Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Author's Note
- Abbreviations of Journal Titles
- Chronology
- Introduction
- 1 The Possibility of Their Being Otherwise
- 2 ‘Je ne vois le tout de rien’: The Cannibal and the Place of Knowledge
- 3 Cannibal, Beloved: On Eating What is Good …
- 4 Confessions: The Desire for Knowledge, the Passion for Ignorance
- 5 Tickling, Shaking, Shitting
- 6 The Place of the Brother
- 7 Uncertain Futures
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Confessions: The Desire for Knowledge, the Passion for Ignorance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Author's Note
- Abbreviations of Journal Titles
- Chronology
- Introduction
- 1 The Possibility of Their Being Otherwise
- 2 ‘Je ne vois le tout de rien’: The Cannibal and the Place of Knowledge
- 3 Cannibal, Beloved: On Eating What is Good …
- 4 Confessions: The Desire for Knowledge, the Passion for Ignorance
- 5 Tickling, Shaking, Shitting
- 6 The Place of the Brother
- 7 Uncertain Futures
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Tout le mouvement du monde se resoult et rend à cet accouplage: c'est une matiere infuse par tout, c'est un centre.
‘Sur des vers de Virgile’ courts danger: it speaks of what usually remained secret, unspoken, or might have been considered unspeakable. An ageing writer's thoughts turn to his erotic life, and through glimpses of his reading of mildly seductive Latin poetry opens up reflections on marriage, love and sex. Then, through discussion of the pleasures of literary texts and of his own writing practice, he explores the relation between body and mind, other aspects of love, and what he has learned through his experience of love and desire. This is remembering, he says, as a cure, ‘remede’ (p. 842), for the mortification of the ageing body. But this is too bland a summary of the chapter, which is interested in exposing what is hidden, and why, and yet which also keeps on hiding things. So, here is a less veiled version:
Alexandre disoit qu'il se connoissoit principallement mortel par cette action et par le dormir: le sommeil suffoque et supprime les facultez de nostre ame; la besogne les absorbe et dissipe de mesme. Certes, c'est une marque non seulement de nostre corruption originelle, mais aussi de nostre vanité et deformité. (p. 878)
(Alexander used to say that it was this action and sleep that made him most aware of being mortal: sleep suffocates and supresses the faculties of our mind; fucking likewise absorbs and dissipates them. Truly it is a mark not only of our original corruption but also of our vain illusions and deformity.)
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- Information
- Unsettling MontaignePoetics, Ethics and Affect in the Essais and Other Writings, pp. 119 - 151Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014