On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry (New York Review Books Classics) by William H. Gass

Author:William H. Gass [Gass, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: nepalifiction, TPB
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2014-03-17T18:15:00+00:00

but I have been dropping hints all along like heavy shoes that the ultimate and essential displacement is to the word, and that the true sexuality in literature—sex as a positive aesthetic quality—lies not in any scene and subject, nor in the mere appearance of a vulgar word, not in the thick smear of a blue spot, but in the consequences on the page of love well made—made to the medium which is the writer’s own, for he—for she—has only these little shapes and sounds to work with, the same saliva surrounds them all, every word is equally a squiggle or a noise, an abstract designation (the class of cocks, for instance, or the sub-class of father-defilers), and a crowd of meanings as randomly connected by time and use as a child connects his tinkertoys. On this basis, not a single thing will distinguish ‘fuck’ from ‘fraise du bois’; ‘blue’ and ‘triangle’ are equally abstract; and what counts is not what lascivious sights your loins can tie to your thoughts like Lucky is to Pozzo, but love lavished on speech of any kind, regardless of content and intention.

It is always necessary to deprive the subject of its natural strength just as Samson was, and blinded too, before recovering that power and replacing it within the words. Popeye is about to rape Temple Drake with a corn-cob (in a corn-crib, too, if you can bear the additional symbolism):

. . . Popeye drew his hand from his coat pocket.

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