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in conversation
with Adrian Heathfield
Paris, September 2010
trying to calculate what sparks that small event, which was there,
a little nothing. And of course it not only has to do with the setting,
which is most important, for instance a painter always has a setting
the frame, the wall but the writer has everything, we have all
space. So behind when you say there are twenty questions behind
my questions its just the same: there was the story of a number of
actors and characters and the mood in which they were, this one
and that one and that one. And I thought really its extraordinary
because the theatre is more than a film, which is different I adore
certain films it is a staging of life, but as Baudelaire would say,
seen between two rocks, or through the keyhole. And then suddenly
you see that it is because the infinite is restrained and bordered:
then you perceive the infinite, because you have a split, finite
piece of deep life. Which is what one does with the camera, what he
[Hugo Glendinning] is doing now. He is putting borders to catch
something, which is mysterious. So writing is also an instrument
or a tool that focuses on sparks of thinking that are not yet thought.
It is not yet thought; it is being a thinking. And it will become at one
point thought; that is, it will become such that one will be able to
formulate it and to repeat it, it will be grasped. But of course when
I write let me take the example of my dreams, which is that kind
of sport to which I really compel myself, I subject myself. Because
dreams are genii they are so extraordinary, so much more gifted
and inspired than I am. So when a dream is performing I have
near my head a notebook with that kind of pencil where I can write
in a way which is I could even write on my sheets you know but
something in me can write in dark night. Of course I dont write
properly its only notes, you know, its just little flickers Maman?
Just a second.
[HC attends to her mother]
AH: So we were talking about writing in a condition
approaching or approximating the conditions of thought, a writing
before thought.
HC: Yes and that exists, of course, but its not a privilege or the
condition of a writer of poetical fiction as I am. Philosophers work
in the same way, I mean real philosophers worthy of this name!
AH: You do not think of yourself as a real philosopher?
HC: I am not a philosopher, though I write philosophically,
my voice and tradition is literary. But in France we have a strong
tradition of thinking writers, and that is a blessing for me because I
can go way back to Michel de Montaigne, and you cannot dissociate
the literary and philosophy. Now there is a kind of schism between
writing, literature and philosophy but in the beginnings, no.
AH: Returning again to this question of thought or prethought in writing, there was an extraordinary exchange that you
had with Michel Foucault in which you spoke of Marguerite Durass
work.
HC: Oh yeah, Ive forgotten what we said, you know?
AH: Perhaps I can recall it a little for you, as I think it relates
to this question of the passage or duration of writing. You talked
about Durass work as being something that you could hardly recall;
a kind of writing full of power that was instantly draining away. And
Foucault replied, yes youre right; its a kind of memory without
recollection. I think then you spoke about loss in writing; that for
Duras the loss is never ending: there is always more to lose. There
is quite an elemental difference between you as writers, around
this question of loss. It may be directed towards the question of the
impression that your writing makes or leaves: not something that
cannot be recalled, but that must be recalled, again and again, that
also pricks, that wounds in a certain way.
HC: Yes its true. But this is not a question
AH: No its a statement, Im sorry. But it relates to the vitalism
of which you were speaking.
HC: In this I am more a writer than a philosopher because
the philosopher wants and has to be recollected. And he posts, I say
he because until now they are all still men, he posts reminders. So
even Derrida who is the most writerly of all philosophers, except of
course that I wont say that Nietzsche is not a poet. But the aim, the
ambition, the desire is to weald a fight against error, darkness, etc.,
and insert reminders that are decisive. Even when Derrida works
on the undecidable there are everywhere assertions, as if he were
climbing up the Himalayas, and you have grasps, I mean he doesnt
lose grip in between the different steps that he pushes further on
and further on and further on, beyond the beyond. But this is not the
purpose of a writer. I dont think that there are peaks for instance, in
writing that you have to reach for. Lets take the example of Marcel
Proust. I would say that everything in La Recherche du Temps Perdu
is equally important: there is no moment where you have reached
the summit and there you are. Except the last twenty pages, where
he suddenly tells you and this was my secret, and this is my art.
But we dont read his research or his search backwards beginning
with the end where he says thats the secret, now that you have the
key, you can start reading. No, everywhere you can go inside his
text, and it is absolute text. So this is my way of thinking that my
writing is somehow produced. You can get inside everywhere, and
as you said regarding beginnings and endings, its never ending,
piece of paper that I need, which means that she understands very
well what is most important for me. She would like to be the writing
incarnate. So I have to negotiate with her. I push her a little, or I pull
my page from under her.
AH: Is she the same cat of your extraordinary essay on the
episode with the trapped bird?
HC: No, shes not the same, unfortunately. She is an emanation
of her. Theres also Aletheia. But Aletheia is always hidden, as
Aletheia is. She will come out the moment you go through the door.
So you see night is visible and day, that is Aletheia, is invisible.
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