Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (important books to read .txt) 📗

A task too immense. Every greatthinker is someone else's moron."

"Thought as the coherentexpression of moronism."

"But what is moronism toone is incoherence to another."

"Profound. It's twoo'clock, Pilade's about to close, and we still haven't got to thelunatics."

"I'm getting there. Alunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn't know theropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has a logic, however twistedit may be. The lunatic, on the other hand, doesn't concern himselfat all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everythingproves everything else. The lunatic is all id6e fixe, and whateverhe comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by theliberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes ofinspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up theTemplars."

"Invariably?"

"There are lunatics whodon't bring up the Templars, but those who do are the mostinsidious. At first they seem normal, then all of a sudden..."Hewas about to order another whiskey, but changed his mind and askedfor the check. "Speaking of the Templars, the other day somecharacter left me a manuscript on the subject. A lunatic, but witha human face. The book starts reasonably enough. Would you like tosee it?"

"I'd be glad to. Maybethere's something I can use."

"I doubt that very much.But drop in if you have a spare half hour. Number 1, Via SincereRenato. The visit will be of more benefit to me than to you. Youcan tell me whether the book has any merit."

"What makes you trustme?"

"Who says I trust you?But if you come, I'll trust you. I trust curiosity."

A student rushed in,face twisted in anger. "Comrades! There are fascists along thecanal with chains!"

"Let's get them," saidthe fellow with the Tartar mustache who had threatened me overKrupskaya. "Come on, comrades!" And they all left.

"What do you want todo?" I asked, feeling guilty. "Should we go along?"

"No," Belbo said."Pilade sets these things up to clear the place out. For my firstnight on the wagon, I feel pretty high. Must be the cold-turkeyeffect. Everything I've said to you so far is false. Good night,Casaubon."

11

His sterility wasinfinite. It was part of the ecstasy.

¡XE. M. Cioran, Lemauvais demiurge, Paris, Gallimard, 1969, "Penseesftranglees"

The conversation atPilade's had shown me the public Belbo. But a keen observer wouldhave been able to sense the melancholy behind the sarcasm. Not thatBelbo's sarcasm was the mask. The mask, perhaps, was the privateconfessing he did. Or perhaps his melancholy itself was the mask, acontrivance to hide a deeper melancholy.

There is a document inwhich he tried to fictionalize what he told me about his job when Iwent to Garamond the next day. It contains all his precision andpassion, the disappointment of an editor who could write onlythrough others while yearning for creativity of his own. It alsohas the moral severity that led him to punish himself for desiringsomething to which he did not feel entitled. Though he painted hisdesire in pathetic and garish hues, I never knew a man who couldpity himself with such contempt.

FILENAME: Seven SeasJim

Tomorrow, see youngCinti.

1. Good monograph,scholarly, perhaps a bit too scholarly.

2. In the conclusion,the comparison between Catullus, the poetae novi, and today'savant-garde is the best part.

3. Why not make this theintroduction?

4. Convince him. He'llsay that such flights of fancy don't belong in a philologicalseries. He's afraid of alienating his professor, who is supposed towrite the authoritative preface. A brilliant idea in the last twopages might go unnoticed, but at the beginning it would be tooconspicuous, it would irritate the academic powers thatbe.

5. If, however, it isput into italics, in a conversational form, separate from theactual scholarship, then the hypothesis remains only a hypothesisand doesn't undermine the seriousness of the work. And readers willbe captivated at once; they'll approach the book in a totallydifferent way.

Am I urging him to anact of freedom¡Xor am I using him to write my own book?

Transforming books witha word here, a word there. Demiurge for the work of others. Tappingat the hardened clay, at the statue someone else has alreadycarved. Instead of taking soft clay and molding my own. Give Mosesthe right tap with the hammer, and he'll talk.

See WilliamS.

"I've looked at yourwork. Not bad. It has tension, imagination. Is this the first pieceyou've written?"

"No. I wrote anothertragedy. It's the story of two lovers in Verona who¡X"

"Let's talk about thispiece first, Mr. S. I was wondering why you set it in France. May Isuggest¡XDenmark? It wouldn't require much work. If you just changetwo or three names, and turn the chateau of Chalons-sur-Marne into,say, the castle of Elsinore...In a Nordic, Protestant atmosphere,in the shadow of Kierkegaard, so to speak, all these existentialovertones..."

"Perhaps you'reright."

"I think I am. The workmight need a little touching up stylistically. Nothing drastic; thebarber's snips before he holds up the mirror for you, so to speak.The father's ghost, for example. Why at the end? I'd put him at thebeginning. That way the father's warning helps motivate the youngprince's behavior, and it establishes the conflict with themother.''

"Hmm, good idea. I'donly have to move one scene."

"Exactly. Now, style.This passage here, where the prince turns to the audience andbegins his monologue on action and inaction. It's a nice speech,but he doesn't sound, well, troubled enough. ¡¥To act or not toact? This is my problem.' I would say not ¡¥my problem* but ¡¥thequestion."That is the question.' You see what I mean? It's not somuch his individual problem as it is the whole question ofexistence. The question whether to be or not to be..."

* * *

If you fill the worldwith children who do not bear your name, no one will know they areyours. Like being God in plain clothes. You are God, you wanderthrough the city, you hear people talking about you, God this, Godthat, what a wonderful universe this is, and how elegant the law ofgravity, and you smile to yourself behind your fake beard (no,better to go without a beard, because in a beard God is immediatelyrecognizable). You soliloquize (God is always soliloquizing): "HereI am, the One, and they don't know it." If a pedestrian bumps intoyou in the street, or even insults you, you humbly apologize andmove on,