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Me and Sylvia at the Memorial (April 2009)

READIN

Jeremy's journal

Language speaks, because speaking is its pleasure and it can do nothing else.

Penelope Fitzgerald


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🦋 Notas marginales

... His second book was even more successful than the first, professors in North American, and some of the most distinguished ones among the academic world of those long-past days, wrote enthusiastic reviews, wrote books about the books which were commenting on the Fox's books.

And from this moment on, the Fox felt -- with good reason -- that he was content; the years passed by without his publishing anything.

Well, people started talking. "What's up with the Fox?" -- when he showed up right on time for cocktails they would come up to him and be like, You ought to publish something more.

-- But look, I've already published two books.

-- And good ones, too! -- would come the reply -- That's exactly why you should publish another one!

And here the Fox did not say anything, but thought to himself: "What they're really looking for, is for me to publish a lousy book. But because I am the Fox, I'm not going to do it."

And he didn't.

"Fox is the smart one."
The Black Sheep and other fables
Augusto Monterroso

It's the funniest thing -- somehow I had gotten it into my head that the title of Bartleby y compañia was Bartlett y companía -- this despite many times of reading the correct title, and of writing it out, and even of ordering it on Amazon [and it occurs to me now that I have not really read anything, anything that sticks in my memory, about it, just references to the title]... thinking it had something to do with the quotations dude. (And to be sure there are a lot of quotations in the text -- that's not really here nor there though.) This is my introduction to Vila-Matas and it sure is a pleasant one. The idea of "un cuaderno de notas a pie de página que comentaron un texto invisible" is just about exactly what I am wanting to be reading right now -- and here I am experiencing that reverse-projection which I refer to as identification with the text in spades, I feel like the first chapter of the book is written in my voice. Thanks for the impetus, Richard. (And I am going to throw caution to the wind disregarding the hinted warning in Jean de la Bruyère's epigraph. Tal vez soy yo entre los otros a quienes la gloria consistiría en no escribir, pero...)

posted afternoon of Saturday, July 7th, 2012
➳ More posts about Bartleby y compañía
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➳ More posts about Translation
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