See, you’re doing it again: dreaming of finishing a book that would redeem it all. What sort of book would it be?
Which is quite clever, when you think of it. You’ve got
You want to sidestep everything. Clever. You want to swerve. From philosophy to literature. And then back to philosophy, maybe.
And what about you?
I’m sticking with philosophy.
That’s because you really might make it. You really might do something worthwhile. So you don’t need a literary fallback.
Is that what it is: a fallback?
Yeah, but I’ve got a way out.
Go on – share.
Writing about the failure of achieving anything. Writing about the great fuck up.
What, some sort of confession? Becoming some Augustine of failure?
A literary work. About fucking up philosophically.
Clever.
It wouldn’t actually be a work of genius. But it would be about dreaming of writing work of genius.
Cunning. A literary sidestep. A secret way to justify your life. A secret way of holding onto the idea of being a genius, even after the collapse in your belief in philosophical genius. A literary genius – is that what you dream of being?
Because in literary writing, you defeat would no longer be a defeat. If you write it up in the right way. If you turn it into some novel …
Your last belief, even after the collapse in your belief in philosophical genius, is your belief in your literary genius. That’s how you’re going to save the idea of yourself a genius from every defeat.
You were never really in philosophy, were you? You had an escape capsule all along: literature. You were never fully committed. You were always merely watching yourself philosophise, with a view to … writing it up.
You weren’t like us. You weren’t risking all. You were never really part of the philosophical crew. You weren’t just rolling your philosophical dice – you had literary ones, too.
The literary get-out. The literary alibi. Cunning. A genius move all by itself. But of course all that is dependent on the fact that you could achieve a literary success. Of you actually being able to write.
I’m working on that.
I mean, isn’t writing fiction as hard as writing philosophy? Who says that you’re actually any good at it? It’s a risk too, isn’t it: writing literature? You’re still rolling dice …
And it’s actually philosophical literature. Or philosophical literature.
So you’re going to have it both ways. Fail at philosophy, succeed at literature. And succeed in philosophy, too.
There are philosophical questions that can only be asked through literary writing.
Very 1950s. What are you, Blanchot 2.0.? Is this, like On the Way to Language, the reboot? Are you going to be a new Rilke? The difference between them and you is … absolute. They can actually write. To put it mildly. They’re actual geniuses. And you …
Ah, but I’m writing in a different time. I’m writing in a post-literary time. Where the prestige of literature has disappeared. You can’t do that high-falutin’ stuff anymore. You can’t write in a high literary register.
That’s how you’ll justify not being able to actually write. That’s how you’re going to do it. The ultimate excuse: these aren’t literary times, so I can’t be a literary genius …
Work in Progress 