Susan Taubes

With Kitty on the ferry to North Shields.

I always feel like I’ve got the bends, coming out after a day of study. Like I’ve got some kind of decompression sickness after ascending too quickly from the depths.

You reach depths?

The world doesn’t feel real. Not when it’s just been me and Susan Taubes all fucking day.

How’s it going, anyway? Are you making progress?

Don’t even ask me those kinds of questions – they’re tasteless. Fuck. Actually, I’ve been reading too much Susan Taubes, I admit it. She’s, like, the heart of fucking darkness. But I’ve got a total crush. Susan Taubes was so beautiful. So fucking chic. All intelligence and melancholy and attitude. She was even Hungarian – imagine that. Who spoke perfect, perfect better-than-us English. And French. And all the other languages.

And she was brilliant – utterly so. You should read her letters to her husband. Brilliant and idealistic and full of love for him, which he didn’t deserve. A Mitteleuropean emigre, married to some absolute philosophical maniac. Who drove her to suicide, basically. Or maybe that was her philosophy, which was pretty fucking gloomy.

Disembarking.

No one reads anymore but us – you do realise that, don’t you? Do you know anyone who actually reads books? Civilians, I mean, not academics.

What do you think?

It’s a philistine world, right?

And we’re the fucking philistines. We’re worse than anyone. What we call reading … There should be the philosophical equivalent of game reserves, where books are allowed to wander about, freely. Where they’re allowed to be themselves without being read by the likes of us.

There should be book reserves, into which you cannot enter, into which you can only look on from afar with the equivalent of binoculars, where European philosophy is allowed to rewild.

There should be signs: No trespassers. No translations. No explanatory introductions. No books of commentary. There should be patrols along the perimeter. Bouncers, to show our kind off European philosophy premises.

Let it retreat back into itself, European Philosophy. Recover itself. Let it wander in its own milieu, just as their authors intended, and not made palatable to an Anglophone audience.

Susan Taubes’s books have just been reissued, haven’t they?

Reissued and repackaged and reviewed and publicised on podcasts. And all the details of Susan Taubes’s life dug up. Don’t remind me. Don’t be tiresome. God, how much longer do we have to live? What’s the right age to gracefully bow out? When will we have done our time? The way we’re just living on. Just going on. It’s so tasteless. It’s as tasteless as these new flats.

They are tasteless.

Of course they’re tasteless! Of course they’re disgusting! Of course they’re appalling! They have to ruin everything. Which is all they do – ruin and destroy things. We should just throw ourselves into the Tyne. If we ever get to the Tyne. If we ever reach the Tyne. If it wasn’t just blocked by all these disgusting new flats. No – we don’t need to throw ourselves in – too histrionic. Protesting too fucking much. We should just let ourselves slip into the ocean. Just gently lower ourselves in.

And you’re not even hungover.

Is it more poetical – or philosophical – to drown yourself in North Shields or South Shields, I wonder? I could walk out to the end of the North Pier and jump off. Or to the end of the South Pier, and do the same.

You could just dive from the Priory.

You’d have to pay to get in there. Forget it.

Anyway, the last thing I want is to be rescued, after I jump in: I want you to remember that. Or even worse, resuscitated. Just when you thought you’d drowned yourself, the fuckers would bring you back to life. How embarrassing! Coming to, coughing on the sand. Being taken off to be counselled, or whatever. Being referred to some suicide prevention clinic. Wouldn’t that suck? Having to talk about your suicidal ideation. All ideation is suicidal, that’s what I’d tell them.

I’m sure Susan Taubes would agree.

Susan Taubes drowned herself, of course. Her best friend Susan Sontag identified her body. That’ll be your job. You’ll have to identify my body when the time comes. When I was up in North Shields. Or South Shields. I’m still not sure where I’m going to drown myself.

Actually, suicide’s too easy now. Euthanasia’s part of the whole depopulation thing. They’re offering it to angsty teenagers in Canada. To, like, anorexics in Australia. To the homeless. You’re supposed to euthanise yourself now. Living on is basically the new suicide. You can’t be a martyr to thought anymore.

They’ll offer euthanasia to all Philosophy students as a matter of course. To all humanities students, probably. It might get them off their debts. Euthanasia will be promoted as the only way to claim bankruptcy.

Sure – study, learn stuff about how shit the world is, then die. Might be worth it. Might give a certain urgency to your study.

I’d just like to die, really. Right now. Painlessly. Wouldn’t that be something? … I wish the universe would just switch me off. No I wish it had already turned off the life support. That I hadn’t even been born. That I wasn’t here, saying these things.

