Status Updates From Moo Pak

What a funny book this is. It's moved from the philosophical and sensible into rant. it feels like a Bernhard novel, it reminds me of Old Masters, another rant about one of the arts. But listening to a ranter is funny. It really is. The rhythms of ranting can be exquisite. The reader stands as though in front of a ranter beleaguered by their ranting. It flows and flows, opinions, references, on and on.

Hugely disappointing, and difficult as well.

Review to come.

Josipovici, different every time. This one is Bernhardian autofiction, I suspect.

It was my GR friend, Ilse, who informed me that Josipovici had been called the English Bernhard. I have seen glimpses of it in the books I've read by GJ, but 'Moo Pak' is firmly in the Bernhardian mode, in terms of narrative technique, at least.

A quality of vulnerability, of wonder, which is as precious as it is rare. But that's how human beings are, he said, they will do everything to avoid pain, even the bravest of them. Yet we probably only find ourselves when we accept pain and doubt and uncertainity.

We need the artists who matter to remind us constantly that there are possibilities there, in the world and in ourselves, and the hard work and development of energy do have their rewards.

One can only do what one is driven to do, he said, the great betrayal is to try and do what you think you should do or what you think people expect of you or what you think will bring success.

We read over what we have written. We tear it up. We start again. We read that over. We tear it up. We start again. And slowly it begins to find its rightful form. Slowly it starts to grow. When we die it is there, unfinished but nevertheless substantial, a substantial work. Everybody marvels. The patience, they say. The commitment. The dedication. And nobody knew. All done quietly, in the dark.

To be frank, he said, I am sometimes greatly relieved by the thought that soon I will be dead and no longer have to go on with this psychological juggling act, day after day, registering, taking in and not taking in, knowing and not knowing.

Writers are helpless before the human figure, he said, but they come into their own in response to cities. They are helpless before the human face.

Everywhere today, he said, people travel to have confirmed for them what they already know and take photographs to remind themselves that they really have been there. p42

the sexual liberation and flower power were merely the flip side of a rigid Puritanism which is obsessed by the body and which, it seems, will never leave these shores until England is well and truly merged with Europe. And not even then for England and Europe are now in thrall to America and America will remain a Puritan country for a long time yet. When religion dies, morality is waiting to step into its shoes

He who would speech find about must and about must go.

If I hadn't come across an example of synchysis in Queneau's 'Exercises de Style' yesterday, I wouldn't have recognized it here. And it's very apt in the context of Josipovici's book because the main character is talking about how we learn to put a scatter of words together and make meaning.

The idea that you can read a book, he said, put it down, think about what you have just read, pick it up again, or the idea that you can reread a book — such notions, common to civilized people for centuries, are fast disappearing.
Josipovici wrote this book twenty-five years ago. I think his main character was being overly pessimistic. We are still reading, still reflecting, still rereading.