‘In his playful and candid book-length interview with Madeleine Renouard (Robert Pinget à la letter, 1993), the author of The Inquisitory (1963) and Monsieur Songe (1982) distinguishes his writing from Alain Robbe-Grillet’s. Pinget (1919-1997) claims that, whereas Robbe-Grillet emphasizes the eye, he privileges the ear. The quip suggests a useful way of approaching a substantial, joyfully prolific, yet meticulously unified oeuvre; and it also points to the delicate problems facing the translator of Pinget’s delightfully idiosyncratic prose based on puns, consonance, assonance, masterfully applied colloquial syntax, and numerous other “musical” qualities. Fortunately, quite a few of Pinget’s novels have been expertly translated during the past three decades, notably by Barbara Wright. First and foremost, they are pleasurable to read, even more so aloud.
‘By “ear,” Pinget thus means much more than the phonetically droll words that crop up in his writing, like the olibrius (“odd or bizarre fellow”) used to describe the retired old writer who is growing senile and living with his maid at a sea resort “near Agapa” in Monsieur Songe; or the terms impétrer (a rare legal and ecclesiastical term for “solicit”) and alopécie (“alopecia”) which, in Between Fantoine and Agapa, appear on a billboard as Interdiction d’impétrer l’alopécie (“Soliciting Alopecia Prohibited”). By the way, this billboard humorously announces one of the author’s anxieties; he was growing bald when this book was written. Pinget later avowed that “a reflex of self-analysis” and “a form of veiled confession” was embodied in his writer-characters. Simultaneously, he often emphasized the preponderance of imagination in his literary work, of his rigorous remove from realism and straightforward self-chronicle.
‘Of course, Pinget also subverted conventional storytelling techniques in a manner similar to that associated, often too narrowly and ahistorically, with the novelists standing in front of the offices of the Éditions de Minuit in a famous photograph: Pinget, Robbe-Grillet, Simon, Nathalie Sarraute, Samuel Beckett, Claude Mauriac, Claude Ollier, and the instigator of this publicity stunt, the publisher Jérôme Lindon. Pinget’s sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes more whimsical assault on narrative logic represents one break from the trappings of the traditional novel. Yet the key term “contradiction” must be kept at hand whenever Pinget’s fiction is “theorized”— a term and a critical activity for which he possessed little patience. Pinget at once relishes and abhors irrationality; he doubts that there can be ultimate meaning or essence, yet he seeks them, at times rejects them, then seeks them again.
‘His mentor was Cervantes, who instructed him in the art of telling a story that is essentially about how the story is being put together and told (or written). This narrative circularity can best be studied in The Inquisitory, Pinget’s longest novel and, for this author inclined to brevity, terse concision, and oblique understatement, the weighty outcome of a bet with Lindon that he could write a five-hundred-page novel in six months. The book is composed in such a way that the reader sits in on an interrogation of a servant who is a probable witness to a crime. The questions of the invisible interrogator enable the reader to imagine, through the servant’s replies, the setting, the other characters, and various stories associated with them. But all this information is delivered as a mass of confusing and contradictory realist detail; the details and descriptions are not worked into any plot whatsoever. This is the point. The reader must sift through the facts and assertions, as if he were the writer constructing the novel. What emerges from the reader’s imaginative and creative toiling is a vast Human Comedy that Balzac himself would have appreciated.’ — John Taylor, Context
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Further
The Robert Pinget Official Website
Robert Pinget @ Les Editions de Minuit
Robert Pinget’s books in English @ Red Dust
‘The Inquisitory’ @ Oulipo’s Virtual Headquarters
‘Pinget seen by Beckett, Beckett according to Pinget’
‘Robert Pinget: The Novel as Quest’
On Pinget’s ‘Passacaglia’ @ Vertigo
RP’s obituary @ The New York Times
Robert Pinget @ goodreads
Buy ‘The Inquisitory’ @ Dalkey Archive
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Media
Ecrivain Robert Pinget
Interview de Robert PINGET
Robert Pinget présente son livre “Quelqu’un”
An adaption by Samuel Beckett of a radio play by Robert Pinget entitled La Manivelle.
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Pinget Queer
by David Ruffel
I first attempt to understand how Pinget’s work is positioned in the homosexual history of modern literature. This history rests on a transgressive dynamic. In Never Say I, Michael Lucey has shown that if “saying everything” is the motto of modern literature, and if this often signifies “saying homosexuality,” different transgressions, techniques of hiding, and literary strategies are nonetheless to be found in the generation of Proust, Colette, and Gide; that of Guyotat, Wittig, and Duvert; and that of Hervé Guibert and Guillaume Dustan. Without being strictly linear, this literary history approximately follows the changes that have occurred in peoples’ general outlook. A turning point occurs in the 1980s, when, in the wake of gay and lesbian movements, many writers affirmed their sexuality and turned it into material for their work, expressed in the first person. The reappearance of the autobiographical genre is thus linked to the affirmation of minorities.
