June 2013
1 post
May 2013
3 posts
“The fantastic is no longer a property of the heart, nor is it found among the incongruities of nature; it evolves from the accuracy of the knowledge, and its treasures lie dormant in documents. Dreams are no longer summoned with closed eyes, but in reading; and a true image is now a product of learning: it derives from words spoken in the past, exact recensions, the amassing of minute facts, monuments reduced to infinitesimal fragments, and the reproductions of reproductions. In the modern experience, these elements contain the power of the impossible. Only the assiduous clamor created by repetition can transmit to us what only happened once. The imaginary is not formed in opposition to reality as its denial or compensation; it grows among signs, from book to book, in the interstice of repetitions and commentaries; it is born and takes shape in the interval between books. It is a phenomenon of the library.”
—
THE TEMPTATIONS OF SAINT LIBRARY - Michael Foucault, writing about Flaubert’s doomed novel The Temptation of Saint Anthony.
The Temptation, as it turns out, was Flaubert in full geek mode: essentially a bestiary, a compendium of creatures meticulously taxonimized and sourced out of documents, paintings, and poems. He considered it a work of the imagination, but it is, apparently, a catalogue of the creations of other creatives.
Which? Wow. I love this notion: Gustave Flaubert in a fervor, making lists of monsters, unable to control himself and just, totally, losing his way. This has happened, after all, to every writer, at one point or another. Lists! If one lists the contents of a universe, does that count as world-building? Surely, if one diagrams everything a world contains, there must be a story there, right?
Alas, no. Oh, shit, the story became a sidebar to the monsters.
I’ve not read The Temptation, but apparently it’s quite bad - over several days in 1849 Flaubert read it aloud to a group of friends, who frantically urged him to throw it in the fire. He’d been working on it feverishly for 4 years. Flaubert subsequently wrote Madame Bovary. However, he kept coming back to The Temptation (it was, after all, a Temptation), and finally, in 1874, he published it.
I’m sympathetic and charmed by the notion of Flaubert worriedly cataloguing creatures as though he was an ecologist, trapping things between pages before they got away. The same impulse haunts me, every time I search vainly for something arcane that isn’t digitized, (as I am a hopeful hunter, I regularly assume everything I’m seeking has been added to the internet, SOMEWHERE, but no. Wrong.) or think frantic thoughts about the notion of technological obscurity, the demise of discs for clouds, the nervous child in me longing for the physical comforts of a library.
Ultimately, Flaubert’s Temptation was translated into English by Lafcadio Hearn as well as being the basis shortly after its publication, for a series of magnificent lithographs by Odilon Redon. Not too shabby. The Redon illustrations are exquisite.
As for the book itself, I’m with Foucault here, in my tenderness for the tempted:
”Henceforth, the visionary experience arises from the black and white surface of printed signs, from the closed and dusty volume that opens with a flight of forgotten words; fantasies are carefully deployed in the hushed library with its columns of books, with its titles aligned on shelves to form a tight enclosure, but within confines that also liberate impossible worlds.” - Foucault.
More reading: Colin Dickey’s terrific article about same, The Redemption of Saint Anthony.
April 2013
11 posts
ALL THE LIONS LOVE HER
So, I wrote a longish essay about sex, race,memes, and lions over at my blog. I don’t usually write cultural criticism, but in this case, I got intrigued by the things that attracted me to a certain article - and a lot of other people too. So, nonfiction essay, voila.
Yesterday morning, I saw a link on Twitter to anews article about a 12-year-old girl saved by three lionsfrom a pack of men who were trying to beat and abduct her into marriage. According to the story, the lions surrounded her, chased the men off, and guarded the girl, possibly because they heard her crying and mistook her for a cub. Regardless of the lions’ rationale, the girl was saved, and the story – phoned in by a man from Addis Ababa – was reported internationally.
The article originated on NBC.com in 2005, but has resurfaced at least twice, first in 2012 and again today, being reposted around the internet as having just occurred. It’s a tempting story, click-and-repost-wise. Clearly, the article’s contents are meme-worthy in several categories:Real-Life-Fairy-Tale,Heroic Photogenic Beasts,Bad Men But Happy Ending, andLittle Girl Saved From Villains By Sympathetic Animals.
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March 2013
2 posts
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