The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

Author:Italo Calvino [Calvino, Italo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780141889559
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2011-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

Priscilla

In asexual reproduction, the simplest entity which is the cell divides at a point in its growth. The nucleus divides into two equal parts, and from a single entity, two result. But we cannot say that a first entity has given birth to a second. The two new entities are, to the same degree, the products of the first. The first has disappeared. Essentially, it is dead, since only the two entities it has produced survive. It does not decompose in the way sexed animals die, but it ceases to be. It ceases to be, in the sense that it is discontinuous. But, in a point of the reproduction, there was continuity. There exists a point where the primitive one becomes two. When there are two, there is again discontinuity in each of the entities. But the passage implies an instant of continuity between the two. The first dies, but in its death appears a fundamental instant of continuity.

Georges Bataille, L’Érotisme (from the introduction)

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