Robert Pinget belongs to a world before “coming out.” He never spoke publicly or in interviews about his sexuality, even after the 1980s. This discretion is not unusual in an author of his generation: it can also be found in Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. It is characterized by the evacuation of the figure of the author, a search for impersonality, a refusal of all assigned identity, and the wish to make oneself imperceptible in terms of the apparatus that scientific knowledge brings to bear on sexuality. Proclaiming one’s homosexuality was inconceivable for them, while for the writers of succeeding generations it seemed that the inherent risks of “coming out” were less than those of the “closet.” Robert Pinget’s silence also comes from more personal motives, notably his religious education, his discretion, and his nonmilitant outlook. His silence went so far as to forbid the critics and the academics with whom he mixed to mention the subject of his sexuality in their publications or in private.
This concern with effacement, however, is in tension with the reality of the books that clearly display their sexuality. Each one is, of course, different: sexuality is unsurprisingly explicit and transgressive in the big novels of the 1960s and 1970s, while it is discreet (but never absent) in the last notebooks of Monsieur Songe and in Théo ou le temps neuf (1991). In none of them, however, is it openly declared, and the term “homosexuality” is never uttered or proclaimed by those who practice it. Instead, it is systematically made the object of rumors, images, and fragmentary scenes and is never the product of a fully formed narrative. It is alone among the other narrative elements in being expressed mainly through the oblique nature of fiction and the transvestism of double characters. While homosexuality is thus not in this sense encoded in Pinget’s work, neither is it openly shown. It reveals itself, hiding all the while, and is no sooner suggested than it melts away. It then becomes imperceptible for the inattentive or uninterested reader. At this point, the silence that critics have maintained on this part of the work in fact shows the success of the latter, since the main literary question in Pinget’s work was the reconciliation of the desire to confess with the desire to conceal. It drew upon the art common to gay writers who produced their texts in a regime of imposed secrecy, that is, the art of “saying without saying.” From this point of view, Robert Pinget’s work is a fascinating document that gives us an insight into a key period. His work takes homosexuality as its primary yet hidden subject and is written in the extreme tension that occurs between concealment and affirmation. It is thus a work that signifies the end of an era, located between the past and the future. Moreover, it would appear that Pinget was fully aware of this fact, exploring it in the novel that is also his masterpiece, the longest and best known of his books, L’Inquisitoire (1962).
The book opens with the famous injunction, “Yes or no answer.” This is both a self-addressed injunction to creation on Pinget’s part and, on the level of the novel’s story, an order to which the servant of the Château de Broy must respond over the book’s 500 pages, in the course of a tense interrogation. It is not, however, the sexuality of this servant that interests his interrogators: the servant is not to be seen as the author’s double. Investigating the death of a secretary, the interrogators discover the existence of a Mafia world, with a whole series of trafficking (of drugs, paintings, antiques, and prostitutes) that involves important individuals, the young boys of the area, and a world of interlopers, both local and foreign, who become more and more numerous as the novel progresses. Among the crimes that they suspect, there is one that figures as their real obsession. Their questions posed to the servant invariably return to the topic of the sexuality of the owners of the château and that of their friends. They thus want to know the tone of the evening parties organized in the château; the reason why some dignitaries do not bring their wives along; details of a painting representing “men stark naked,” “ten or twelve of them in a room with a swimming-pool having a bathe or a rest and so on and the guests always used to have a laugh in front of it looking at the details I felt ashamed of them”; the nature of the relations linking “Mademoiselle Sylvie” and “Mademoiselle Babette,” who is “always smoking cigars it’s funny for a woman”; and the fact that during a big party at the château, Morgione, who had arrived with “Boubou,” left with “Fifi,” and whether the servant found “it normal this kind of reversal.”
L’Inquisitoire is thus, as Tony Duvert has written, “the laughable and unsubstantiated story of some old queers with their orgies and their millions,” a “miserable secret,” and an “empty trunk,” which shows the nullity of its plot and the author’s lack of interest in it. This reading would see homosexuality as a trap, obscuring the real subject that lies elsewhere, in the mysteries of writing, of the soul, and of desire. Evidently I do not agree with him in this. Homosexuality is indeed the laughable secret of L’Inquisitoire, but to the extent that it is always, as Eve Sedgwick has shown, “at once marginal and central, [. . .] the open secret” in a heterosexual society. The subject of L’Inquisitoire is none other than heterosexual society, of which it presents a brilliant parody. Moreover, a large part of his work can be read in this manner. Solitary figures, strangers, writers, masters, and all those who live on the margins of the village communities featured in his novels are all systematically suspected of homosexuality. It is never called by this name, due to a mixture of archaism, popular prudishness, and religious feeling, a fact that makes the situation all the more comic. As well as homophobia, we can find racism, witchcraft, poisoning, and, of course, pedophilia. Le Libera (1968) is the carnivalesque representation of this “homosexual panic” that sweeps through an entire community, seized by mad suspicions arising from the fact that such and such an individual “is one” (this comes up in the book about every three pages) and by accusations of crimes committed against children. These accusations are leveled, fairly or otherwise, at fathers, the female schoolteacher, the owners of the château, and finally R.P., the “Révérend Père” or Robert Pinget, himself.
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Quotes
The preliminary work for me consists of choosing from among the components of my voice the one that interests me at the moment and isolating it, then objectifying it until a character emerges from it, the narrator himself, with whom I identify. This is why one find the I in all my books, but it is different each time.
