A quote from Frederic Jameson today, read on the train home, came at a shockingly coincidental time, with me, early in this insane project of reading FW in 65 days, having sat despondent at my work desk for a not insignificant time today reading news, worrying about our future, and feeling a disconnect between my skills and occupation (ancient philology and literature) and the needs of greater society.
To imagine that, sheltered from the omnipresence of history and the implacable influence of the social, there already exists a realm of freedom—whether it be that of the microscopic experience of words in a text or the ecstasies and intensities of the various private religions—is only to strengthen the grip of Necessity over all such blind zones in which the individual subject seeks refuge, in pursuit of a purely individual, a merely psychological, project of salvation. The only effective liberation from such constraint begins with the recognition that there is nothing that is not social and historical—indeed, that everything is "in the last analysis" political. (Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious, p. 20)
Reading this I was taken aback. Since starting to read FW again, down to this morning, I had felt that realm of freedom in the words that Jameson talks about. Struggling through my writing projects and with not being glued to the news, reading this book has been a solace. On the other hand, FW can seem like the most un-political book ever written, the most elite, most talked-about-but-not-actually-read. It can seem like a book for everyone and no one. What Jameson says, however, is that even something like this is "finally," in the widest horizon, something political. I can see that. This is part of the challenge now for me. I wanted to read FW and write about it to learn how to write better, and to find new things to say, and to understand myself and find myself. What this means is liberating my own hesitancy (there's a word for you FW heads) to own up to my life being intertwined with this book, and to free myself to actually do something with it. I want to walk alongside the "mouvables...scrawling with motions" on these pages and trace their figures to discover the realm of freedom that JJ created in his cosmic vision, and to connect it to the one I want to build for myself.
* * *
I have a bit of a longer extract than usual to reflect on today, with parts I am interested in marked:
Gaping Gill, swift to mate errthors, stern to checkself, (diagnosing through eustacetube that it was to make with a markedly postpuberal hypertituitary type of Heidelberg mannleich cavern ethics) lufted his slopingforward, bad Seatagore good murrough and dublnotch on to it as he was greedly obliged, and like a sensible ham, with infinite tact in the delicate situation seen the touchy nature of its perilous theme, thanked um for guilders received and time of day (not a little token abock all the same that that was owl the God's clock it was) and, upon humble duty to greet his Tyskminister and he shall gildthegap Gaper and thee his a mouldy voids, went about his business, whoever it was, saluting corpses, as a metter of corse (one could hound him out had one hart to for the monticules of scalp and dandruff droppings blaze his trail) accompanied by his trusty snorler and his permanent reflection, verbigracious; I have met with you, bird, too late, or if not, too worm and early: and with tag for ildiot repeated in his secondmouth language as many of the bigtimer's verbaten words which he could balbly call to memory that same kveldeve... (36.35-37.16)
Context: the cad (called Gaping Gill here, a massive cave in northern England) thanks H. C. E. for giving him the time and heads off to home.
He has the embarrassment of Ham seeing his father Noah naked and taken aback, but unlike Ham of Genesis, is himself inebriated: "not a little token abock." This inebriation effects his speech: his "permanent reflection" (some kind of mental faculty? his memory, his ability to remember things without loss of information?) is "verbigracious": verbigeration is logorrhea, but without making sense, overly repetitive and ultimately meaningless. It is also verbi gratia, "for the sake of the word," that is at the service of speech only, without necessarily concern for the meaning. This is confirmed: the cad seems to struggle conveying exactly what happened, to his wife at home that evening. He had spoken with H.C.E. in English, but his "secondmouth" (second nature, and one that follows [secutus] his mouth directly, his native tongue), which is Irish, masks the true meaning of H.C.E.'s ipsissima verba ("verbaten" = verbatim), words which now seem forbidden ("verbaten" = verboten) in their meaning.
This gap between H.C.E.'s words (themselves, as discussed yesterday, fraught with hidden meanings and parapraxis) and the cad's report of what he could "balbly" (barely, and stammeringly) call to memory became the source of a line of gossip (beginning with his wife), hearsay, and tales, enough to form its own epic saga, although, in its final stage of evolution, H.C.E.'s deed (the Sage itself) becomes simply a bawdy barroom ballad. Lots of food for thought about JJ's thinking about oral storytelling.
The cad's poorly remembered account and the elaborations it creates, from verbigeration to ballad, are difficult to distinguish from FW itself. The narrator in these early chapters seems to be an annalist figure (who we meet at various times, seemingly comprised of four figures, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, called Mamalujo and var.), who often takes offense at what is said about H.C.E., but, at the same time, seems to be fully responsible for crafting the saga. The felix culpa of the "phoenix culprit," the (however misremembered) misdeed of H.C.E. is also the source of his rememberance, and even his life.
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