(6) The abracadabrant story of the Moon Child

« Writing begins with Orpheus’s gaze.
This gaze is the movement of desire that breaks destiny and the concern of song, and in this inspired decision reaches the origin, consecrates the song.
But in order to descend toward this origin, Orpheus must turn away from Eurydice.
He must not look at her. He must not seize her. He must not bring her back into the light. Yet Orpheus’s gaze is that moment when he turns back, when he sees Eurydice, and when, in seeing her, he loses her.»

 

Maurice Blanchot, The space of literature

 

 

– We are always on the verge of being “swallowed”…
– I very much hope… that you are wrong… and first of all, I feel somewhat lost… Where are we?

– We are that singular moment when a work begins… already to make a world. The first word of this story is not only the first in the material order of reading. It is the place where something engages itself, sets itself in motion, takes a risk, declares itself, sometimes even imposes itself before being understood. We are in a beginning... The beginning of a book that begins with these words:

 

 " Dans un commencement, il s'appelle l'Enfant Lune."

 

In a beginning, he names himself  the Child Moon.

 

– Let us come to this "enfant" (child/infans: one who does not speak) of whom you never cease to speak, around whom you circle, and of whom you say almost nothing...
– We are fairly certain that he appeared... perhaps in a caravan... perhaps during a performance under a big top... in any case, his "enfance"(childhood) seems to be related to the life of a travelling circus...
– Why all this vagueness and all these uncertainties?
– Because the elements at our disposal are scattered among different notebooks... themselves dispersed in various stories told by Igniatius, the patient of Lucian, who himself, when he was still called Lucien, seems to have known the environment of a circus.
– Why say, and where does this formula come from:

  "In a beginning, he names himself  the Child Moon.".

– According to our master, it is an "incipit"(it begins).
– What is that?
– Still according to our master, the word comes from the Latin incipere(to begin), itself composed of the prefix in-(in, toward) and capere(to take, to seize). Incipere thus literally means: to take into, to seize something in order to begin. The root cap- is extraordinarily fertile in Latin: it is found in caput(the head), in capax(capable), in principe(principle, from prim-cipium: that which takes first).
The incipit(it begins) originally designated, in medieval manuscripts, the inaugural word of a sacred or legal text, to signal that here begins something important. This solemn formula (Incipit liber…, "Here begins the book of…") is the direct ancestor of the modern title. It carried an almost ritual value:
the text is born before our eyes.
– And to our ears!
– As for the astonishing story of the Enfant(the child / infans) Lune(Moon), and perhaps, as far as we are concerned... at the same time... or almost, each word is in its place and conceals a richness that requires some effort.
– Please explain... beginning with this inaugural "Dans"(In).
– The reader, or the listener that we are, is thus placed, from the very first three words, in a universe where time is not linear. It does not run from one world to another. It pulses, it opens in several places at once, like so many flowers blooming in different places and at the same time without consulting one another. This commencement(beginning) is "un"(one) among others, and this modesty is vertiginous: it says that the story that begins is not the story, but a story, with all the density and fragility that this implies. The preposition "dans"(in) adds something further. One does not say “at” a beginning, nor “by” a beginning. One says "dans"(in), as one is in a room, or in a dream. One can enter into this commencement(beginning) and dwell there. Perhaps one can also wander there. The reader does not stand before the threshold; he is already inside, immersed, even before knowing where he is.
– And we would be there?
– Dans(In) un(a) commencement(beginning), yes...
– Why do you say that?
– Because you must understand that the indefinite article "un"(a/one) is perfectly indefinite. It is not at the beginning, the unique biblical formula that posits an absolute origin before which there was nothing. It is "dans"(in) "un"(a) commencement(beginning), which immediately implies that there could be others. That beginnings are numerous. That they may be scattered. That this one is singular not because it is alone, but because it stands out from all the others...
And that is not all...