I do not claim, like Alain Robbe-Grillet, to belong to a school of vision, but rather to the demands of the ear. Only the voice of the speaker captures my interest. I was influenced in my early days by Max Jacob and Michaux, people whose syntax was always close to orality. Similarly, I like Céline for his completely reworked syntax. We hear him speak. If he does a considerable amount of work to mimic orality, it is essentially out of disgust with the literary, academic tone. For me it is always a cliché and that is why I am interested in the syntax of spoken language. At the same time, it is a question of creating a spoken language from scratch. And once again it is not a natural language, such as could be recorded by mechanical means, but entirely fabricated, which seems to me to be the characteristic of the work of art which must be more real than nature.
I don’t really know what to say about my writings because I have never set out to make a stupid person. I explain myself in my novels, or rather it is the narrator who explains.
As for my biography, it doesn’t interest me. I am very concerned about this. Intimate thoughts should not be revealed, under penalty of exhibitionism – so fashionable today.
I don’t know. I understand your questions during the recording. But sometimes my answers are superficial. Either because I haven’t had time to think, or because I’m having fun with it or want to pretend to be having fun with it. I can make mistakes, say the wrong things. It takes me a lot of thought to write. It also takes me a lot to improvise. That’s what could bother me in this interview. Answers that are too quick and poorly formulated. Like, I hate this microphone which prevents me from thinking, makes me stammer and only say stupid things.
I think I can say that our habitual tone, the one we have for example with ourselves or with those close to us, is a sort of compound of the various tones, besides the hereditary ones and those of books, recorded by us since our childhood. If it is interesting, in a letter for example, to become acquainted with this natural tone oneself and after the fact, how much more interesting to analyze its components and to make a book out of each of them. This is to say that I have never tried to render objectively, like a tape recorder, the sound of a foreign voice, I have enough to do with my own.
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Book
Robert Pinget The Inquisitory
Dalkey Archive
‘A stylistic masterpiece, The Inquisitory consists entirely of questions and answers directed at solving an unspecified crime. The man being questioned throughout is an old servant at a château in Agapa (Pinget’s version of Yoknapatawpha County and the setting for several of his novels), where he may have unwittingly been witness to murder, sexual orgies, tax fraud, and drug deals. But the servant never responds directly to any of the inquisitor’s questions, instead challenging him and creating a web of half-truths, vague references, and glaring inconsistencies amid meticulous details about the château itself and an excess of information about the plethora of characters in the surrounding area.
‘As the interrogation progresses, the reader is pulled into this puzzle, trying to figure out what crime is being investigated and why exactly this seemingly witless servant is being questioned.’ — Dalkey Archive
‘Pinget’s very avant-garde novel of the absurd incorporates the full French novelistic tradition. Like Proust, he has a curé who dabbles in the etymology of place names; like Balzac, he avidly traces the fortunes of little provincial shops through all their vicissitudes of gossip.’ — The New Yorker
‘Pinget has succeeded in creating a character fit to rank with Joyce’s Bloom; for all his illiterate speech habits, the nameless one is a poet and a philosopher, meditating aloud on the nature of memory, truth and happiness.’ — The New York Times
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Excerpt
Yes or no answer
Yes or no yes or no for all I know about it you know, I mean I was only in service to them a man of all work you might say and what I can say about it, anyway I don’t know anything people don’t confide in a servant, my work is all right my work then but how could I have foreseen, every day the same daily round no I mean to say you’d better ask my gentlemen not me there must be some mistake, when I think that after ten years of loyal services he never said a word to me worse than dog, you pack up and go you wash your hands of it let other people get on with it after all I mean to say, man of all work yes but who never knew a thing it’s enough to turn you sour isn’t it, my gentlemen didn’t care so long as I did my work, at the start I was sure it couldn’t go on like that let’s at least try to have a little chat from time to time but in the end you get used to it you get used to it and that’s how I’ve been for the last ten years so don’t come asking, a dog you understand and yet they chat to him there was one they used to take with him on their trips, my gentlemen took him with them on their trips
It’s not about the dog it’s about him, when did he leave
It must be about ten months ago, yes ten months ago from now or next month about ten months I’d say at half past six on a Monday, I was coming out of my room and going past his and what do I see the door open everything upside down drawers and cupboards all open, I went in and looked around nothing left where the suitcases were on the basin nothing left, I went downstairs and what did I see the front door wide open, I went into the kitchen nothing not a word a note, I went back upstairs knocked at my gentlemen’s door and told them he’d gone they wouldn’t believe me, they slipped on their dressing-gowns and came to see for themselves that right through the house he’d left nothing of his behind, but he’d taken nothing gone off with his personal belongings and that’s just what they did say straightaway, but what I must say that is that they did say straightaway, but what I must say is that they didn’t say anything special they never seemed specially upset about it, they almost seemed to find it natural and that I mean to say that gave me a big of a turn after all ten years of loyal service I mean ten years
Was he in service there too