Where’s a stray bullet when you want one? I’d just love to be caught in some crossfire. Some North Shields shoot out. Does that happen do you think? Or just hit by some runaway car …

I’d actually quite like to be assassinated. It’d be very flattering. For someone to pick me out – me – and assassinate me. It’d be like they understood me, in a way. That they’d divined the secret of me. That it was time for me to die. And wouldn’t it be great, having my heart stopped? Having my lungs no longer fill and empty. Having my thoughts – stop.

You’ve been working too hard.

I have been working too fucking hard. Anyway, they want us dead, so we need to live. We need to live in defiance of them. No, we need to die more deeply. We need to die the deepest possible death. A death they can’t reach. Can’t defile. A death that would be our own fucking thing …

But we’d be dead, right?

But unreachable in our deaths. Totally fucking undisturbable. But you wouldn’t be, would you? There’d always be some cunt interpretating your suicide.

Oh Susan Taubes, send us a sign. Susan Taubes is, like, my spirit animal. What would Susan Taubes do?: that’s what I ask myself … Marry a madman Have a string of affairs. Write brilliant philosophy, and then write unreadable fiction instead. Kill herself when she read the review of her first novel.

Is that what happened?

Look, there’s almost some sun. I think we should get some pickled mussels. And cockles. Not whelks – they’re too chewy. A crab sandwich, maybe. And sit in the sun and eat our feast. And maybe I’ll read you some Susan Taubes.

 

The quayside.

A real fishing port. A real working place. A real place, doing real trade. It’s authentic. And it doesn’t actually have that end-of-the-world feel. It’s actually bustling. Things happen here – real things. It isn’t unbearably middle class.

So you’re up close with an organisational manager. What’s her soul like? Does she have a soul?

I think so.

Maybe you can save her. Turn her. Convert her. Is that your aim?

Maybe.

I’ve been thinking about my romantic life. Or lack of it.

Since Cicero, you mean?

Since Cicero, sure … That was a long time ago … Should scholars have lovers?

Other scholars, maybe. Not civilians. They wouldn’t understand the demands … The solitude we need …

I work too much, that’s the problem. We all do! Jane Birkin – God rest her soul – said Serge Gainsbourg was so much fun. He didn’t want to stay in working all the time. Writing songs, or whatever. Recording stuff. He wanted to be out – with her. Having adventures. Going places. Driving off to some remote beach and making love in the surf. That kind of thing.

My lover would make me want to be out – with her. Our in the sun. Out in the day. I wouldn’t be thinking about work all the time. I wouldn’t be all about sitting in the dark.

And when I did work, when I had to work, she’d be in the room with me. Watching over me. Doing her own thing, but watching over me. Making sure I didn’t go too far into Susan Taubes world. Into all the doomy stuff.

You like the doomy stuff.

Did you ever read Marguerite Duras’s book, Practicalities? About the daily life of living with her young lover, Yann Andrea? All this stuff about shopping and cleaning and cooking and just hanging out. And what they read and what they did. And gardening. All the domestic stuff, right? I like knowing those details. How she lived. How they lived. I’d like to live like that.

I don’t believe a word of it. You’re utterly undomestic.

There I’d be, working at my desk, and there she’d be, feet up on my table, long legs in jeans and cowboy boots, reading Proust. Reading Swann’s Way. She’d be the most beautiful Proust-reader who ever was. There, sitting as I wrote, reading Swann’s Way and occasionally gasping over the beauty of the prose. Occasionally reading a sentence out loud. Oh honey, listen to this.

Yes, that’s how I see her: reading Proust in her white jeans and cowboy boots. Feet up. In a taupe blouse, like some lady explorer. So beautiful. As beautiful as Proust’s sentences. And reading out Proust sentences that she liked. Oh honey, so beautiful.

And I’d read to her from Susan Taubes, and she’d wrinkle her nose. Yuck. Too death-haunted for her. Too deathly for her. Too dark, for her. Too morbid, for her. Nothing to do with the garden.

So you have a garden now?

In my fantasy, yes. With a lily pond – we’d have a lily pond, in my fantasy. And sometimes we’d drive out to the countryside – we’d have a car, in my fantasy …

Imagine that!

And my lover would pioneer, like, Proust reading chic. She’d be the Anita Pallenberg of reading Proust and looking fabulous …A silk scarf round her waist. A tiara. Pearls. I love pearls. A pearl necklace. Pearl earrings. Sometimes twinset for that irresistible posh, posh look. With white jeans. And her cowboy boots. Wouldn’t that be something?

Of course, she’d eventually want someone with money. With a lifestyle. Some rich woman. Or some rich man, maybe. Who could keep her in style. Fly her here and there. Take her off around the world.  Show her the great world-capitals.

But for the moment, as she read Proust, long legs perched up on my desk, as long as she could potter round my garden, I’d do.

She liked to be adored, of course. Loved. Admired. With her so-feminine features. With the delicacy of her nose. Her cheekbones. She’ll say, honey don’t ignore me. Just because I’m reading Proust.

