"Some passions are the regular subjects of fiction and some, though certainly passions, are more recondite and impossible to describe. A passion for reading is somewhere in the middle: it can be hinted but not told out, since to describe an impassionate reading of Books would take many more pages than Books itself and be an anticlimax."

(Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden)

Could it be the other way round? Only what can not be told out can ever be fully described. Hinting at it creates infinite meaning in a finite space; it is possible to say all there can be said. What can be told out has a finite meaning but may never fit in a finite space; if it does, there is always the possibility that you missed something.

"Does language shape what we perceive [...], or are our perceptions pure sensory impressions, immune to the arbitrary ways that language carves up the world?

The latest research changes the framework, perhaps the language of the debate, suggesting that language clearly affects some thinking as a special device added to an ancient mental skill set. Just as adding features to a cellphone or camera can backfire, language is not always helpful. For the most part, it enhances thinking. But it can trip us up, too."

(full article: NY Times, When Language Can Hold the Answer.)

[...And an insight that, for me, is vaguely connected with, among other things, spring and paradise: If you were someone who likes to put people into categories, you could divide Westerners in sƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ and non-verbal beings. Non-verbal people, prosaic people, use words as instruments. For a non-verbal person, words are no more ambiguous than, say, a hammer: words are the tools they use to express a fact, like a hammer is the tool they use to nail down a plank.

I am a ƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ: For me, everything is words. Words are not just tools, they are the medium I move through, and as such, they are snonƃıqɯɐ by nature. Communication is a more complex operation than nailing down a plank, because there are so sƃuıuɐǝɯ ʎuɐɯ as there are sɹǝʞɐǝds, sɹǝuǝʇsıl, and sʇxǝʇuoɔ put together. ('Gleich mit jedem Regengusse ändert sich dein holdes Tal, ach, und in demselben Flusse schwimmst du nicht zum zweiten Mal.')

‘Only connect’ (the prosaic with the ɔıʇǝod) is what we have been taught to do. Only connect, however, has never worked for me. Sooner or later, I am either getting bored or frustrated with the prosaic. I can never fully be myself when trying to only connect with non-verbal people. Prosaic is a language, as is ɔıʇǝod, and when sƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ try to connect with non verbal ones, they learn to speak Prosaic. The fact that we are sƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ enables us to pick up Prosaic pretty easily, just as we pick up, say, Spanish. Non-verbal beings, however, don’t speak ɔıʇǝod. Whenever you as a ƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ switch to ɔıʇǝod – the language in which you are, no matter what language you currently express yourself in - while with someone who only speaks Prosaic, you end up frustrated, because they make you feel ridiculous for lack of understanding. I am good at Prosaic, but only because I am deeply lɐqɹǝʌ, which means, deeply Un-Prosaic. And: I am tired of non-verbal beings. For me, only connect is not the answer. I am not interested in building any more ‘rainbow bridges that should connect the prose in us with the passion.’ I want to be a ƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ among other sƃuıǝq lɐqɹǝʌ. Where everything that matters already is. Where there’s no need for construction work with a hammer that always comes down on my own thumb.]

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead."

(G. H. Auden, As I walked Out One Evening)

Ich denke uns an einen regenwolkengrauen Strand. Wir gehen nebeneinander gegen den Wind, so, wie ich es am liebsten mag, und ziehen eine Spur gelber Gummistiefelsohlenabdrücke hinter uns her. Meine Haare flackern im Wind, und ich denke das Geräusch von Zeltplanen in den Hintergrund, die sich aufbauschen und gegen das Aufspannen wehren. Die Romanfigur setzt ihre Kapuze auf. Ich denke sie nach meinem Wochenende fragen: „Freitag? Samstag? Sonntag?“ Sie spuckt mir die Tage entgegen. Sie redet nicht gern. Ich sage: „Romanfigur? Kennst du dieses Gefühl... dieses Gefühl... Fingerabdrücke auf den Gedanken eines anderen zu hinterlassen? Beim Gedankenlesen?“
„Ja“, sagt die Romanfigur.
„Und liest du auch“, frage ich, „in aufgeschlagenen Wohnungen wie in einem Tagebuch? Am Samstag –. Romanfigur?“
„Ja?“
„Du hörst doch zu?“
Ich denke ein paar Möwen schreien.
„Wenn es sein muss.“ Die Romanfigur ist stehen geblieben, weil ihr die immer länger werdende gelbe Gummistiefelspur im Sand zu schwer wird. Sie versucht stattdessen, sich eine Zigarette anzuzünden, was gar nicht so leicht ist, weil der Wind so stark geht.
„Es muss.“ Ich denke die Romanfigur ein bisschen aufmerksamer.
„Am Samstag“, sage ich beunruhigt, „hatte ich das Gefühl, unter seinem Geruch fast zu verschwinden.“
„Dieses Gefühl“, sagt die Romanfigur entschieden, „sollte man nicht haben. Erst recht nicht, wenn man du ist.“
Ich nicke erleichtert. „Später habe ich im Regennass eine zerkratzte Scheibe Musik gefunden –“
„Gut“, sagt die Romanfigur, „man sollte nie aufhören, Dinge zu finden. Erst recht nicht, wenn es regnet.“
„Stimmt.“ Ich nicke beruhigt.
„Zigarette?“, fragt die Romanfigur.
„Danke.“ Ich versuche, eine Romanzigarette anzuzünden, was gar nicht so leicht ist, weil der Wind so stark geht.

Die Romanfigur lächelt leise wissend in ihren gelben Gummistiefeln. Ich radiere sie aus.

ein raum – fabrikshalle? parkplatz? mondiges milchweiß tropft von der decke.
e i n-u n d-z w a n-z i g (sekundenlang verharrende atemwolke-). schritte hallen.
staub am boden. die welt in schwarzweiß und dort, wo himmel und erde
zusammenstoßen, genau dort, ein sessel. auf dem sessel: eine frau, die so groß ist,
dass sie sich im sitzen quasi zusammenfalten muss, um zwischen himmel und erde
platz zu haben, und daher also ihren oberkörper über ihre knie gefaltet –
und lange, stumpfschwarz glänzende haare über ihre knie bis in den staub am boden
unter ihren nackten zehen –
und jedes muttermal in der haut über der 33teiligen wirbelbandscheibenwellenlinie
blind mit der fingerspitze nach –
zu denken.

The program of this year's Vienna Lit Festival is online! Don't miss out on that - it's going to be exciting from the first day to the last!

April 17-20 @ Ratpack and Literaturhaus Wien.

Whatever happened to the kind of conversations people used to have before the big emoticonisation!

...

"This re-Englishing of a Russion re-vision of what had been an English re-telling of Russian memories in the first place, proved to be a diabolic task, but some consolation was given me by the thought that such multiple metamorphosis, familiar to butterflies, had not been tried by any human before."

(Vladimir Nabokov about his autobiography, a stereotext in two languages and three consecutive versions)

...

Stereopoetry as a result of translation:

"Odinochestvo est' chelovek v kvardrate." (Joseph Brodsky, To Urania)

literal: "Loneliness is a man squared."

Brodsky's own translation into English: "Loneliness cubes a man at random."

...

"Can an idea be adequately presented in a single language? Or do we need a minimum of two languages (as with two eyes or two ears) to convey the volume of a thought or image? Will we, at some future time, accustom ourselves to new genres of stereo poetry and stereo philosophy as we have become accustomed to stereo music and stereo cinema? Will the development of translingual discourses (or, in Bakhtin's words, 'the mutual illumination and interanimation of languages') become a hallmark of our century?"

(Mikhail Epstein)