In service I wouldn’t say he was in service, not a servant but on the whole it came to the same thing, a secretary who did everything fixed everything made all the arrangements for traveling invitations orders bills friends all those little chores, to start with I thought he was someone like me who does what he can to earn his living, I tried I tried to talk to him find out the why and wherefore something about him but not for long not for long I soon had to admit it’s no good, the cold type if you see what I mean, secretary yes everyone had to pass through him he did the work of a dozen people at least but no talking, I used to wonder what on earth can he do his day off on Tuesdays when he never came out of his room, what on earth can he do never a soul to visit him not one friend I never knew of a single one, I’d like to have known just have a chat but nothing doing and in the end you get used to it you get used to it, but there were things he must have known because people who shut themselves up like that on Tuesdays they don’t need a chat that’s what I always told myself, they know enough already perhaps they’re tired and that’s why I just put up with it I thought oh leave him be and it’s understandable, and yet when you think of it he might have noticed I didn’t know what to do with myself on Wednesdays my day off, he might have noticed and said the odd word to me now and again, no always busy in a hurry you’d think he did it on purpose I mean anyone who didn’t know, never looking at anyone coming and going yes on purpose and that’s something I don’t understand instead of taking advantage of a minute’s break between two appointments, not even a smile who couldn’t stand even the sight of a fly in the house I was the one who had to chase after them, just to show you how it all went a bit too far
Did he stay with your gentlemen the days they entertained
Did he stay with my gentlemen how can I know if he stayed, you mean with my gentlemen and their guests I’ve no idea, when my work was finished I used to go out or up to my room because when they had company there was no question of my waiting on them and I didn’t complain I’m not curious by nature, they could have entertained the Pope I wouldn’t have known, when my work was finished I used to go out or up to my room noise doesn’t bother me I’m deaf as a post you know that as well as I do, these notes with your questions on, well and then the noise no I used to sleep or I’d go out they could have entertained anyone, what I do know is that he saw everything I’d see him on the phone, I’d see him run and give orders to the other servant they had plenty to do all day getting everything ready I’d do what I had to do and then I’d go out or off to bed, if I’d had to wait on them in the evenings as well I’d never have gone to bed, it was nearly every evening or every other evening if it was one of their good weeks, when I say god I’m not thinking of myself it made no difference to me but of them running all over the place not to mention getting ready for their tips, because that well that was quite a business and preparations would start a week in advance and it wasn’t just two people going away sometimes it was ten or twelve, and the whole mob would meet first at our place you can guess the work, I’m not talking about mine it made no difference to me once I’d finished I’d go out or off to bed
You say there was another servant
Better if I hadn’t mentioned him, not interesting and no more chatty than the others never a word from him either, we should have got on together after all working for the same folk eating together always run off our feet together, but no nothing it was as much as he could do not to tread on my corns and even if he had and knocked me about I think I’d rather have had that than the silence it’s true, I wasn’t made for a graveyard like that as a young man I was full of life didn’t have to ask me twice to tell a good story I knew some I knew some, but now I can hardly remember any so you see the others didn’t do me much good, the flunkey I used to call him the flunkey and that put him against me he’d keep his lips pursed in a vicious circle, for two pins I’d have had a word with my gentlemen but knowing them it wasn’t worth it they’d have sent me packing, besides they preferred the other chap always fussing round them he’s the one you ought to interrogate but where is he now, it’s no wonder if he hasn’t joined the other one a couple of blighters like that could be up to anything they ought to get on together, they got on well enough anyway nattering in corners and how could the flunkey have stayed on without someone to chat to, you need a make-up like mine to make-do with things as they were
*
p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey. Nice memory. Yes, I really liked that Radu Jude film too. His films are pretty terrific in general. ** Carsten, My pleasure, my honor. I just finished the script draft so my brain should be a lot freer to wander until the next round. Malaga, okay, or nearby. I’ll see what I can see of that turf. Embarrassingly, I’ve only been to Barcelona and Sitges in Spain. Nowhere else. Very strange of me. I suspect my fear of hot weather is a probable suspect. I’m assuming you already know that you can live peacefully, etc. with the group? Must be a biggish house? ** Steeqhen, My guess is that the ones who are the scariest onstage are the ones most likely to just be drinking beer and fiddling with their guitars and makeup backstage. I do remember that Ariana tour incident. I don’t have a mental or sonic picture of her. I think I mix her up with all the other A-named singers. I’m fine, finished the new draft of the film script and sent it off to Zac for his judgement. So it was a productive weekend, I guess. As always, I wish I could remember my dreams but also trust that my conscious is protecting me. I do recommend pocketing your phone and receiving the experimental input re: watching people just walk and stand around you being unpredictable. ** scunnard, Haha, nice. I’m good, working basically, how are you? Are things going well with the dream venue? ** Happy Pancake, Hi. I don’t think it’s possible to drop in here unceremoniously or, well, ceremoniously either, so no prob. Don’t let not being a writer keep you out of here. As you can tell by the blog, I’m interested in all kinds of things in addition to writing. Speaking of, you must not be surprised that I’m very impressed that you spent 20 years working at Disneyworld. Making music there or what exactly or even vaguely? Amusement parks are kind of heaven on earth to me, which I guess shows you that I never worked at one. Thank you a lot about my books. Really, thank you. Well, it’s a pleasure to talk to you too. