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T he narra tor has to " transla te" Falk 's unique wordl ess experi ence inlo
the vocabul a ry o f people like Hermann, hi s listeners, and o urselves,
not just sta ting facts but crea ting a COnlext in whi ch the facts genera te
meaning. Reca lling the terms I mentioned a t the start, we may say tha t
he has to bring the angui sh of the wigwam int.o the security of the
kitchen , revealing in the process tha t such a sta tic opposition is a false
antinomy for the wigwam has its saniti es, and there is an unreason of
the kitchen too-the apparent pola riti es di ssolve into each o ther. Falk
had to eat the unea tabl e, and in so doing he di scovers the radi cal
rela ti vity o f cu ltu ral categori es; the narra tor has to speak o f the
unspeakable, and in so do ing he encounters the insolubl e problema ti cs
of utterance. In these two fi gures Con rad drama ti zes in an ex treme
form hi s sense of the profound paradoxes on whi ch human li fe-itself
a shifting and unstabl e concept-i s founded .