She'd like to be taught about cultural things. Shown refined things. I'd introduce her to Blossom Dearie. Or Nancy Wilson. Or whoever else. Play things that would delight her. Make her a playlist.

And she’d be ballet-trained. She’d run like a ballerina. I’d love to watch her run, ballerina-style. They have a special way of running, ballerinas. She’d be so graceful. The way she moved.

She’d tell me about her ballet training. And the finer points of ballet appreciation. And what was so great about Syvlie Guillem. About ballet choreography. Yes – that’d be her world. Her elegance.

So why would she be with you?

Because she admired intellectual things, Shiva. Because she loved the intellectual world. The literary world. Of which I was a comparative aficionado. Which is why she could just sit there, lost in Proust. Sighing this is so beautiful every now and again.

She’d do yoga every day. Just, like, in the flat. She’d always be doing yoga. Like that woman in that film Wim Wenders made about Nicholas Ray. Cultivating her body. Or pilates, maybe.

And what would you be doing?

Writing, of course. Dreamily writing. And dreamily reading. In no danger of losing myself in the depths.

But you’d know you couldn’t keep her, right?

I’d know that. And she’d know. Sometimes she’d talk of afterwards – when we split up. She’d begin, After all this – when we’re not together anymore … And ask whether we’d keep in touch. Whether we’d send email to each other. Whether I would keep sending her book recommendations.

And then she’d look a little sadly and say, But I don’t want to think of afterwards.

She’d be in love with me for the moment, and I would obviously be in love with her, and wouldn’t that be just fine? She’d look over at me and I’d feel it in my heart. Like a stab in my heart. I’d catch my breath. I’d think: she’s so beautiful.

And she’d be looking to me. For life. For adventure. And that’d be the making of me. I’d become an adventurous person. An emboldened person. Not just a dry old scholar thinking constantly about death.

And she’d need me for reassurance. To tell her I loved her. It’d matter to her, that I loved her. Imagine that! She’d look to me for affection, for attention, for whatever. And I’d be good for something. I’d praise her beauty.  And her grace. It would make a woman of me – a real woman, not just some dusty older reader of European books …

I’d be an expert in her beauty. Her own private connoisseur. It’d be like The Duke of Burgundy, did you ever see that? She and I, that’s all. She and I and no one else, pretty much. Me with my work and she with … whatever it is she was doing. Practising her guitar.

She plays guitar now?

In between reading Proust and gardening, yes.

And we could take tea in the garden – in our imaginary garden. Mid morning and mid afternoon. Imagine it, taking tea. Sipping tea. From China cups. Pouring tea from my teapot. In the  garden, in the sun.

And if the move took us, off we’d drive. Around the Northumbrian countryside. We’d get to know it: the Northumbrian countryside.

We’d have a convertible. We’d drive along, playing great music. Summer music. I’d choose the music. She’d be delighted. That would be my job, as you know: to delight her. To find the right music for her. And I’d like that. That would be what I was for: delighting her.

And driving, I can actually drive, in my fantasy. I had had lessons. Passed by test. I could drive. And I even had a car. An unaffordable, impossible car. And I’d drive her around. We’d have daytrips. We could plan them. Consult maps. Plan out a lovely day for ourselves. A jolly time …

Driving along, on the open roads. Country roads.

And we’d stop off somewhere lovely. Like the beach by Bamburgh Castle. And walk along together.

And I’d be wondering what I’d done to have such a beauty on my arm. And she’d like being the beauty on my arm. And we’d walk along, my liking the beauty on my arm and she liking being the beauty on my arm. And wouldn’t that be just dandy?

Buying mussels and crab sandwiches.

And we’d go on holiday, my lover and I. To Italy.

Italy!

To the Mediterranean. I’ve never been to the Mediterranean. In fact, I don’t think I even believe in the Mediterranean. Is there any such place as the Mediterranean?

I wouldn’t know.

You sound about as well-travelled as I am … She and I could fly out to Italy and the Mediterranean, proving that they existed, which I’m sure they did. And she’d wear her big floppy sunhat, like Grace Kelly’s in To Catch a Thief. And be even more gorgeous. Effortlessly. Chicly. And I would have to delight her. That would be my job: to delight her. I’d have become a delighting-my-lover machine. In the Mediterranean!

What would you actually do in the Mediterranean?

Throw a beach ball to each other, or something. Punt it to and fro on the sand. Or play beach croquet.

Is that a game?

Or boules. Or we’d just sun ourselves. Or take a dip. Any, the crucial thing is that we wouldn’t talk about work. Or writing. Or Susan Taubes. I like the idea of that.

And my soul would grow … expand. I’d open myself to everything. To the whole world. What’s the opposite of an agoraphobe?

An agora-phile, I guess.