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to someone who worked at an amusement park before. Well, other my teenaged friends in high school who had summer jobs picking up trash at Disneyland and the like. ** Steve, Hi. Fucking weird difficult blog. Yes, Backstage Pass were, I think, an all female LA punkish band. Not wildly good, as I recall. Welcome back to an untroubled internet. ** julian, You packed your whole room? That does sound hellish. You’re from San Diego, just a hop, skip, etc. from my homestead LA. You like it there, you okay there? Mm, good question about my muse. Maybe it’s everywhere and nowhere like eye floaters or something. Safe trip to Seattle. What’re you doing there? ** Bill, Hi. The dance performance looks very intense in the obviously good way. I wonder if she/they will get to Paris? ** Darbz 🕷️, Hi. Your nose gets all the credit. I only get credit for having my eyes open. Haha, the septum will probably distract me. Minds that make threats to their minders are just in weird, cranky moods that have nothing to do with you. That’s my theory. Yeah, let yourself off the hook and read and input potentially inspiring things. November is still a ways off, and the inspirations will only enhance. Cool night out you had there. I want to see a band. It’s been ages. I’m going to see Neil Young, but that’s in a giant seated venue, so it’s hardly the same. Favorite glass artist/sculpture … weird, I can’t of any. I should pay more attention. I like ceramics artists. I really like Ron Nagle. Wait, Ron Nagle. ** jay, Right, I forgot about that terror attack thing until Steeqhen reminded me. But it was news at the time even far away. Friday, so close! Japan! Oh my god, go! It’s so extremely worth the transportation searching hassle. That’s amazing. Potentially life or something changing. Have you sorted it? Wow! ** Cletus, Hey, Cletus! Thanks. Um, I think I’ve read a poem or handful about shit, but nothing definitive, so you could potentially be the one who makes shit poetry your calling card. Mailed, like, snail mail? If so, it hasn’t gotten here yet. No, I haven’t gotten back into games yet. Too occupied with our film and with writing the next one. I do have a to-buy list. What are you playing? ** ANGUSRAZE, Well, hello there! It has been ages! Great to see you! Amazing about the record deal! I know the Bison label, sweet! Such huge congratulations, and I think I can speak for the world when I reveal that my breath is instantly bated. Let me know your ideas. I’ll send you my address via email, okay. Wonderful! Enjoy your well deserved happiness! ** Uday, Prospective subcontinental wars will do that. Lovely quote, thank you. Hm, well, most of the places I read don’t have backstages but let’s say they do and let’s say my backstage pass would be a hologram because why not? ** HaRpEr //, Me neither until I made that post. But no surprise, I suppose. Very charismatic, ‘Um, Jennifer’, yes. And there’s the Pinget novel right up there. Speaking as a kind of asocial person, it is hard to find comrades at the best of times. Usually for me it’s because of a project, like when I ran the reading series at Beyond Baroque and had a kind of clubhouse that interesting other writers and curious people were drawn to and then started to hang out. Or by collaborating on some project or work. Those are when I most accrued new, inspiring friends. But, like, there’s the great bookstore here, After8, and I go to events there somewhat frequently, and I’ve met and befriended some cool people I met there. I don’t know. And of course doing this blog has led to having a lot of new, great friends over the years. But I’m not someone who’s concerned that I spend lots of time alone. I’m not helping, but I guess those are the ways I seem to have interrupted my solitude most successfully. ** Nicholas., Interesting that a thing’s final form ends up being pared of things that were important to the making but don’t ultimately need to be present whence the thing start fraternising. Me: the usual, giving our film a life and writing the next film. Not a ton else. I don’t remember why I chose Blogspot. I guess just because it was free. But then my blog got killed because it was free and under others’ ultimate control, so now I have WordPress which I do have to pay for. As for why I keep doing it? Either I have no idea or for the obvious reasons, I guess. I too really, really miss video game cheat codes. Going even further back, I really miss printed/book form cheat game guides with all the illustrations and stuff. I always wanted to write a novel in the form of a video game guide book, but then I didn’t. ** Okay. Robert Pinget is one of my very favorite Nouveau Roman authors, or, well, one of my favorite authors period. ‘The Inquisitory’ is his big book — big in the sense of its length and also in the sense of it probably being his most well known novel — and I have lit it up for you today. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
Hey Dennis,
Woke up early today, think it’s because I’m sicker than yesterday — skipped the poetry night cause of it. I did however update my CV and portfolio of published work so that’s good.
Ariana basically has that ethnically ambiguous look that everyone strives to have nowadays; there’s jokes around her that she has tried to be every race due to her fake tan and surgeries. They announced a new Real Housewives in Rhode Island, and the alleged cast all have that exact same look, which is pretty depressing that we live in an era where even the shows centered around 30-50 year olds are plagued with ‘influencer face’.
Speaking of dreams, this morning I had another of my reoccurring semi-nightmares about college: this one was that I found out last minute I had a second dissertation to do, and it was already past the due date, and i had signed up for it thinking I only had one to do. In my dream I was grocery shopping trying to come up with some idea, going for comparing song lyrics from random artists like Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith and Lou Reed and Charli XCX.
Robert Pinget, never heard of him, unless I have heard of him and just think I haven’t… I’ll add The Inquisitory to my list.
Also *ANGUSRAZE, I knew I recognized your username! From twitter (although I don’t use it anymore), my handle was Addison Rae Shady Facts!!
Also sorry for the self promo, but I’m trying to regularly post on my Substack again, now that I’m jobless and not in college:
https://open.substack.com/pub/steeqhen
Dennis! I’m back. Unfortunately. Well not unfortunately to be back here but to be back home and not running around NYC at 3 in the morning.
