#nancy huston

[sublecturas]

"Marcas de nacimiento" de Nancy Huston en la #líneaC

[cithaerons]

Parfois, l’on me demande si je ne souhaiterais pas un jour « rentrer chez moi », et quand je réponds que je n’ai plus d’autre chez moi que Paris, on est éberlué. J’essaie d’expliquer : je n’ai vécu dans aucune autre ville aussi longtemps (le record a été battu il y a trois ans déjà) ; je n’ai jamais vécu là où habitent maintenant ma mère et mon père (ce n’est d’ailleurs pas la même ville, ni le même pays) ; pendant les neuf ans qu’a duré leur mariage, ils ont déménagé dix-huit fois (c’était l’une des raisons du divorce) ; j’ai quitté mon pays natal il y a quinze ans maintenant, c’est-à-dire la moitié de ma vie…. Non. On ne comprend toujours pas. Pour un Européen, il est inconcevable que l’on ne ressente pas, loin de chez soi, « le mal du pays » et a fortiori que l’on n’ait aucun pays pour lequel le ressentir. J’envie parfois leur attachement à leur province ou à leur pays ; j’envie aussi les « vrais » exilés, ceux qui disent aimer passionnément leur pays d’origine, sans pouvoir pour des raisons politiques ou économiques y vivre ; dans ces moments, mon exil à moi me semble superficiel, capricieux, individualiste…mais il n’en est pas moins réel, et de plus en plus à mesure que le temps passe.

Nancy Huston, Lettres parisiennes 

[yorgunherakles]

beni arayıp sormadıkları için incinmiştim ve ölüm böyle bir şey heralde dedim kendi kendime: hayat sensiz devam ediyor rahatça.

nancy huston - fay hatları

[anaxerneas]

But one also sees a powerful streak of misanthropy in modern culture quite independent of any real experience of trying to help, or to change the conditions of life. There is a kind of misanthropy in principle, as it were, which declares the worthlessness of human life; it sees itself as taking a heroic stance and finally declaring what both Christians and humanists try to hide from themselves and from us all. In a recent book, Nancy Huston studies the extraordinary phenomenon in twentieth century literature, that some of the most popular authors espoused the bleakest and most unconditional misanthropy, and were read and applauded by a wide public, most of whose members were never tempted to live by this outlook.

She cites, for instance, Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, Emil Cioran, Imre Kertesz, Milan Kundera. A common source for many of them was Schopenhauer, the great pessimist, who did indeed, make his own the famous line from Calderón's La vida es sueño: "pues el delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido" - the great crime of humans is to have been born. But in fact Schopenhauer identifies as a crime not so much being born--that is rather seen as a great misfortune; rather it is giving birth which is to be condemned. This kind of misanthropy utterly rejects and despises human generation, reproduction, the whole business of forming families and having children; which stance often carries with it a certain misogyny. Women are a danger to men, because they entrap them into continuing the whole process of generation, which Schopenhauer saw as the continued striving of the Will to multiply its carriers.

What can seem puzzling here is that this extreme pessimism continues to attract such attention, applause, literary prizes, media attention. Nancy Huston offers some interesting explanations of this. Plainly she is right that there is something heroic in this stance, even though one might condemn it on other grounds, and that this wins admiration. "Portant l'auréole de la douleur puissance x, ses adeptes sont nos Christs en croix, nos saints torturés, nos martyrs stoiques, magnifiques et magnifiés", in the disenchanted world of modernity. (Wearing the halo of pain to the nth power, its followers are our Christs on the cross, our tortured saints, our stoic martyrs, magnificent and glorified.) I would add another reason. Plainly many of us are ambivalent about the philanthropic solidarity we profess, and this for a host of reasons, including those discussed above. Ambivalence is increased by an unquiet conscience: we are not doing all that we ought to in the light of our ideals and aspirations. There is a certain pleasure in seeing these trashed so thoroughly, giving vent to the suppressed side of our ambivalence, expressing our resentment at the way we are all nudged into hypocrisy by the norms of political correctness--and all in a plausibly deniable way, since after all we are only "enjoying literature".

But supposing we wanted to liberate ourselves from this sneaking sympathy with misanthropy? Huston offers considerations which ought to achieve this. She points us to the experience of having children, bringing them up. "J'ai vu la lente émergence du langage, de la personnalité, l'hallucinate construction d'un être, sa façon d'ingurgiter le monde, de le faire sien, d'entrer en relation avec lui: … j'ai vu que c'était passionant." (I saw the slow emergence of language, or personality, the incredible construction of a being, its way of ingesting the world, of making it its own, of entering into relation with it: … I saw that it was profoundly moving.)

But this brings us back to our earlier question. This sense of awe, surprise, tenderness, which moves us so much when a new human being emerges, finds herself, what does it reflect? It's plain that people can refuse to see it, like the midwife, Arina Prokhorovna, in Dostoyevsky's The Possessed; when Shatov cries out in wonder at the new baby, "It's the mystery of the appearance of a new being, a great and inexplicable mystery. … There were two, and suddenly there is a third, a new spirit; … a new thought and a new love … so uncanny … there is nothing higher in the world," Arina Prokhorovna replies laughing, "What a fuss you're making… It's simply the further development of the organism, and nothing more, there is no mystery,... otherwise every fly would be a mystery. And let me tell you something. Superfluous human beings should not be born."

When you don't fend off this insight, what are you seeing? What way of articulating this insight really does it justice? What captures it at its most powerful? What can enable it to work most powerfully on us and direct our lives?

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age

[tournevole]

Paradoxalement, un monde sans spiritualité́ n’est autre qu’un monde sans animalité́. Nier notre animalité́ a toujours pour effet de porter atteinte à̀ notre spiritualité́. Ont été́ ritualisés par les humains, toujours et partout, les moments de la vie où se faisait sentir leur appartenance au monde animal, c’est-à̀-dire essentiellement leur mortalité́. Etre humain, c’est savoir que l’on est mortel. D’après tout ce que nous pouvons observer, nous sommes la seule espèce animale à scander le temps… à remémorer et commémorer… à se donner rendez-vous… à prévoir… à marquer et à remarquer les mouvements de notre planète et de notre corps mortel, afin de non seulement constater la nature mais la fêter, l’amadouer, danser avec elle… mais aussi, progressivement, à mesure que la technologie se développe – la dompter, la contrôler, la soumettre, la nier… voire la détruire ».

Nancy Huston

[ellednorih]

“On ne saurait l'entendre ni la saisir. Elle passe. Elle est passage : frêle dentelle arachnéenne tendue entre nous et le néant. Beauté intolérante, intolérable. Plaie, et baume sur la plaie.”

— Nancy Huston, Prodige, 1999

[villings]

[oldfilmsflicker]

Emporte-moi, 1999 (dir. Léa Pool)