Literature, feeding on a corpse – on its own corpse. Literature in diminuendo, with a diminishing reputation.
As if there were anyone left to read it, literature! As if there were anyone left to write it, literature!
As if it literature, now, were not already a farce.
Literature as farce. As buffoonery! Horseplay! General … irrationalism. With its Exaggeration! Its improbabilities. Its general ridiculousness – absurdly broad. With its slapstick! With its ludicrous conceits. With its caricatures! Its chaotic plots! With its illogicism.
Farce has its place. It can even be entertaining. But farce that doesn’t know that it’s farce … Farce that thinks it’s literature …
I could only write farce, Livia said. I was essentially farcical. Everything I wrote was farcical in nature.
But I couldn’t see it! I thought I was writing something serious. I thought I it was all about literature. I thought the literary was my thing. And even the philosophico-literary! The litero-philosophical!
I thought I had a literary advantage over philosophy, that was the thing, Livia said. I would never have to simply do philosophy. I always had a get out clause. I could always escape into literature.
Whilst the rest of us were left to philosophy – were trapped in the burning house of philosophy – I had escaped, that’s what Livia saw. I had my literary ejector seat from the philosophical cockpit. I had my literary escape chute from the downed aeroplane. I had my literary lifejacket in the philosophical shipwreck. I wasn’t going to go down on the philosophical ship. My literary lifeboat would carry me away.
I thought I was immune, that’s what Livia saw. That I wasn’t trapped in the wreckage. That I wouldn’t burn up in the whole philosophical dumpster fire. Nothing bad was going to happen to me: that’s what I thought. A philosophy crash-test-dummy had crashed in my place.
I could always write about being bad at philosophy: that was the thing. I could make literary hay out of my own philosophical disaster. The philosophical tide wouldn’t carry me under.
Only an idiot could write her idiot-buch, Livia used to say. Her magnum opus. Only an idiot philosophico-literary writer! Only a really stupid and unwitting literary-philosophical writer!
Whilst the rest of us were left to philosophy – were trapped in the burning house of philosophy – I had escaped: that’s what Livia saw in me.
Prose is the genre of the farce. The farce must take place in prose and pros only. Only prose is verbose enough, long winded enough. Only prose can really go on and on. Beyond the … punchline. Beyond the denouement.
Only prose can record those unofficial moments. Those moments off the record and off any record. Those interims … those interregnums … between Significance and Significance. Between real event and real event.
The non-event instead. Non-happening. Waywardness. Things going off course. Things driven off the rails. Not in a dramatic way. Not in an important way. Just ordinary and everyday idiocy. To which no one pays attention. Except the prose writer.
The prose of the world – that’s what it’s about. The true farce. Life that doesn’t rise to the level of life. Life that fails life. Life that falls and is only falling. All the unimportant stuff. Life’s crumbs. Scattered stuff. Missing things. That no one pays attention to. And why should they?
How was I going to cry in prose? What would my literary-philosophical cry look like?
A cobbling together. A mess of Hindu-Christian rhetoric. Some combination of incompatible elements. Some piling up of prose. Some rolling tide of prose. Some roaring forward.
Punctuated with a few farcical scenes. A few caricatures. A few … melodramatic incidents. Some general shouting. Some exclamation marks and ellipses.
Megaphone stuff. Unsubtle stuff. Unquiet stuff. Stuff that bellows and stamps about.
At the end of literature, literature just … postures. Very loudly. Protests too loudly about being Literature. Wears its Literariness on its sleeve.
Writers like Samuel Beckett could still depend on Literature Thomas Bernhard. When Krasznahorkai writes, it’s still literature. But you … beneath literature, and tying to write literature. Not even believing in literary, not really. Not thinking that Literature was anything. That it mattered.
Who can believe in Literature, Shiva? Not even you.
In its final hours, Literature. In its final moments, Literature. Before everyone just drops the books. Before the libraries close.
What did I think Literature was? That it had been? What idea could I have of it: Literature? I’d come too late for it: wasn’t that the point?
The literary disaster, following the philosophical one. And part of it is that no one’s even noticed. That it doesn’t even matter. That it’s of no actual significance.
Which is why my time was now, Livia said. Why I was the writer du jour. Why my kind was the kind that deserved Literature – to inherit Literature. To play in the ruins of Literature.
After literature – isn’t that the phrase? Posthumous Literature. How grotesque! How farcical!
Because Literature isn’t anything anymore. Literature given over to the rogues and the rascals, right? Given over completely to the prose of the world.
There are a few literary … reflexes left. Some echoes of literary technique. Of literary posturing. Something to remind you of Literature. Of what Literature once was. But nothing more.
And Literature about philosophy!? Literaro-philosophy! Philosophico-literature! What a mess! What a disaster!
But a perfect end to the farce. The perfect endless end of the farce.
A few philosphemes. Literophemes .. A few signs of literature, of philosophy. A few … leftovers … that can be warmed up …
Livia only had to wait. She knew what I was working on. She had only to bide her time. She knew I’d finish my magnum opus at some point
The literary humiliation – that it’s been given over to the likes of me. But part of the humiliation is that no one even notices the humiliation. And that no one even cares about the humiliation.
No one’s in Literature’s corner! No one’s fighting Literature’s fight!. No one wants it to win. No one’s on literature’s side. No one’s standing up for it, Literature.
We’ve come too late for literature, right? Everyone knows that. But no one cares. Which is precisely a sign that we’ve come too late for Literature.
In the end, Literature will take its revenge on you. Literature won’t take this lying down. Literature won’t settle for what you made of it, Shiva. You’re the one who’ll look like an idiot.
In the end, you’ll be Literature’s idiot. Just you already were Philosophy’s idiot. Literature’s fool … like you’re already Philosophy’s Fool.
The joke you’d play on Literature is the one Literature would play on you. Literature’s got life in it yet, Shiva. It’s got some last life in it. Or some posthumous life, at least.
Philosophy’s not going to let you escape philosophy. You won’t wriggle off Philosophy’s hook that easily. That wriggling is a literary wriggling, it’s true. But it’s also a philosophical one.
Work in Progress 