That drive up was hellish. Had a 2-hour-plus delay because of construction on I-95. Of course, we finally get to where the construction is and there are just some guys standing there doing nothing. Left here a little after 12 and got there at 7.
Saw Kyler and he read Alex’s Tarot. While he was doing that at this bakery we met at, I went outside to smoke and…Timothee Chalamet walked by me. Of all people. It was raining pretty steadily and dude was on a mission. Much cute in person, I’ll say that.
Kayla and her friends came up and we hung out with them Friday and Saturday.
Overall, a good fun, trip.
That’s the hope with David and this Amazon thing. He’s waiting to hear back. Fingers crossed.
Hi. I’ve been having a great time with Anna’s Archive. I’ve finished Idols, now when I get the time I’m either going to start reading Closer or The Dream Police, I still have to decide which. I was also finally able to read more from that author I mentioned in my first comment, if you remember that. I swear I’ll buy the real books when I have the money, but I guess one downside of living in a small town is that I always have to pay shipping if I want a book that isn’t sold at Walmart.
So glad Anna’s is working out for you. You must be a fast reader…….I’m still in the middle of Idols . Closer is a great one, and it’s also the beginning of the George Miles Cycle, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy . Happy reading !
Never got around to Pinget, but I like what he says about his ties to orality, as well as Céline’s (& Ishmael Reed’s the other day). I’m definitely an “ear-writer” myself. Where do you see yourself?
Glad to hear you finished your draft. How long are the scripts for the films you make with Zac generally? I imagine they’re rather unlike the traditional script format?
I guess I already have a little Andalusia in my blood, because my first impulse was to say how overrated Barcelona is. Were you in Sitges for the film festival? Never made it out there myself. Valencia is quite nice too, though a tad too civilized for my taste. Yeah I can see the lack of appeal if you’re no fan of the heat & don’t eat meat. For a carnivorous lizard like myself it’s as good as it gets in Europe. One downside is that they don’t have that much going on culturally (compared to say, Paris)–or rather, that which they do offer is fairly mainstream & of little interest to me. I’ll certainly do my best to change that to an extent. Flamenco I’m into though, certainly in its less showy, raw form.
“Group” is probably the wrong word, it’s just three of us, but yes they’re a peaceful bunch. It’s actually family & we’ve been living together for a year already. Never saw that constellation coming, but a sudden death in the family led to it. Long story, probably best saved for when we see each other in person, but yeah it works for now though it was never meant to be permanent. I’ve learned to distrust planning & just roll with it.
Hey! I’m not sure if I submitted my comment correctly the other day after your response to my comment on the Yalkut post. It was a public screening at Spectacle Theater in Williamsburg. It was a part of an overarching series on music in experimental film. They were all 16mm prints from the Film-Makers’ Coop where I ran the day to day until very recently.
I also forgot to mention that when I did a program on the filmmaker Jerry Abrams I used one of your older blog posts about his liquid light shows as part of the research for it. So thanks for that!
I’m on Instagram at @halashby9000 in case you’re ever curious about any programming I’m doing.
Robert Pinget is a new name to me and the Inquisitory looks to be a difficult read but yeah, I can understand its appeal from these extracts.
On the subject of daunting books, I am still keeping on with Gravity’s Rainbow. Tempted to shell out for companion guides or podcasts but am just going to plough on through and see where this thing takes me.
The Inquisitory looks very intriguing. I have to finish Gary Indiana Resentment first though; I’m getting pretty exhausted by all the multi-page paragraphs and tabloid madness.
I’d say Suichu Megane’s “My Choice, My Body” is the best dance performance I’ve seen since Dairakudakan was in SF 20+ years ago. They tour a little, so maybe they’ll get to Paris. Some of the principals also do a fair amount of commercial work, so it’s very jarring to see the J-pop videos they link to on their website.
Bill
Hi Dennis, thanks. I keep walking past the dream space so hope is still alive. Just nail biting with the funding but seems positive? How’s it going with the new project?
Hi Dennis. Thank you for being so welcoming . I read ‘Fable’ last year, because of your other Pinget post . It had some fascinating imagery in it . I also tried ‘Libera Me’, but his dense, stream of consciousness style is hard for me to sift through, at times.
I too have had a love of amusement parks and Disney since I was little. That’s mostly why I ended up at Disneyworld for so long . I went to the Anaheim park just once, in grad school, since I’m aware that the west coast is much more of your home base.
I was in a lot of different departments during my time at WDW . I worked on a couple attractions, rented boats at one of their marinas, and did a lot of ‘custodial’ work, like your high school buddies . I would *not* recommend ever trying to clean a public rest room at Disney ! But my favorite area to work was in ‘entertainment’ , as a character performer . You know, those people who interact with the guests in costumes. I was a lot of the taller ones : Tigger, the Genie from Aladdin, and a bunch of villains and bears. The 2 I enjoyed portraying the most were Goofy and Captain Hook . But, after about 8 years, I got an injury and had to transfer to something else. I still miss it .
I did a little music at Disney, but not much . I’m a classical/symphonic flutist. There’s not much of a need for those anywhere these days, especially in Florida . I’ve started playing again, just for fun . One of the regular commenters on your blog suggested to me that, as long as one keeps playing, one never stops being a musician. So, thank you James (without the surname), wherever you are !
