“Poetry does not impose itself; it exposes itself. Even in the most extreme circumstances, in the deepest distress, it remains language; it remains an orientation toward the other, something on the way, an attempt at encounter.”
Paul Celan, The Bremen Address (1958)
Continuation of Don Carrot's Prologue, in which the two parrots reflect upon the nature of Don Carrot
— It seems to me that what Don Carrot is reading... if I understand correctly... is not his own story.
— What, then, might it be?
— At the point he has now reached... it may well be the point where narrative fractures into poetic experience.
— And what is that? Pray explain.
— It is the place where speech becomes presence rather than representation.
— How does he know such a thing?
— He learned it from his readings...
— Which ones, for instance?
— Maldiney, among others...
— Have you read him as well?
— Indeed, I have.
— Then give me an example, if you please.
— "My page is a knife, not a vanity."
— What game is he playing?
— The very same game as you... Though the sentence is dazzling, it is no game.
— Then what is it?
— A wound. The page is sharp; it opens... before opening itself.
— And what does it open? The finger that turns it?
— Do not be so pragmatic. That is the very nature of the poetic gesture: not to embellish reality, but to cut through its false folds in order to make room for what has not yet been able to appear. It approaches the relationship between seeing and the open, between presence and the unpresentable.
— I am not sure I quite understand...
— As you can see, the sentence is very short, yet it sets two utterly different ways of writing against one another.
— Which two?
— It might be translated like this:
"What I write is not there to make me admired. It is there to open something."
— But it speaks of a knife!
— A knife is not first and foremost a weapon. It is a tool. It cuts bread, strips bark, separates what had been confused together. It allows one to reach the inside.
— Then a page that is a knife would be a page seeking to cut through appearances.
— Precisely. It does not stroke the reader the right way.
— It does not seek to be beautiful.
— No. It seeks to be true. It cuts through illusions as one cuts a rope that has become too tight.
That is the first image... By contrast, vanity is the desire to be looked at.
It is writing in order to hear someone say, "How beautiful!"
— Or, "How clever!"
— In that case, the page becomes a mirror.
— A mirror in which the author contemplates his own reflection.
— The knife, on the other hand, never gazes at its reflection. It works.
— I enjoy hearing you speak in this way... You could almost turn that sentence into a little story.
— Very well... Imagine an old carpenter.
— Working at his bench, like Geppetto...
— Upon his workbench lie two knives. The first has a handle worn smooth by years of labour. Its blade no longer shines. It bears countless scratches. Yet because it is perfectly sharpened, each time he uses it the wood reveals an invisible grain, a hidden form.
— Like Pinocchio...
— Beside it lies a brand-new knife. Its handle is finely carved, and its blade gleams like a mirror. Everyone stops to admire it. No one ever uses it.
— And then?
— The first knife transforms the wood.
— And the second?
— The second merely attracts the eye. The sentence speaks of precisely that difference. It says:
"I would rather possess a tool that leaves its mark upon the world than an object admired for its appearance."
It may also be another way of speaking about truth.
— Truth is not always comfortable.
— You are right. When a surgeon operates, he uses a scalpel. No one reproaches him for cutting. Everyone knows he cuts in order to save.
— And certain sentences do the same...
— They reopen an old wound so that it may finally heal properly.
— At the moment they strike, such sentences can still hurt a little.
— But that is not cruelty. It is an operation. And perhaps therein lies the finest paradox. A knife can destroy. Yet, in the right hands, it can also liberate. It cuts away useless bonds...
— It also cuts away masks grown too tight, habits that prevent us from breathing!
— Then the sentence acquires an even deeper meaning.
A page worthy of the name does not seek, above all, to be applauded.
— What, then, does it seek?
— To make us a little freer. And if, upon closing the book, the reader no longer remembers the author's name, yet looks upon the world differently...
— ...then the knife has done its work!
— The blade has disappeared behind what it opened. That is perhaps the finest destiny a page can hope for: not to be admired, but to continue working silently for a long time within the one who has read it.
— But beyond that... what are we to make of the text's caustic humour and its scarcely disguised pastiches?
— They are not ornaments, but the necessary modes of that opening. Laughter—or even a smile—becomes, in this perspective, the sign that the frozen world has begun to loosen.
— It seems to me you have already said as much...
— Don Carrot laughs not in order to mock, but to loosen the grip of what has already been said. Finally, the conclusion of the prologue—for that is indeed what it is—in which Don Carrot addresses the reader, does not seek the reader's agreement...
— Then what does it seek?
— ...the reader's freedom. He says:
"But know this: today, silence has fists."
— Does he then fall silent?
— Silence here is not the absence of speech...
— Then what is it?
— It is the instance of the unrepresented suddenly striking. Silence is that through which a being may exist without an image...
— I would not wish to contradict you... but from what I can see, this book seems to grant a place of honour to images!
— You are mistaken. There are images... and there are Images. Without myth, without authority. It is the very place where, according to our master...
— ...who found it in Maldiney...
— ...existence becomes the possibility of being otherwise. The fist of silence is not violence... and images themselves may say a great deal.
— Then what is this prologue that Don Carrot reads in a low voice?
— ...it is a demand for radical listening. This prologue is an act. It does not inscribe itself within literary history; it cleaves it open.
— It is a farce!
— Don Carrot, far from being a farce, is here a name for the creative abyss...
— A poor man's name!
— A poor man's name, indeed—but poor in ready-made images. And precisely for that reason it opens the world, just as...
— ...our master, who once said...
— Maldiney said it of art itself: not to describe the world, but to shatter open the space in which it appears.
— Do you believe that one day we shall be allowed to discover what is enclosed within that book, of which we have heard nothing but the prologue?
— Tomorrow... perhaps... Who can know?
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire