Manhattan : letters from prehistory

203 Pages·2007·0.703 MB·English

by  Hélène Cixous

manhat tan
HÉLÈNE
translated by beverly bie brahic
MAN HATTA N
CIXOUS
Letters from Prehistory
fordham university press • new york • 2007
Copyright(cid:1)2007FordhamUniversityPress
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublica-
tionmaybereproduced,storedinaretrieval
system,ortransmittedinanyformorbyany
means—electronic,mechanical,photocopy,
recording,oranyother—exceptforbrief
quotationsinprintedreviews,withoutthe
priorpermissionofthepublisher.
OriginallypublishedinFrenchasManhattan:
Lettresdelapre´histoirecopyright(cid:1)2002
E´ditionsGalile´e.
Thisworkhasbeenpublishedwiththe
assistanceoftheNationalCenterforthe
Book–FrenchMinistryofCulture.
Ouvragepublie´aveclesoutienduCentre
nationaldulivre–ministe`refranc¸aischarge´
delaculture.
contents
Prologue vii
CertesaSacrifice 1
TheEye-Patch 23
AyellowFolder 35
IWillNotWriteThisBook 41
TheEvidence 53
ILovedAboveAllLiterature 59
TheNecropolis 71
MoreandMoreNotebooks 83
IAmNaked 95
TheCharmoftheMalady 103
Follyusa 115
DonneIsDone 125
Room91 133
TheVroomVroomPeriod 147
Elpenor’sDream 161
AftertheEnd 177
Translator’sNotes 185
This page intentionally left blank
prol ogue
Thisisnotadeadobjectbutanundergroundexplosionwhose
seismic, personal, and literary consequences still continue to
makethemselvesfelt.
Justhowdifficultitistospeakofitasbookintherubbleyou
shallsee.
This explosion, mental maybe and cultural, takes place in
1965 in the rare manuscript collections of the libraries of Yale,
Buffalo, and Columbia universities, and in Manhattan’s en-
chantedlocations,inCentralPark,aroundtheStatueofLiberty.
Theseplaceshavepowersoffascination,hereintermed‘‘om-
nipotence-others,’’for,asfarasNewYork’shistoryandphysi-
ognomy are concerned, they are exactly like The Odyssey’s
fatefullocations(theentrancetoHades,wheretheactofspill-
ing blood calls up the forever still living dead; Mount Circeo,
wherehumanbeings,ofoldandstilltoday,arechangedtopigs
and vice versa, before this happens all over again in the Gos-
pels). These strangely real locations whose monumental forms
rise up into the American air, Grand Central Station whose
vaultcoversthesky,whereanythingintheworldcanhappen—
fromthebeginningoflovetoacrimeortheendoftheworld—
haverootsthatreachdeep,rightdowntothepassions’infernos,
righttotheoceanbottomsofmemory.
Strollhereatyourownrisk.Fromthebeginningtheseplaces
havebeeninhabitedbymemoriesofdemonsanddreams.
People have come here to die to resuscitate, to disappear, to
disappear once and for all or to reappear—as here—in a tale,
since the eighteenth century, since Manon Lescaut, not forget-
ting Karl Rossmann, the character in Kafka’s Amerika, and a
great buddy of Benjamin Jonas, who was my grandmother’s
littlebrother.
AmongalltheJonasinsearchoftheWhaleinwhosebellyto
carry out the rites of Banishment, there was in those days a
certainGregor,thereallyfabulousandunfathomablecharacter
ofthisattemptatatale.
Onedayin1964inManhattan,attheturnofadestinyvery
youngandalreadymarkedbytherepeateddeathsoflovedones
always called George, between the young woman who loved
literature more than anything else in the world and the young
manwhosemind wasacopyofthe mostbewitchingworksof
theLibrary,thefatalAccidentoccurs.
Thefatefulprimalscene,the‘‘evileye’’scene,happensinre-
ality(justasifithadbeenwrittenbyEdgarPoe)inatombstone
of alibrary atYale. Sometimes fora speck ofdust inyour eye
theworldislost.
Afterthis,everythinghappensveryveryfastfor,liketheLov-
ers, the taxi of the mad careers downhill to Hell faster than
waterthrowingitselfintoagorge.
LiteratureasOmnipotence-other,theinventedIdol,isthemain
other-characterofthisadventure.Literaturecorrodedourpowers
ofreasoningthewaytheusagobblesupyourgraymatter.
viii
Everythingtakesplaceinthebefore-work,aprehistoricsea-
son when the characters, smitten with great dead authors, see
themselvesasbooksalready,asvolumesintheirdreams,steal-
inguponthedreamed‘‘Oeuvre,’’stealthyaswolves,ontiptoe
likefools—closinginontheadoredAuthorbyImitation,trac-
ingpaper,magicintrojection.Thecopycat‘‘does’’Kafka,turns
himself into Kafka, from A to Z commits Kafka suicide, right
uptothespittingofblood,rightuptothedeathbedscene.
Now enter the third character in this tempest: The Letter,
prehistory of all literature, a supplementary oeuvre, or rather
maneuver. ‘‘The letters someone writes you,’’ wrote Proust,
‘‘drawasufficientlydifferentimageofthepersonyouknowfor
them to constitute a secondpersonality.’’ Letters: feints. Soon,
the second personality totally supplants the person, who is at
bottomreallynoone,nothingbutalittletwo-bitcharacter,less
substantial than Elpenor (who? ‘‘Elpenor,’’ a nobody member
ofUlysses’screw,deadwithouteverhavinglived,attheageof
twenty-seven).Thesecond personalitynowgleamswithallhis
tragic fires. We have eyes only for Him, this god, improvised
hero,dazzling,inaccessible,thisallbutincredibleGregor.
In point of fact we are eyeless and godless. I can’t tell true
fromfalseanymore,thesimulacrumfromthereality.Ibelieve
whatonedoesn’tbelieve.Oneseeswhatonedoesn’tsee.Idon’t
lovewhomIloveormaybeIlovewhomIdon’tlove.TheWord
takes absolute power over the senses. Literature wins, it casts
its powers of illusion over the world, into the streets, into the
veins of time, over the skin of the body. What is ‘‘written’’ is.
Whatisisnot.Naturallyit’sunbearableforthepersonwhohas
lived through the Manhattan brazier to return to the scene of
literary dementia. Every time I try to call up room 91 of the
King’sCrownHotelwherethesespellbindingsceneswereacted
alive,Irenounce,Iamlightningstruckalloveragain.
prologue ix