In his dreams, we’re on the beach, and the sea’s out, sucked out, as it is before a great wave comes, W. says. But only he knows the tsunami’s coming. Only he knows, and no one will listen to him. And there I am, inflatable around my midriff, running down the beach towards the sea …
There’s nothing left for us, W. says. Nothing left to do except drink and dance. He’ll drink, W. says, and I’ll dance. — ‘Go on, fat boy, dance!’
In these times, we should be cultivating an aristocratic detachment, W. says. We should retire from the fray like Roman Stoics, holing up on our country estates while the empire crumbles … — ‘But we haven’t got country estates!’, W. says. We haven’t.
Should we order another bottle? — ‘Of course we should!’ W. learned it from Debord, from Bacon: the art of luxurious dining at the end of times. He’s read of Debord, in his later years, in his luxurious apartment on the rue du Bac, spending whole days planning elaborate meals and choosing fine wines. He was a ‘warrior at rest’, Debord said of himself. He’d ‘lain down his arms’, he’d had enough. ‘This century does not like truth, generosity, grandeur’, Debord wrote. And Bacon left painting behind in 1935, and gave himself over to champagne, promiscuity and gambling. To a ‘furious frivolity’, as his biographer puts it, to living a ‘grand style of existence …’
Let’s order some sandwiches, too, we agree.
Upstairs in Foyles, looking through the philosophy books.
‘Do you think they’ll have our books here?’, W. asks, knowing the answer. ‘Of course not!’ His book went out of print as soon as it was published. Before it was published! His publisher went bust. And my books — my so-called books — appeared in the most obscure of imprints, by the most obscure of presses, at a price affordable only by the most prosperous libraries. Our books will have no effect whatsoever! They’ll have no readers!
Ah, but he still believes, deep in his heart, that our collaboration might lead to something great, W. says. That’s what keeps him going, even if all the evidence is to the contrary. Why can’t I see it? Why have I given up on him? On us?
‘When are you going to take philosophy seriously?’, W. says. ‘You haven’t read anything in years. Are you retiring from philosophy?’, he asks. ‘Have you given up?’ I haven’t, I tell him. — ‘Then why don’t you write some philosophy? You have to externalise yourself. You have to experience your shortcomings’.
I show W. a book of photos of Deleuze and Guattari from the ’70s, with their flares and long hair. Look at them! They were having a good time! — ‘They had ideas’, W. says. ‘They were changing the world’.
The Idiot’s Guide to Deleuze … Deleuze for the Simple … Deleuze as Pabulum, in the Pre-chewed Philosophy series, and Deleuze in Bullet Points in the Lowest Common Denominator series. Ninny Deleuze, in the Reducing Everything to Common Sense series. Deleuze Vivisected, in the Yet More Books Explaining Deleuze series … — ‘Do you think there are enough introductory books to Deleuze?’, W. asks. But Deleuze is hard, I point out. Deleuze is hard, W. says. Philosophy is hard! It shouldn’t be made any easier!
W. carried Deleuze’s Logic of Sense around in his man bag for a month, he says. He never understood a word of it. The criterion for a book of worth is: does it make you think more, W. says. Did the Logic of Sense make him think more? I ask him. It made him experience his idiocy in a new way, which is a very valuable thing, W. says.
Idiocy isn’t one thing, W. says. There are kinds of idiocy. Tones of idiocy. His Deleuzian idiocy is very different from his Rosenzweigian idiocy, W. says. From his Kierkegaardian idiocy! He experiences the limits of thought differently with every philosopher he reads! And isn’t that the only reason to read, W. says: to experience your limits anew? To experience your idiocy?
W. reads me a passage from an encyclopaedia entry on Hermann Cohen:
In Cohen’s hands, this historical orientation contributes in no small part to other aspects of his writing that none of his readers can fail to notice: its obscurity, repetition, and sometimes unnecessary length.
Don’t they understand that Cohen should be praised for his style? W. says. That the philosopher, least of all, is obliged to be clear? The philosopher shouldn’t understand what he’s doing, W. says. He shouldn’t know where his thought is going; and nor should his readers.
W. finds the book for which I wrote a blurb: Jean-Luc Nancy’s Listening. — ‘Ah, the high point of your worldly renown’, W. says. ‘Did Jean-Luc Nancy ask for you personally?’, W. asks. ‘Did he esteem your amazing Blanchot scholarship?’
W. reads the blurb: ‘sense resounds beyond significance in the experience of listening’. I’m aping Nancy, W. says. Aping his style. There’s nothing more grotesque than a British person aping the style of a French thinker, W. says.
W. remembers my attempt to become Blanchot. It was hilarious. I was the least likely Blanchotian. The Blanchotian with the least French. With the least idea of France. The only Blanchotian who’d never been to France. Who had never ridden the Paris Métro. Who had never eaten a Parisian crêpe.
Blanchotian scholars should at least be thin, as Blanchot was thin, W. says. They should at least be unwell — as Blanchot was unwell. And they should wear black, W. says. Not some blousy shirt with great flowers. Not grimy pantaloons, billowing like great sails.
Westminster Abbey. The Houses of Parliament. Whitehall, and then Downing Street, seen through the iron grille of the gate.
W. thinks he has London sickness, he says, remembering the title of one of Blanchot’s essays. At first, he’s awed at the sights, then bored, then depressed. There are too many spectacles! And spectacles make us into spectators, nothing more! I am to lead him somewhere calm, W. says, as Antigone led the blinded Oedipus.
London Aquarium embraces us with its darkness. Tell him all I know, W. says. It’s one of my odd corners of knowledge: aquatic life, he says. And sometimes, he finds it soothing to be told things. He likes facts to wash over him. Facts about fish, for example. Facts about ocean currents and migratory patterns.
W. remembers my great fish lectures at the aquarium in Plymouth. He remembers my telling him about the shoaling behaviour of turbot and Dover sole, and about their favoured habitats and mating habits.
Plymouth’s is a local aquarium, I told W. I appreciated that, and made W. appreciate it, too. It wasn’t about the colourful marine fish that you can see anywhere. It wasn’t all clown fish and anemones. It was about Plymouth — the aquatic life of Plymouth and its environs, I said, over our plates of freshly caught turbot and Dover sole in Platters.