Curiosity Assuaged

Well, well. It has been a considerable amount of time and I am sure you have missed me. My apologies. Much has happened in said considerable amount of time, some more considerable than others. Firstly, I have changed jobs. Twice. Secondly, I've moved into our first purchased home with my wife. Exciting times. But, this is neither here nor there, so let us away and back to the intellectual pursuits.

Since I've last journaled on here, which was in February I haven't been completely intellectually idle. I have read four books - so not incredible prodigious, but not completely unstimulated. The first of which I will assess is Philippe Soupault's Last Nights of Paris. I really enjoyed this one, as seems to be the case with most Surrealist literature (and most French literature for that matter). With its many corridors and narrow rabbit trails however, it seemed to come to an incredibly abrupt ending, which  I won't give away. But, I will offer some thoughts on a few passages that stuck out to me.

"Very clearly I was the only one still listening to the discussion of the two comrades, and I was divided between the desire to question and that of keeping my mouth shut in order to learn more" (Soupault, 73). What a great paragraph that is. It captures the feeling of being intrigued and thus, being drawn into question but also the apprehension and the truth of the matter if one would just shut up and listen he would acquire some knowledge.

There is a paragraph in the book dealing with 'chance' that I rather enjoyed. "Chance, said I to myself, is at least sincere in that it does not conceal its deceptions from us. On the contrary it exposes them in broad daylight, and trumpets them at night. It amuses itself, from time to time, by stupefying the world with the shock of a terrible surprise, as if to remind men of its great strength, thinking they might forget its flightiness, its mischief, its whimsicalities. The complacencies of chance are not favors but treacheries: it does not amaze us to save to keep us in its grasp and all that we receive from its hands are not so much gifts it is offering us as pledges we make to remain its slaves in perpetuity, subject to the grievous visitations of its harsh and malicious power" (Soupault, 83-84). It shows the merciless and faceless nature of chance encounters, but strangely shows that chance acts to remind man, negating the very essence of what chance is. It's a fascinating anthropomorphism.

In remarking about some men gambling, Soupault turns his focus on the human emotion of hope. "Near the wickets old men were in the majority and I marveled at the perpetuity of hope" (Soupault, 87). I just get the image of desperate men seeking out against all odds and yet, despite their memories of failure, he still describes the men as hopeful. It is simultaneously inspiring and sad, tragic and happy.

Again in the surrealist style I find some interesting sentences strewn together. It affirms something in the first and then casts doubt on what we just learned in the second. That kind of subtle jarring is one of the things I find most fascinating about surrealism. "Did he know that he had been betrayed in this place? And what is more, was it he whom they had betrayed?" (Soupault, 94). In a way it almost seems like an Abbot and Costello skit.

"Slowly I went on my way, following the day's ascent. While the sun rose and came to greet me, I marveled at being able to live in the midst of mystery without being wonderstruck each second. I admitted that we grow accustomed to the strangest circumstances and smiled with pity thinking of those who refuse to be what is called dupes - who want to know everything and who are not even able to perceive the diurnal mystery which suffuses and bathes them from head to foot" (Soupault, 122). What great irony! In desiring so strongly to know everything those who don't want to be dupes are duped by the mystery surrounding them on a daily basis.

"You loved her without quite loving her. She was feared a little, but above all you were uneasy as much because of her presence as her absence" (Soupault, 132). Great line.

"Dullness would seize them and to drive it off they sought mystery and created phantoms" (Soupault, 132). It sounds like Soupault has walked around in my brain a little.

"Empty handed, I set out upon the discovery of the flight of time and space" (Soupault, 135). Given my recent obsession with time and space in my writings this line stuck out to me.

"Again I felt that disgust which follows curiosity assuaged" (Soupault, 143). My restlessness, my constant groaning and groping for that which I do not want, my need for constant stimulation, all of this I have levied as a punishment for the sins of hyper stimulation. But all this time it was hyper stimulation as a result of a certain disgust I felt when I came to the end of my object du jour of curiosity. "Again I felt that disgust which follows curiosity assuaged". Ennui. Is there any line ever written more French?