I’d be one of those, an agora-lover. And agora-phile. I’d never want to be indoors again. Or rather, I’d understand the inside to be but a temporary folding of the outside. A temporary enclosure. And I’d understand the point of life was to unfold all the foldings … To turn everything to the light.

We need to be brought outside, you and I. By our lovers.

So I have to have a lover as well?

You need a lover, I need a lover. We all need lovers. We need to be educated in the arts of life. In fine food and fine wine. All the things we’ve missed out of. Fine dining. Fine life. We’ve studied too long. We’ve been in the dark too long. We need to plunge into life for ourselves. We’d need to be there, in the midst of life. Splashing around in the surf, or whatever.

I can’t actually swim.

Nor can I.

Or drive.

Me, neither.

Or do DIY. Or anything …

You and me both.

You have to be able to do some of these things in a relationship.

But our lovers would embolden us. They’d make us do stuff. Backstroke. Hand point turns. Getting handy with hammer and nails …

 

Mussels and crab sandwiches on a bench, looking out beyond the piers to the sea. 

We could sail off somewhere. Get a ferry from Tyne Dock.

And where would we go?

To Amsterdam, maybe. Or Copenhagen.

Have you ever been to Amsterdam?

I can’t believe in Amsterdam. There is no Amsterdam.

What about Copenhagen?

I can’t even conceive of Copenhagen. There is no Copenhagen.

Where do the ferries go then?

They fall off the edge of the world.

What, one after another? You’d think they’d learn, wouldn’t you?

Enough of your inanities. Shut up and listen.

If there is something to be healed, the brokenness is within the world. To ask for the eradication of brokenness as such is to wish the annihilation of the world. To heal the broken relations within the world, requires first that we acknowledge the reality of these relations (instead of fleeing into the imaginary) + then drawing from the tree of life, science, art, wisdom, cultivate + transform them. The powers of creation, of life are also the powers of destruction: every transformation passes through chaos.

That’s weapons-grade Susan Taubes. Black fucking belt. From a letter. That she wrote when she was twenty-one. Could you write such a thing at twenty-one, in a letter?

No.

Nor could I. Nor even at thirty one. Or even at thirty-seven, which is how old I am now.

Heidegger published Being and Time at thirty-seven.

And Hegel published The Phenomenology of Spirit – don’t remind me.

And Derrida published those three books.

And Hyppolite published his great commentary on Hegel. How old are you?

Thirty-three.

Merleau-Ponty had published The Phenomenology of Perception at thirty-three. Simone Weil was writing her best notebook stuff, and would be dead at thirty-four. And you know what Kierkegaard had published by that age: a fucking library.

Fucking Schelling was published at seventeen. Hume wrote his Treatise at twenty three.

We could always be late bloomers.

You’re going to bring up Kant, aren’t you? Someone always has to bring up Kant.

He was fifty-seven when he published The Critique of Pure Reason. Fifty fucking seven …

We could still bloom at fifty-seven …

Delusion.

But it’s an enabling delusion. It makes us feel like we could have something to say. Philosophy’s generous like that. You don’t have to give up your philosophical hopes until you’re positively ancient …

Which means you spend your whole life living in a dream. Which we do already.

You’re going to write your book, Kitten. And it’s going to be really good. I have big hopes for you. You’re going to succeed. For all of us. You’ll sail the good ship Kitten right out of here. Leave us behind.

You’re taking the piss.

I’m not, for once. You’ve got what it takes. The philosophical right stuff. You’ll be out of here.

And where will I go?

America, maybe.

The problem with you and the others are that you’re the philosophical version of indie music. All twee and infantile and shambolic and non careerist and wilfully underachieving and despising ambition. Or if you do, burying your work in some obscure, unranked journal.

You’re all about getting drunk instead. Or being hungover instead. Or sitting in the corner at conferences, scowling and hating everybody and imagining you know things, which you don’t. And all the time, pulling each other own. Drugging each other through the mud and mire. With your in-jokes and pisstaking and general bad attitude.

You used to be one of us.

I did, didn’t I?

Do whelks cure hangovers?

Don’t keep talking about your hangover. I’m tired of your hangover. Really, you should use your hangover. Francis Bacon always painted hungover – did you know that? A night on champagne and oysters and the next morning, up early, to paint, hungover.

Because it’s when we’re hungover that we truly experience our conditions. Where we know the irremissibility of it all. Where we know ourselves to be animals, caught in a trap. When we experience our very existence as fate. As inevitability. With no escape. No evasion. The unbearable heaviness of being, right? The unbearable crushedness of being …

Tell me about it.

The hangover lowers the coffin – as it should be lowered! The hangover seals the tomb – as it should be sealed! Tell me, do we really have to meet the others? Are the others going to be bearable? Drunk, they’re bad enough. But hungover …