It takes approximately an hour and a half to fly from Berlin to Paris. Upon that hour and a half, a human memory, especially one working at neurotically obsessive speed, can loop a very large amount of time indeed, an hour and a half is plenty of time to go over and go over the things, or several of the things, the unassimilable things, that happened in Berlin, in an attempt to assimilate those things, although they are not assimilable, in an attempt, rather, albeit an involuntary attempt, an unconscious attempt, if that can be called an attempt, to damage oneself by the exercise of one’s memories, to draw self-blame and self-disgust from a situation the hopelessness of which cannot be attributed to anything worthy of self-blame or self-disgust but which is sufficiently involved to exercise the self-blame and self-disgust that seethe always beneath their veneer of not-caring, of niceness, the veneer that preserves self-blame and self-disgust from resolution into anything other than self-blame and self-disgust. Upon this hour and a half can be looped, such is the efficacy of human memory, not only, obsessively, the unassimilable things that happened in Berlin but also much else that happened even into the distant past, but, largely speaking, the more recent things that have bearing upon, or occupy the same memory-pocket, not the best metaphor, as the unassimilable things that happened in Berlin, for disappointment and failure seldom happen in a vacuum but resonate with, even if they are not the direct result of, disappointments and failures reaching back even into the distant past, perhaps especially into the distant past, self-blame and self-disgust having the benefit, or detriment, if a difference can be told between benefit and detriment, of binding experiences, or clumping them, to form an identity, and, not only this, upon that hour and a half can be looped also an endless amount of speculation and projection as to what may be occurring in the minds of others, or in the mind of, in this case, a specific other, a German-American pianist and composer with whom the narrator, who has been visiting Berlin with her sister, has had some manner of romantic encounter, so to call it, the extent of which is unclear, both, seemingly, to the narrator and, certainly, to the reader, the reader being necessarily confined to the mental claustrophobia of the narrator, on account of the obsessive speculation and projection and also the inescapable escapist and self-abnegating fantasising on the part of the narrator, together with the comet-like attraction-and-avoidance of her endless mental orbit around the most unassimilable things that happened in Berlin, or that might have happened in Berlin, or that did not happen in Berlin but are extrapolative fantasies unavoidably attendant upon what happened in Berlin, untrue but just as real as truth, for all thoughts, regardless of actuality, do the same damage to the brain. Lefebvre’s exquisitely pedantic, fugue-like sentences, their structure perfectly indistinguishable from their content, bestow upon her the mantle of
Thomas Bernhard, which, after all, does not fall upon just any hem-plucker but, in this case, fully upon someone who, not looking skyward, has crawled far enough into its shadow when looking for something else. Where Bernhard’s narrators tend to direct their loathing outwards until the reader realises that all loathing is in fact self-loathing, Lefebvre’s narrator acknowledges her self-loathing and self-disgust, abnegating herself, rather, for circumstances in which self-abnegation is neither appropriate nor inappropriate, her self-abnegation arising from the circumstances, from her connection with the circumstances, from her rather than from the circumstances, her self-abnegation not, despite her certainty, having, really, any effect upon the circumstances. Not at all not-funny, pitch-perfect in both voice and structure, full of sly commentary on history and modernity, and on the frailties of human personality and desire, providing for the reader simultaneous resistance and release, Lefebvre shares many of Bernhard’s strengths and qualities, and the book contains memorable and affecting passages such as that in which the narrator recalls playing tennis with her mother-in-law, now her ex-mother-in-law, and finding she is not the type for ‘collective happiness’, or her hilariously scathing descriptions of Berlin’s
Sony Centre or of the
restaurant in what was
Brecht's house, or of the narrator's inability to acknowledge the German-American pianist-composer's wife as anything but 'the accompaniment' — or, indeed, many other passages — but the excellence of the book is perhaps less in the passages than in the book as a whole.