I got my username from a Vietnamese restaurant, years ago. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 3 , and one of the only options available there was a ‘happy pancake’ , which was basically vegetables in a tortilla. Nothing great, but the name has stuck with me .
Sorry for rambling . My actual name is Ian, BTW .
Hey Dennis,
Yeugh, I’m embarrassed by my recent blognessness — and now I have to write a jumbo comment to compensate. I hope I haven’t missed too much. Three questions:
1) How are things?
2) When is RT screening in/near London — or are you still shepherding it through the US festival circuit?
3) Do you think you and Zac are gonna be in Paris around August-time? I’m trying to plan a short-ish multi-leg visit to Paris and Toulouse (the multi-leg bit stresses me out unreasonably), and right now the stars seem to be aligning on August, although it’s not set in stone.
Things are good on the bad side of the Channel (except for the sudden wave of governmental and judicial transphobia here). The first two books are out, at least in their janky initial print runs, and I think Alex really did a good job on the edit and assembly. I’m very ploddingly starting the edit process for Tadhg and Tom’s poetry. We’ve had a couple of nice open mics for the press, and now I’m trying to call in favours with local writers and people who know them to get some readers booked for the next one. James (a.k.a. Mr Ssnake Press) somehow tracked us down from the blog, despite the press never having been mentioned here by name (I think) — we’re gonna try and get a coffee next week, I’m really looking forward to it.
Movie spotlight: the ICA was having a Rivette season — I didn’t find out until after they’d already screened the intense 13-hour one, but I caught La Belle Noiseuse for the first time. It’s a real head-trip, because it engages with that whole Balzac-Blanchot-Beckett representational/expressive art vortex, but I thought it decided to operate on more of a… psychological and interpersonal level? As in, I think those other works really throw you up against something that goes beyond sense but still inarticulably makes sense, whereas Rivette is showing you other people’s reactions to that experience, and making a deliberate (and really clever) point of it. Still astounding, obviously, but it wasn’t getting thrown in a four-hour conceptual-philosophical helter skelter like I was expecting. Speaking of which, I went on the London Olympics helter skelter recently — the G-forces on my neck and spine from going down that thing were like a free chiropractic appointment.
Music spotlight: Digital Spiritual by Delay Grounds — I saw him live recently without him having been on my radar, and thought he was really great, then I saw he has a recent-ish album out. I’ve been looping it like crazy the last few weeks. The whole conceptual apparatus behind it is maybe slightly puffed up, but the music is great, I think. Plus he was a great stage presence, in that he cut a good middle ground between the two London defaults for DJs/live electronic sets (either over-affected lack of affect, or doing too much coke and being way too into your own tunes).
Hey Dennis,
Eurgh, I’m currently melting in my flat… the dog isn’t happy, she’s sprawled on the floor with a sad look on her face. Sighing every now and then. There was a pretty decent thunderstorm early, heavy rain, broke the heat for a while… I was writing at the time, so it seemed its way onto the page. Finished most of the research/idea forming of my next project, gonna be a novella-length thing… slowly getting into the flow of how I want to write it. My main focus this year is to edit the last novel, which thankfully I’m enjoying… and also to follow up on a few sent out projects.
I got to hear the completed DW audio-drama… I’m suitably impressed by it, so I can’t wait for its release to roll around… it shouldn’t be too long now. I had a big smile on my face. I’m a bit of a control freak about my work, so to have completely handed over a script and then have no input on how it was interpreted/recorded had me quite on edge in case I hated the finished result… but nope I like where they took it. It’s kinda Wickerman- The Blood on Satan’s Claw-esque. Ha! A non-Sci-Fi-Sci-Fi.
I’m gonna send you an email after I post this with an advanced e-book copy of “The Sky is Empty., but Still the Thunder Rolled”. I realised the other day why the release date was so familiar… Tree’s funeral was on 19 May. In the narrative of the collection, it makes total sense that the book would just randomly be released on the 20th: the end goal of the EMDR therapy was to ‘advance the story’, and the release of this book is pretty much this… the next step, a symbolic ‘funeral’ to that whole section of my writing. It moves into memory. Testimony. I can breathe.
Hope everything is good with you,
Hugs and love
Dom
Yeah, I was living in the dorms and had to move out and put everything in storage for the summer. San Diego can be nice, if a little boring compared to other major cities. I’ve been dreading coming back because the last time I was there things were pretty awful, but I think it’s been long enough that everything has smoothed over. I feel like San Diego is like LA’s shy, beautiful little brother. I think the fact that we’re both from Southern California plays a role in why I relate to your work so much. Do you think LA consciously influenced your writing? Because I can see a lot of SoCal-isms in the sort of drifty way you write characters and dialogue. Did your eye floater muse give you any good ideas this weekend? I have lots of family in Seattle, so I’m visiting them. Gonna be here for the next month. I have a friend from college who lives here and another from Vancouver, so I might get to see them while I’m here, too.
I like the person who named themselves Happy pancakes because only good things come from a name like that.
