Beckett and Badiou : the pathos of intermittency

337 Pages·2006·1.61 MB·English

by  Badiou

BECKETT AND BADIOU
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Beckett and Badiou
The Pathos of Intermittency
ANDREW GIBSON
1
1
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ToAlainandJudith
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a Leverhulme
ResearchFellowship 2002–4. This book would have been muchthe poorer
andslighterwithoutit.Itallowedmetodoinfiveyearswhattookfifteenwith
mylastmajormonograph.
AmongBadioucommentatorsandscholars,mymostimportantdebtisto
PeterHallward,whosharedhisexpertisewithmerepeatedlyandselflesslyand
forwhosepatience,grace,andextraordinaryclarityofmindIamverygrate-
ful.JudithBalsoinvited meto speakatthe Colle`ge Internationalede Philo-
sophie,explainedphilosophicaldistinctionsofwhichIwaswoefullyignorant,
discussed her own work on Dante and Pessoa, and asked me to help with
the ongoing labourof translatingStevens, illuminatingsome obscurepoints
in Badiou’s thought about art in the process. I am also grateful to the fol-
lowing for their differing responses to one aspect or another of my work on
Badiou:Jason Barker,Ray Brassier,Simon Critchley, Jean-Jacques Lecercle,
NinaPower,andAlbertoToscano.
There are many Beckett scholars who have more or less directly contrib-
utedtothisbookovertheyears.SteveConnorhaslongbeenaveryimportant
source of support and encouragement. John Pilling has been generous and
interested almost from the start of my Beckettian career. So has Katharine
Worth, with whom I planned a Beckett seminar in which we argued about
the relative merits of Beckett’s prose and drama as early as 1982. (It never
came off.) James Hansford was an important influence on my early years
as a Beckettian: like many of his friends, I remember his gentle gravity and
sense of scruplewith affection and respect. In the early stages of the book, I
owedagreatdealtothekindness,intellectualgenerosity,andruthlesslyinter-
rogative spirit of Derval Tubridy, who never let me off lightly. Dan Katz
invited me to speak at the E´cole Normale Supe´rieure, Ronan McDonald at
theBarbican,andLauraSalisburyattheLondonBeckettseminaratBirkbeck
College.YoshikiTajiriinvitedmetoTokyoandgavemethechancetospeak
there.Ihavelearntfromhismodesty,fastidiousness,andscholarlyobliquity.
SomeofthesequalitieshepartlyinheritedfromthelategreatJapanesescholar
YasunariTakahashi.WhenIusedtomeetupwithYasunariinthe1980sand
Acknowledgements vii
1990s, he was not only endlessly genial to what Badiou would call a ‘jeune
cre´tin’.Healsotunedmyantennaesufficientlyformetoappreciateatleasta
littleofwhatmaybeatstakeincomparingBeckett’splayswithNohdrama.
Other Beckettians to whom I owe a debt include Phil Baker, Mary Bryden,
EvelyneGrossman,BrigitteRiera,andJamesKnowlson.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Anne-Laure Fortin-Tournes for read-
ingthebookintypescriptascarefullyasshedid,andcorrectingmanyerrors.
My thanks yet again to Thomas Docherty who, farsighted as ever, got me
reading Badiou as early as 1995. Norman Gowar helped me start off on set
theory.JeanMattheetalkedtomealotaboutBadiouandLacan,andhelped
meclarifymy thinkingabouttheintellectualrelationshipsbetween thetwo.
Threeheadsofdepartmentarrangedforsomeofmybestvirtuesto flourish:
Kiernan Ryan, RobertHampson,and (for a shortwhile) Martin Dzelzainis.
Iamverygratefultothemall.Thisbookowesasubstantialdebttothecom-
mitmentandcareofAndrewMcNeillieatOxfordUniversityPress,averyfine
andtrulyliteraryeditor.IamalsoverygratefulforalltheirhardworktoVal
Shelley and Tom Perridge, and to Jackie Pritchard for her meticulous copy-
editing.Asusual,Ioweabigdebttolibrarians;thistime,tothoseintheRare
BooksroomoftheBritishLibrary,andtheRezdeJardinoftheBibliothe`que
Nationale.
By far my biggest debt is to Alain Badiou himself: not just for his philo-
sophy,inallitsarchitectonicgrandeurandcomplexity;norforhisinspiration,
continuous though that has been; nor for his obstinate sense of what might
reallymatter,atahistoricalmomentwhenitisdifficulttosustain,andmight
alltooeasily seem futile; butalso for his great, fierce, warm,energizing, and
encouragingpresence,fromwhichIhaverepeatedlytakenheart.Hisunstint-
ing support has been the more inspiring in that I made clear to him, quite
early, that I would never be a ‘Badiouiste’. I only hope that what is in some
ways a reading of his work that pushes the mood of his thought far closer
to,say,AdornoandBenjaminthanhewouldeverfindpermissibleisnotal-
togetheralientohim,inspiteofitstendencytomelancholy.
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Contents
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Beginnings 1
ActualInfinity 6
Intermittency 16
OldExtinguisher 25
1. Badiou(i):Being,Event,Subject,Truth 41
Being 41
Event 53
Subject 58
Truth 67
2. Badiou(ii):Politics,Ethics,Aesthetics 76
StateandDoxa 76
Politics 81
Ethics 90
Aestheticsandthe‘WaitingSubject’ 101
3. Badiou,Beckett,andContemporaryCriticism 117
SomeCriticalPositions 117
Ethics(ii):Beckett 129
DifferencesandRepetitions 133
E´ve´nementialite´ 138
4. TheBreakwithDoxa:Murphy,Watt 143
MurphyandtheBigWorld 143
IncidentsofNote 155
TheLogicofMelancholy 162
5. TheEventoftheEvent:TheUnnamable 172
LogicsofAppearance 172
ObjectsandInexistents 179
TheSirenandtheRock 182
TheIrrepressibleEphemeral 186