Foucault also discerns chance operating in the work of Roussel. Chapter 3
of _Death and the Labyrinth_ (eng. tr. of _Raymond Roussel_, 1963)
considers the word-play that engenders the narrative of Roussel's
_Impressions d'Afrique_: "les lettres du blanc sur les bandes du vieux
pillard" (the white man's letters on the hordes of the old plunderer) and
"les lettres du blanc sur les bandes du vieux billard" (the white letters
on the cushions of the old billiard table). Foucault writes:
What I see there is not automatic writing as such but the most
conscious writing of all: it has mastered all the imperceptible
and fragmentary play of chance. (38)
The arbitrary nature of the signifying chain which brings "pillard" and
"billard" into proximity provides the crucial element that determines the
course Roussel's language machine will follow. But the process is not
*purely* arbitrary: the signifying chain motivates a proximity between not
just any words--though the seem a random coupling--but specifically
between "plunderer" and "billiard table." Through what Foucault here
calls "a certain amount of calculated chance" (43) and will call in _The
Order of Things_ "systematically fabricated chance" (383), signification,
reduced to the letter itself, already determines and orders the meaning of
Roussel's language, or rather, the excess/expenditure of his language:
Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it be seen
in their convolution. It is the eruption of language, its sudden
appearance: it's the reserve from which words flow, this absolute
distance of language from itself, which makes it speak. (38-39)
Foucault seems here to be taking us close to the kind of non-discursive,
excessive, transgressive space that he approached in "A Preface to
Transgression." Rather than from words themselves, chance speaks through
the "eruption" of language and from the "reserve" from which words flow,
again creating a "dedoublement" of language, fixed against itself at a
distance that is absolute, that underscores Foucault's reading of Roussel.
Mallarme is also present in this text, just two paragraphs away: "So easy
and so difficult is it, without any other throw of the dice than language,
to abolish such a fundamental chance" (41).
Tom Orange
tmorange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
___________________________________________
| |
| With all this material |
| To what distinction -- |
| |
| [Louis Zukofsky, "A"-6] |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
of _Death and the Labyrinth_ (eng. tr. of _Raymond Roussel_, 1963)
considers the word-play that engenders the narrative of Roussel's
_Impressions d'Afrique_: "les lettres du blanc sur les bandes du vieux
pillard" (the white man's letters on the hordes of the old plunderer) and
"les lettres du blanc sur les bandes du vieux billard" (the white letters
on the cushions of the old billiard table). Foucault writes:
What I see there is not automatic writing as such but the most
conscious writing of all: it has mastered all the imperceptible
and fragmentary play of chance. (38)
The arbitrary nature of the signifying chain which brings "pillard" and
"billard" into proximity provides the crucial element that determines the
course Roussel's language machine will follow. But the process is not
*purely* arbitrary: the signifying chain motivates a proximity between not
just any words--though the seem a random coupling--but specifically
between "plunderer" and "billiard table." Through what Foucault here
calls "a certain amount of calculated chance" (43) and will call in _The
Order of Things_ "systematically fabricated chance" (383), signification,
reduced to the letter itself, already determines and orders the meaning of
Roussel's language, or rather, the excess/expenditure of his language:
Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it be seen
in their convolution. It is the eruption of language, its sudden
appearance: it's the reserve from which words flow, this absolute
distance of language from itself, which makes it speak. (38-39)
Foucault seems here to be taking us close to the kind of non-discursive,
excessive, transgressive space that he approached in "A Preface to
Transgression." Rather than from words themselves, chance speaks through
the "eruption" of language and from the "reserve" from which words flow,
again creating a "dedoublement" of language, fixed against itself at a
distance that is absolute, that underscores Foucault's reading of Roussel.
Mallarme is also present in this text, just two paragraphs away: "So easy
and so difficult is it, without any other throw of the dice than language,
to abolish such a fundamental chance" (41).
Tom Orange
tmorange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
___________________________________________
| |
| With all this material |
| To what distinction -- |
| |
| [Louis Zukofsky, "A"-6] |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~