I like your theory that bad thoughts are just the mind being cranky and having a bad mood having nothing to do with the beholder. I might draw a picture of a very pissed and angry brain stomping its feet, and take it out whenever I need that kind of visual. Pretend its the homeless people who yell on the street confused maybe a little hurtful but probably just needs someone to listen if even a second.
You’ve got my mind gears grinding on ideas dude.
That Nagel page you linked went straight to the upcoming exhibit which happens to be where I’ll be in five days… Was that discreetly intentional or coincidence? Maybe I’ll check him out. Also, you saying that you liked ceramic art reminded me of Louis Wain’s very elusive collection of ceramic cats no one talks about. Don’t look it up because I still need to work on that Louis Wain post. Also when you said the cat Ludo had a vexing face I forgot to mention they are blind in one eye. That’s because the eye is not there. They are the sweetest though.
Take care ill see you later this week when I’m unbusy
Ok one last thing that just happened and I’m stumped and confused about it. I was smoking like 10 minutes ago but remember how I said I ordered some books off thriftbooks last week well it came in. First and foremost I had gotten an email saying one of the books b by Kathe Kollwitz was “misplaced” which is apparently rare according to the email but I was refunded and then the other book was the atrocity exhibit (I’ve not yet to read either of these and am not sure if they are ok) but then atrocity exhibit shows up and it’s not even JG Ballard it’s some white thin sorta flash poetry book that’s by someone named S Carbone and I’m confused because I just finished it, as it was that fleetingly quick to read while half stoned.
I bet it’s some error which it’ll probably email about in the morning or idk maybe you know since you know more about books and authors than me.
The last book that’s coming in is something by Burrough but honestly at this point I wished it was the soft machine book that got “misplaced” because I’ve been wanting to read skins.
I’ll see you later down the week! Stay healthy and happy and hungry
And I hope you enjoy Neil Young whenever that may come
Hi. There’s an interesting thing that Robbe-Grillet said about Pinget: that a lot of his novels start with, instead of stating where or when a character is born, the novel itself actually learns to speak, or sort of imitates a child learning how to speak. Starting with lots of repetition of a few words or a phrase etc. And as the novel progresses the language mutates and sheds various skins. I thought that was interesting. Maybe I’ll start my Pinget journey with this one. I’ll certainly keep a look out for ‘Fable’ anyhow.
Yeah, I for sure like and need to be alone a lot too. I once had a lecturer who asked how I’d already read all of the books he tried to recommend to me (I’m not trying to pat myself on the back). But he was asking really sternly because he didn’t believe me, and so I had to tell him that I had a lonely childhood where all I did was read and watch movies and make things. It was embarrassing. And I have no problem with loneliness in itself, it can be sort of beautiful sometimes. Tranquil. And it’s necessary for writing, of course. But I’m really worried that I’m going to miss out on the living part and doing crazy shit, and I want to be around other weirdos and stuff. I’m terrified that I’m just going to miss out on all that and I get what you mean by your need to be alone, because I think I’m also that way to a certain extent, but at a sort of point it gnaws at you. Sorry if this is really depressing, I’m just sort of going through this thing at the moment where I’m trying to get everything ‘in order’ or a less corporate phrase that signifies the same thing – basically doing what I can to not stay the way I am now forever.
Hey, Dennis! I’ve been indecisive about my next read, so maybe this will be the one. I loved ‘Fable’—it ended up being one of the best things I read last year, thanks to your recommendation. The excerpt above is borderline tedious/dizzying, yet somehow managed to pique my interest. I watched an interesting film last night called ‘No Dogs Allowed’. Here’s the trailer. It plays out a bit like a fucked-up after school special, but remains engaging. How was your Monday?
*Poof* Oh wow that actually sounds nuts and if you did it today you could also make a video game of the book to go with it WOW fun! And ahhh makes sense I’m finally realizing money sucks but sometimes you truly have to buy your level of freedom and unfuckwithability can’t just project it. Hum do you get a good deal at least seems like the most solid blog thingy next to Tumblr but you own yours im guessing and all mine are owned by tumblr and then me omg hateee that thanks for pointing that out will your blog exist in perpetuity as a really sick archive or do you not care or think about that? I know I want certain things to last and others can fade but who knows how any of that ends up aside from the people who get the stuff after you. Have you always been consistent in your posting? Did you start out daily and so in-depth or did you grow into it? I ask cause I truly have been like an Internet lurker/observer my whole life, this is literally the only place I even leave comments across the internet but now that my brand is simple and clean I have to start posting authenticity until I hit lotto on that and build an audience and what not. I have a real block when it comes to posting anything from tweets/tik toks but I’m working on It so any tips? I can blog tumblr style and use instagram stories for moving pictures and videos and storytelling that way with pics and music is so fun but I think ur the reigning Blog King so call the world record people. Like most of my generation and then some I’m starting to lean towards podcasting but do want a written angle also hum I’ll tinker more for sure! Its my birthday when I read your response so have a treat(savory or sweet) and pretend its not about a birthday but still have the treat and then tell me about it after ill be back shortly so ttylxox brb.
omg Ps I made my own reading log sheet that I can print out with chatgpt like they had for us all in elementary school! Did you have reading logs seems like you might have been a fan maybe! This is where my brand is headed and I’m obsessed tools for mindfully having some fun and getting shit done who knew id be so practical at 27 def not me lol.