532
HORIA BRA TU
Presented with something incomprehensible, he sets an inquisition going.
Here one is especially struck by the resemblance between the
French student movement and modern art. The participation, whether
personal or by influence, of Max Ernst, Michaux, Sartre, Dali (in the
manifesto of 18 May) , Picasso and Calder, and also of Jacques Monad,
Jean Rostand, Paul Ricoeur, Lucien Goldmann, among others
i~
significant in this respect. All the objections raised against what could
be called the awakening of the word can be found in almost identical
terms in the classic inquisition against modern art: it was maintained
that it lacked structure, that its ends were far beyond its means, that
it didn't serve any precisely defined purpose, that it was unhealthy and
indecent. "This Stinks," said Prefect Grimaud, as he left the Odeon
after his release: exactly the way modern art stank, in Jdanov's critiques.
• Now, of course, it really remams to be seen if the same kind of
failed success under which modern art collapsed doesn't also (and to
the same extent) affect the student movement. The art of the lower
depths, inaugurated by Gorky, the underground condition, was volun–
tarily assumed by the students in Paris, notably in their slogans, which
were filled with black humor: "We rise out of the depths?" "The
thief - that's us!" In this almost masochistic will to adopt the simplest
stance, the most elementary postures (squatting in the streets, sitting), to
break down words into chanted syllables, probably even to wash as
little as
pos~ible
in order to become one with the damned of the earth,
the elemental quality of words was revealed and exploited. The words
used were not (as some have maintained ) unorganized, but organized
into
sui-generis
phrases and chains of thought possessed of a powerful
emotional and visceral resonance. All those monologues which were
unanimously respected in the streets and the lecture halls, those
demonstrations of language salvaging itself from the oratorical traditions
\
and the solemn rhythm of the courtroom - weren't they all reminiscent
of the broken, chopped, agitated understatement of a Buchner, a Brecht,
a Beckett, or a Peter Handke?
Indeed, since plainly man's only essence is that which others give
to him - and that through the intermediary of things, of relations–
he attempts to give himself one through his own speech. A futile enter–
prise? A hoax? The answer lies more in the realm of linguistic philosophy
than that of political theory. For the time being, let's suppose that;
exactly like Kasper in Handke's play,I the people of Paris - not only
Kasp er,
by
Peter H andke. Premiere, Mav,
1968,
in Frankfurt and
Dusseldorf. Published
by
Suhrkamp Verlag.
.
