions xiii, xx, xxi, xxii, 3, 19, 31, 32, 44-47, 52, 60, 66, 123, 126, 135 going 2,3,29,30,46,49, 103 happiness xvi, 6, 17, 26, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 55, 59, 64,66, 117, 128 Heidegger, M. xxvi, 88, 120, 121, 135 Heraclitus 1, 48 hope xii, xv, xvi, xxx, xxxii 2, 11 , 21, 22, 40, 41,48, 50, 52, 58, 59, 69, 91, 114, 117, 130, 134 humanity, generic xiii, xviii, xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxvi, xxix, xxx, xxxii, 3, 4, 6, 7, 16, 26, 44, 46, 47, 54, 63, 94, 126 humour xiv, 46, 75 Husserl, E. xviii, xxii, xxvii, 44, 107, 108, 124 immobility xxiii, xxxi, 2, 5, 6, 7, 24, 26, 31-34, 45, 47, 50, 54, 65, 66, 103 impasse, in Beckett's work xiv, xvi, xviii, xxiv, xxx, xxxii, 12, 14, 39, 41, 54, 55, 56, 128, 129, 133 , , ,', , "

, , , , ' , , ,. , I I,' incidents 19, 20, 21, 31, 56, 57 infinity xvi, xvii, 17, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 67, 88 jokes xix, 43 journey 6, 7, 26, 31, 40, 45, 76 justice 26, 64 Kafka, F. 16, 39 Kant, I. xviii, xxii, 2, 41, 77 knowledge 6, 19, 30, 50, 54, 56, 57, 66, 67, 123-126, 129, 131, 133 Lacan,J. 18,25, 121, 124, 132,En29, En30, En40 language passim intro., 3, 5, 7, 8, 18, 21, 22, 34, passim ch.2, 79-81, 91-100, 109, 112,114, 115, 117, 122, 123, 127, 129-131, 136, En137 localisation xxiii, xxv, xxxi, 5, 6, 7, 9, 50, 51, 103 love xvi, xxvi, 5, 26-33, 46, 56, 60, 64-67,74,75,77, 103, 106, 117, 126, 128, En50 Mallarme, S. xix, xx, xxi, xxvii, 12, 51,77,93,95,109-112, 125, 126, 132, 133, En51, En173, En176 mathematics xxiii, xxxi, 30, 60 meaning 8, 9, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 31,32,41,55,57-60,72,76, 120, 122, 123, 128, 130, 131, 135 memory xvi, xviii, 30, 44, 66, 67, 70 mobility xxxii, 45, 52, 65 movement xxii, xxiii, xxxi, 4, 6, 8, 23, 24, 40, 44-47, 50, 52, 54, 57, 58,61,63,85, 101-104, 106,107, 109, 110, 116, 122, 124, 126, 127, 130, 131 multiple, the xxi, xxvi, 12, 17, 28, 29, 30,31, 115

Alain Badiou On Beckett music 41, 106, 107 naming xxiii, xxxii, 11, 13, 18, 21, 22, 31, 51, 58, 82, 93, 107, 112, 114, 115, 129, 130, 135, En175 nihilism xii, xxx, 15, 39 non-being 2, 7, 9, 10, 48, 51 nostalgia 38, 64, 67-71, 73 open, the xxiii, 6, 17, 30, 31, 49, 51, 96 optimism 24, 62 oscillation xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, xxx, 2, 8, 9, 17, 40, 41, 53, 55, 128, 134, En4 other, the, (alterity) xv, xvi, xx, xxiv, xxvi, xxx, passim 4-32, passim 40-77, 84, 86, 88, 90, 101-103, 108, 126, 131, 132, 134 passivity 13, 14, 47, 53, 54 place xv, xx, xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxxii, 4-12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, passim 45-77, 86, 97, 103, 109111, 117, 126, 134, En36, En76 Plato xxii, xxvii, 4, 23, 47, 88, 101, 123 plays, radio 74 poem xxvi, 4, 16, 17,29, 30, 31, 33, 40,41,48,51,60, 71,77, 80,95, 97, 111, 126, 132, En2, En176 politics 33 predestination xv, 17, 18, 55, 56 procedures xvii, xxvi, xxix, xxxii, 16, 33 Proust, M. 42, 67, 123 , repetition xiv, xv, 16, 33, 38, 40, 55, 57, 77, 113, 121, 127, 128 Rimbaud, A. xix, xx, xxi, 37, 91, 113, 126 Sartre, J-P. xiv, xxiv, 38, 39, 121, 123, 162 163

-.,;-I -.,;-I Alain Badiou On 136 saying xiv, xix, xxv, xxxii, 2, 3, 7, 8, 13, 22, 45, 46, 52, 53, 58, 59, 72, 76, passim ch.3, 115, 116, 117, 129-131, 135, En6 sense 3, 9, 20, 40, 45, 55, 57, 73, 87, 120, 123, 129, 130 sexuation xvi, 22, 27, 33, 34, 64, 65, 66, 84, En29 signification 55, 57, 58, 80, 120, 125, 130 silence xi, xiii, xvi, xvii, xix, 11-14, 23, 38, 39, 45, 52-55, 69, 75, 91, 92, 96, 117, 131 solipsism xv, xvi, xviii, xx, 5, 14, 28, 31, 33, 55, 66, 68, 77 Sophist, The xxii, 4, 47, 101, 121 subject, the passim intro., 2, 3, 4, 1018, 22-26, 31, 33, 44, 47, 51-55, 59, 60, 64, 65, 68, 91, 100, 105, 107, 108, 111, 120-122, 124-126, 13 1-134, En36 subtraction xxv, xxviii, xxix, xxxi, 3, 8, 9, 18, 19, 95, 100, 123-125, 129, 130, 133-135 supplement, of being xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxix, 4, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 51, 56, 86, 96, 128-130, 132, 135 terror xv, 12, 13, 53, 55, 64, 124 theatre, the 40, 42, 60, 71, 74, 76, 114, 122 thought xviii, xx, xxii, xxiii, xxv, xxxiii, 3, 4, 6, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 27, 38, 40, 41, 46, 48, 5257, 59, 66, 75,passim 80-90, 93, 98, 101, 102, 109, 110, 115117, 120-126, 129-134, En25 torture xiv, xviii, xix, xx, xxi, xxiii, xxiv, xxx, 10, 12-16, 21, 29, 32, 49, 51, 52, 54-56, 59, 72, 126, 128 trajectory 2, 4, 16, 17, 55, 57, 128, 135 truth xi, xx, xxvi, xxvii, xxviii, xxxi, 4, 5, 7, 10, 16, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 33, 51, 59, 60, 67, 77, 96, 120, 123, 124, 128, 129, 132, 134, 135, En175 Two, the xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xxiv, xxxii, 5, 13, 17, 21, 25-29, 3134, 58, 60, 64, 66, 74, 75, 84, 86, 88, 89, 94, 95, 101-103, 105, En50 void xix, xxv, xxx, 7-10, 14, 21, 22, 33, 34, 35, 40, 50, 66, 77,passim ch.3, 114-116, 124, En170 Wittgenstein, L. 91, 93

XXVi, XXVll, XXiX, XXXi, XXXll,

youth 37-40, 68 164

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