{THOMAS}
Just how many lawnmowers, how many compressors, chainsaws, air-brooms, skill-saws, mulchers, belt-sanders and water-blasters can you fit into one valley, he wondered. Who could have suspected the amount of equipment crammed into the valley, crammed into sheds, garages and houses, or kept under tarpaulins, until this unexpected month of Sundays, this sudden horrible month of stored-up home improvements, stored-up garden improvements and general therapeutic machine-use. All machine-use is primarily therapeutic, he thought, no matter what else it might achieve, all machine-use is primarily a therapy for anxiety, especially now, especially in this national or global anxiety, he thought. He must try to be generous towards the residents of the valley whose anxiety is being discharged by this therapeutic machine-use, he thought, for without this therapeutic machine-use how else could the anxiety in the valley be discharged, quite understandable levels of anxiety, probably undischargeabale without therapeutic machine-use, or dischargeable only in unfortunate ways. All machines are therapy machines, worst luck, he thought. Soon, though, he thought, all the lawns in the valley will be mown away, all the trees will be cut down and mulched, all the paint will be removed from the houses, all the windowsills will be sanded completely away, all the timber will be cut into offcuts and all the offcuts cut into finger-lengths, tossed away and abandoned. I will be patient, he thought, I will be patient, then we’ll have silence, then I will be able to write my review of the book for which I must have a review written by Friday. He had been reading, re-reading in fact, a book that he particularly liked, Noémi Lefebvre’s
Blue self-Portrait, from
Les Fugitives, a publisher that he also particularly liked, largely because they published books that he particularly liked, such as this one. It would not be true to say that he had not been experiencing anxiety himself on account of the pandemic which, for all he knew, already had its finger upon him and he had chosen to read, when he was thinking of what to read in the lock-down, first of all
Blue Self-Portrait, which he remembered as being wonderfully well-written and translated, funny and painful and claustrophobic, all the qualities he wanted in a book, and, he thought, if my survival is uncertain, it would be a pity to read anything other than what I most would like to read, even if I have already read it and
written a review of it also. That was a while ago, he thought, perhaps not a long while but a while long enough for me to re-use my review without anyone noticing that I have re-used my review, not that anyone reads my reviews anyway, he thought, if they don’t read them the won’t notice that I have re-used my review. It made little sense, he thought, to think that if his survival is uncertain he should therefore fill such time as he has with good literature as opposed to less-good literature, it is hard to see what difference this would make, but to do the opposite would make even less sense, and it is impossible not to consider what to read without reference to what must therefore be his anxiety about survival. He had not realised he was so attached to his survival. Some days previously someone had remarked to him that we were living through interesting times and he had replied that yes, we were, but not interesting times that he had particularly wanted to live through. No, he had corrected himself, I do quite want to live through them. He did want to live, which was something, he supposed, and he had chosen to read, in the lock-down, first of all,
Blue Self-Portrait. It had been many decades, he thought, since the precarity of survival had imparted such meaning to everyday life, and to all the tiny decisions that comprise it, at least for us who live in the West, who live on our reserves and on the reserves of others. Elsewhere, and in the past, and for others depending on their circumstances, and now everywhere, it is the proximity of death that gives life, and all the tiny choices that comprise it, meaning, or at least what passes for meaning, whatever that may be, he wasn’t sure. He had been reading, or re-reading, if he needs to make a distinction,
Blue Self-Portrait on the verandah at home. The trees, the clouds, the autumn sun, even he could not say that the day was not beautiful, but the fact that what is beautiful is so beautiful, he thought, only makes what is horrible more horrible. The beautiful is part of the horrible, the part of the horrible that makes the horrible most horrible, the worst part. If it wasn’t for the virus, he thought, this forced isolation would be ideal. It was easier for him, he thought, to spend four weeks in forced isolation than to spend four weeks in forced socialisation, his usual life in other words, easier but less healthy. I know, he thought, that to return to forced socialisation, my usual life, open-ended forced socialisation at that, when this period of forced isolation, however long, comes to an end, as it will eventually come to an end, will not be easy for me. Socialisation, or my commitment to socialisation, or at least my commitment to an effort towards socialisation, will be hard to regrasp once I have relinquished as I have in this period, however long, of forced isolation, he thought. Isolation is my natural state, he thought, my natural state but not a healthy state, at least not for me, the natural is not always healthy, whatever they say, but to resist a natural state, to strive always for the opposite of my inclinations, to commit myself to the forced socialisation that I call my normal life, he thought, that is not a healthy state either, that is an unhealthy state but at least a sustainable unhealthy state, which I’m not sure can be said of my natural inclinations. My natural state is a self-destructive state, he thought. He found himself, he found himself thinking, in the words of Lefebvre’s narrator in
Blue Self-Portrait, in other words of Lefebvre herself, “choosing not extinction but exit, saying yes to say no and not no for no, no for yes but not yes for yes, the extinguisher is no for no the exit yes for no.” Lefebvre could write sentences that he wished that he had written himself, which, for someone who prized a good sentence above all other prizes, earned her his devotion as a reader and perhaps as a writer as well. If a sentence was well enough written, he thought, he could read about anything, but he had less and less time for sentences that were less than excellent, if excellent was the right word, no matter what other qualities they might have, if there are other qualities worth having or qualities to have. All is vacuity, he declared, all is vacuity but the way that vacuity is structured gives meaning. Meaning exists only in grammar if meaning exists at all, he thought, now there’s an aphorism for a calendar. Beyond the sentences there was a musical patterning to the book
Blue Self-Portrait, he thought, he recognised a musical grammar of repetitions and variations and motifs probably related to the serialism of Arnold Schoenberg, not something he knew enough about to enlarge upon though probably the case since Schoenberg, both the music of Schoenberg and the painting of Schoenberg, is mentioned often in the book, Schoenberg being the painter of the ‘
Blue Self-Portrait’ of the title and the book recognisably musically structured, as opposed to employing the range of mundane structural conventions usually forced upon a novel. In any case, he thought, I shall re-use my review for the book I have re-read, there is nothing wrong with that, because the afternoon has worn on, it is growing cool, there is dinner to be made, there are mosquitoes about, I am boring myself. The world will not be worse off for not having a new review from me this week, the world will be better off. Better off without my blather. When all I can write is an aphorism for a calendar it is better not to write, he thought. If anyone wants a review of what I have been reading they can read my old review, the book hasn’t changed. I have changed and my reading has changed, he supposed, but no-one should care about that, if they want a review
let them read my old review, but it would be much better if they just read the book, they don’t need me for that.
