made and the unmade would be
indistinct, an art that would be instantaneously real, without ghosts. And
perhaps that art exists, under the name of literature.
In this sense all the arts have a literary basis, built into their
history and their myths. Architecture is no exception. In advanced, or at least
sedentary, civilizations, building requires the collaboration of various kinds
of tradesmen: bricklayers, carpenters, painters, then electricians, plumbers,
glaziers, and so on. In nomadic cultures, dwellings are made by a single person,
almost always a woman. Architecture is still symbolic, of course, but its social
significations are manifest in the arrangement of dwellings within the camp. The
same thing happens in literature: in the composition of some works, the author
becomes a whole society, by means of a kind of symbolic condensation, writing
with the real or virtual collaboration of all the culture’s specialists, while
others works are made by an individual, working alone like the nomadic woman, in
which case society is signified by the arrangement of the writer’s books in
relation to the books of others, their periodic appearance, and so on.
But in Patri’s dream the architectural analogy was developed a little
further. In Africa there is a curious race of pygmies, the Mbutu, nomadic
hunters without a chief or social hierarchies. They look after themselves, and
everybody else, without dramas. Their communities are relatively small: twenty
or thirty families. When they decide to set up camp, they choose a clearing in
the jungle and the dwellings are arranged in a “ring,” which, according to the
anthropologists, is typical of egalitarian societies. The huts form a circle
with an empty center. But anthropologists are dreamers too, sometimes. How could
this ring be visible except from a plane? Needless to say, the Mbutu pygmies
don’t fly; if they were meant to fly, they would have been born with wings. Also
it’s debatable whether or not the center is empty, since it’s occupied by the
space that makes it a center. “Whoever speaks in the center is heard by all,”
say the anthropologists, alluding involuntarily to dream ventriloquism. The huts
are isotopic shells, in which an opening can be made anywhere. The Mbutu make
just one: a door, facing the neighbors they like best. Say the lady of the house
is cross with her neighbor for some reason or other. No problem; they block up
the door and open another one, facing the neighbors on the other side. The
researchers who have observed this system fail to draw the logical conclusion:
the house of a truly sociable Mbutu would be all doors, and so not a house at
all; conversely, a finished and complete construction presupposes hostility.
A contrasting example: the Bushmen. They too are nomadic and their
camps are arranged in a “ring”. Except that there is something in the middle of
their ring. They place their little houses around a tree; under the tree the
chief of the group builds his hut; at the door of the hut the chief lights a
fire. What was lacking from the Mbutu camp was not a center, but its symbol.
Providing a symbol engages a process of symbolic accumulation: the tree, the
chief, the fire.... Why not a rose, a stuffed giraffe, a sunken
boat, a mosquito that happened to alight on the earlobe of a Nazi spy, a
downpour, or a replica of the Victory of Samothrace?
The little Bushmen are comical, but it’s the same with the extremely
serious Zulu, who are formidable hunters and warriors. Those who have had the
misfortune of facing them in battle (for example, the son of the Emperor
Napoleon III and Eugenia de Montijo) can confirm that they form a
semi-circle, “enveloping” the enemy troops before annihilating them.
This is a reproduction of the method they use for hunting. And their camps are
arranged in the same way: a semi-circle of huts. When the method is
transposed from hunting to war, there is a transition from the real to the
symbolic,
indistinct, an art that would be instantaneously real, without ghosts. And
perhaps that art exists, under the name of literature.
In this sense all the arts have a literary basis, built into their
history and their myths. Architecture is no exception. In advanced, or at least
sedentary, civilizations, building requires the collaboration of various kinds
of tradesmen: bricklayers, carpenters, painters, then electricians, plumbers,
glaziers, and so on. In nomadic cultures, dwellings are made by a single person,
almost always a woman. Architecture is still symbolic, of course, but its social
significations are manifest in the arrangement of dwellings within the camp. The
same thing happens in literature: in the composition of some works, the author
becomes a whole society, by means of a kind of symbolic condensation, writing
with the real or virtual collaboration of all the culture’s specialists, while
others works are made by an individual, working alone like the nomadic woman, in
which case society is signified by the arrangement of the writer’s books in
relation to the books of others, their periodic appearance, and so on.
But in Patri’s dream the architectural analogy was developed a little
further. In Africa there is a curious race of pygmies, the Mbutu, nomadic
hunters without a chief or social hierarchies. They look after themselves, and
everybody else, without dramas. Their communities are relatively small: twenty
or thirty families. When they decide to set up camp, they choose a clearing in
the jungle and the dwellings are arranged in a “ring,” which, according to the
anthropologists, is typical of egalitarian societies. The huts form a circle
with an empty center. But anthropologists are dreamers too, sometimes. How could
this ring be visible except from a plane? Needless to say, the Mbutu pygmies
don’t fly; if they were meant to fly, they would have been born with wings. Also
it’s debatable whether or not the center is empty, since it’s occupied by the
space that makes it a center. “Whoever speaks in the center is heard by all,”
say the anthropologists, alluding involuntarily to dream ventriloquism. The huts
are isotopic shells, in which an opening can be made anywhere. The Mbutu make
just one: a door, facing the neighbors they like best. Say the lady of the house
is cross with her neighbor for some reason or other. No problem; they block up
the door and open another one, facing the neighbors on the other side. The
researchers who have observed this system fail to draw the logical conclusion:
the house of a truly sociable Mbutu would be all doors, and so not a house at
all; conversely, a finished and complete construction presupposes hostility.
A contrasting example: the Bushmen. They too are nomadic and their
camps are arranged in a “ring”. Except that there is something in the middle of
their ring. They place their little houses around a tree; under the tree the
chief of the group builds his hut; at the door of the hut the chief lights a
fire. What was lacking from the Mbutu camp was not a center, but its symbol.
Providing a symbol engages a process of symbolic accumulation: the tree, the
chief, the fire.... Why not a rose, a stuffed giraffe, a sunken
boat, a mosquito that happened to alight on the earlobe of a Nazi spy, a
downpour, or a replica of the Victory of Samothrace?
The little Bushmen are comical, but it’s the same with the extremely
serious Zulu, who are formidable hunters and warriors. Those who have had the
misfortune of facing them in battle (for example, the son of the Emperor
Napoleon III and Eugenia de Montijo) can confirm that they form a
semi-circle, “enveloping” the enemy troops before annihilating them.
This is a reproduction of the method they use for hunting. And their camps are
arranged in the same way: a semi-circle of huts. When the method is
transposed from hunting to war, there is a transition from the real to the
symbolic,
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