have excited me: that was enough for W. The title, and the myth of Mandelstam, exiled from his city and murdered in the Gulag: I had a feeling for that; what else could W. ask for in a collaborator, in these fallen times?
Celan, in the midst of his walks, would phone his wife with the poems he had written in his head, W. remembers. And didn’t Celan claim to have seen God under the door of his hotel room? He saw God as a ray of light under his hotel door, W. says, it’s very moving.
Ah, but what sense can we have of Mandelstam, of Celan? What can we understand of poetry, in the Age of Shit ? In the end, we love only the myth of poetry, the myth of the world-historical importance of poetry, and the myth of ourselves as readers of poetry …
We love poetry because we have no idea about poetry, W. says. We love religion because we have no idea about religion. We love God because we have no idea of God …
There’s Walser, too, the patron saint of walkers, W. says. Walser, walking in the Swiss Alps. Walser, who’d long since devoted his time to being mad, rather than writing: he knew his priorities. He was mad, and the mad walked. And oneday—fifty years ago, nearly to the day—they found him dead in the snow. He’d walked his way to death. Which is to say, says W., he’d met death on his own terms, far from his mental asylum. And that’s exactly his point, W. says. The walker meets the world on his own terms. The walker—the slow walker—meets the world according to his measure, W. says.
Ah, if only we were as wise as Walser, that is to say, as mad as Walser. If only we understood that our duty is to walk, not to write, merely to walk and not to think. To give up thinking! To give up writing! To give up our reading , which is really only the shadow of reading, the search for the world-historical importance that reading once had. But we go on, don’t we? We collect our books. We surround ourselves with them, the names of Old Europe, when we should have been walking, just that, all along.
It’s time for his nap, W. says as we head back to town. Time to go back to his room for his power nap , as he calls it. He learned about power naps from a public lecture at the university. Sleep for twenty minutes, and you fool the mind into thinking you’ve been asleep for much longer. Twenty minutes! That’s all he needs to regain his composure, W. says.
But I never let him nap, W. says. In fact, I scorn his desire to nap and even the very notion of a nap. I keep him up all night with my inanities, W. says, and then I keep him awake all day with more inanities.
Of course, he’s the one who insists that we stay up later than anyone else, that we follow the night through all the way until dawn, W. says. How many nights have ended for us just as dawn was brightening the sky, and the first birds were starting to sing? How many nights, with Stroszek on the TV and The Star of Redemption open on the desk?
W. is a man who wants to see the night through he says. But the afternoon … that’s my time, W. concedes. That’s when I come into my own. When everyone around me is tired and can put up no defence. When everyone’s too tired to make me shut up, that’s Lars-time, W. says.—‘That’s whenyou pounce’. The afternoon: it’s when I’m at my strongest and he’s at his weakest, W. says. It’s when I can really get going. It’s when I wear everyone out.
But it’s also when I’m most afraid, of course, that’s what I’ve told him, W. says. He’s always been struck by that: for him, the afternoon is a time of repose, for the gathering of strength, but for me, it’s a time of fear.
It must be my years of unemployment, W. says. Didn’t I tell him my afternoons used to sag like a drooping washing line ? Didn’t I complain of the eternullity of those afternoons, of their infinite wearing away ? It was post-Neighbours time, the afternoon, that’s what I told him. Post This Morning , post Kilroy , and deep
Celan, in the midst of his walks, would phone his wife with the poems he had written in his head, W. remembers. And didn’t Celan claim to have seen God under the door of his hotel room? He saw God as a ray of light under his hotel door, W. says, it’s very moving.
Ah, but what sense can we have of Mandelstam, of Celan? What can we understand of poetry, in the Age of Shit ? In the end, we love only the myth of poetry, the myth of the world-historical importance of poetry, and the myth of ourselves as readers of poetry …
We love poetry because we have no idea about poetry, W. says. We love religion because we have no idea about religion. We love God because we have no idea of God …
There’s Walser, too, the patron saint of walkers, W. says. Walser, walking in the Swiss Alps. Walser, who’d long since devoted his time to being mad, rather than writing: he knew his priorities. He was mad, and the mad walked. And oneday—fifty years ago, nearly to the day—they found him dead in the snow. He’d walked his way to death. Which is to say, says W., he’d met death on his own terms, far from his mental asylum. And that’s exactly his point, W. says. The walker meets the world on his own terms. The walker—the slow walker—meets the world according to his measure, W. says.
Ah, if only we were as wise as Walser, that is to say, as mad as Walser. If only we understood that our duty is to walk, not to write, merely to walk and not to think. To give up thinking! To give up writing! To give up our reading , which is really only the shadow of reading, the search for the world-historical importance that reading once had. But we go on, don’t we? We collect our books. We surround ourselves with them, the names of Old Europe, when we should have been walking, just that, all along.
It’s time for his nap, W. says as we head back to town. Time to go back to his room for his power nap , as he calls it. He learned about power naps from a public lecture at the university. Sleep for twenty minutes, and you fool the mind into thinking you’ve been asleep for much longer. Twenty minutes! That’s all he needs to regain his composure, W. says.
But I never let him nap, W. says. In fact, I scorn his desire to nap and even the very notion of a nap. I keep him up all night with my inanities, W. says, and then I keep him awake all day with more inanities.
Of course, he’s the one who insists that we stay up later than anyone else, that we follow the night through all the way until dawn, W. says. How many nights have ended for us just as dawn was brightening the sky, and the first birds were starting to sing? How many nights, with Stroszek on the TV and The Star of Redemption open on the desk?
W. is a man who wants to see the night through he says. But the afternoon … that’s my time, W. concedes. That’s when I come into my own. When everyone around me is tired and can put up no defence. When everyone’s too tired to make me shut up, that’s Lars-time, W. says.—‘That’s whenyou pounce’. The afternoon: it’s when I’m at my strongest and he’s at his weakest, W. says. It’s when I can really get going. It’s when I wear everyone out.
But it’s also when I’m most afraid, of course, that’s what I’ve told him, W. says. He’s always been struck by that: for him, the afternoon is a time of repose, for the gathering of strength, but for me, it’s a time of fear.
It must be my years of unemployment, W. says. Didn’t I tell him my afternoons used to sag like a drooping washing line ? Didn’t I complain of the eternullity of those afternoons, of their infinite wearing away ? It was post-Neighbours time, the afternoon, that’s what I told him. Post This Morning , post Kilroy , and deep
Similar Books
