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Transcript of Max Ranken Burg
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The Burden of Proof: Prophecy and Ontology in Paul Austers Oracle Night
A thesis submitted to the faculty of
San Francisco State UniversityIn partial fulfillment of
The requirements for
The degree
Master of Arts
inEnglish: Literature
by
Maximilian Rankenburg
San Francisco, California
May, 2005
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The Burden of Proof: Prophecy and Ontology in Paul Austers Oracle Night
Maximilian Rankenburg
San Francisco State University
2005
The Burden of Proof: Prophecy and Ontology in Paul Austers Oracle Night is a
structuralist reading of Auster's text. By examining the relationship between the
structures of the text, and of its protagonist-narrator, I reveal, primarily and
specifically, the complex narrative surrounding the question of identity, and formally,
the strange border between structuralist and post-structuralist approaches to literature.
The essay is in three parts. I begin my investigation with analysis of the concept of an
oracle. What does the idea ofprophecy do to a normal definition of narrative? I use
throughout my essay, more as a heuristic and test-site for my investigation than
analogy, the figure from Delphi in Oedipus the King. The second theme, rising from
Oedipus's difference with Jocasta meaning is ab extra; meaning is ab intra
concerns structuralism, or the reassemblage of narrative-parts in an effort at revealing
the intelligible function of the whole. The third theme concerns the shortfall of a
structuralist view. I do not go so far as to compare my approach to a post-structuralist
one; but I make it clear that Sidney Orr's project at memoir, and Oracle Night, indict a
form of structuralism.
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to
Gneli Gn
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Appendices. v
Prologue 1-9
Part One: Lexemes 1-12 10-51
Part Two: Lexemes 13-24 . 52-93
Part Three: Lexemes 25-30 ... 94-110
Epilogue 111-114
Appendices 115-120
Notes .. 121-134
Works Cited and Consulted 135-137
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix Page
1.Dramatis Personae 115-117
2.Lexemes and References ..... 118-119
3. The Narrative Line . 120
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Prologue
vaticinor: tr. to foretell, prophesy; to keep harping on intrto prophesy; to rant and rave,
talk wildly1
This essay is about a conflicted character, and has a conflicted character. The
bipartite foundation will first become apparent in descriptions of my intent, and my act.
P.i The Intent
To describe my intent, I quote the prospectus I wrote for this essay five months
ago.
In this essay I intend to examine the lies perpetrated by Sidney Orr,
the protagonist of Paul Austers Oracle Night, to examine the illusion of
reality these lies create, and, in revealing the emptiness at the core of his
character, to examine the consequences of his condition.
Why does Sidney Orr since Oracle Night is the story of his
rehabilitation lie to, and delude, himself?
To answer this question I will concentrate on narrative structures.
The novel itself a description Orrs transition from a question, a
perplexed, estranged point of view, to a state of unparalleled happiness
exposes a large facet of the protagonists character. So, beginning with the
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macrocosm, or (1) an overview of the structure of the novel, I will then
sharpen my focus and consider particular elements of the narrative.
I will examine (2) the narrative structure of an oracle. What form
oforderdoes this character impose? In what ways does Oedipus the King
illuminate Orrs problem?
I will examine (3) the narrative structure of Hammetts Flitcraft
episode, and examine how it is used by Orr. What form of orderdoes this
character suggest? How is chance defined by, and woven into, the
narrative? More specifically, how do intertextuality, and peripeteia,
complicate Orrs narrative?
Concluding that Orr is nota detective of the Dupin-order that is,
not a semiotician I will argue for (4) the hermeneutics of Oracle Night.
Are the illusions of Oracle Night only aspects of an interpreter-centered
narrative? Is intertextuality a consequence of such a structure? And,
returning to the initial problem, is there a place for ethics in this
structure?2
P.ii The Act
I can assert with confidence that number one, above, I more than accomplish in
this essay. Numbers two and three are also accomplished, but I anticipate not, for
differences of perspective, to everyones satisfaction. I can safely say that number four,
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above, is not a part of this essay. While the questions I raise therein remain pertinent, and
are indirectly considered, I never focus my attention on hermeneuticsper se.The
problem, intrigue, and allure of the oracles narrative, I contend, is essentially a problem
of hermeneutics; but I do not examine this relationship to any depth in this essay.
The act itself is a structural one. In Barthess terminology, I dissect and
articulate.3
I collate lexemes and analytically compare, in a restructuring (articulation) of
the protagonist and of the novel, repeated signifiers of structure.4
That is not to say that
my paradigm is structuralist. I keep too respectful (i.e.fearful) an eye on the themes of
chaos, cognitive dissonance, the indeterminacy of meaning, paradox, and the like, to fall
into that category. More specifically, my paradigm is not structuralist for two reasons:
first, I do not presume or suggest an historical context to the lexemes apart from the
fictional history of their evolution;5
and second, I am not de-coding the text into a
general, poly-textual or cultural, form. My primary concern, as an unfortunate
redundancy will soon make clear, is a question of character, of the protagonists hidden,
and possibly criminal, characteristics. That said, I do build, or rebuild, a text. I do pay
special attention to symmetry, and objectivity. But these apparentacts are done under a
kind of duress, in a kind of dream whose end is imminent and in which I desire
something that I know I will never find, that I know is just out of reach, around the next
corner.
A more precise description of the form of the essay is this: the three parts roughly
reflect three distinct sections of Oracle Night.6
I begin my investigation with analysis of
the concept of an oracle. What kind of narrative does she inhabit? What does the idea of
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prophecy do to a normal definition of narrative? I use throughout my essay, more as a
heuristic and test-site for my investigation than analogy, the figure from Delphi in
Oedipus the King. The second theme I consider, rising from Oedipus's difference with
Jocasta meaning is ab extra; meaning is ab intra concerns structuralism, or the
reassemblage of narrative-parts in an effort at revealing the intelligible function of the
whole. The third theme concerns the shortfall of a structuralist view. I do not go so far as
to identify my approach as a post-structuralist one, but I make it clear that Sidney Orr's
project at memoir, and Oracle Night, indict a form of structuralism.
The disparity, then, with which I conclude the antagonism between structure
and de-structure, and the clear difference between my intent and my act I would now
like to introduce.
P.iii Spelling it Out: The Oracles Narrative
I made the following analysis in October of 2003, for a presentation on the novel
Cane by Jean Toomer. The phenomenon of reflexivity is dazzling: my words on
prophecy, in 2003, return to me two years later, in a more revealing, powerful, and useful
way. That is, I act, by necessity, as if today, and these words, were my last; but I know
otherwise.
Consider the Latin word oraculum, for the English oracle, or
prophesy. And further: ora- for the English boundary, edge, coastline, or
region. Andculum, denoting a place, or tool-instrument-device. Does
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this dissection lend a clear definition oforaculum in English? I suppose
the boundary place is close to my idea ofprophecy; it beats instrument of
the coast. But it is obvious that the boundary place orthe edge is not
exactly what we mean in English by oracle.
Consider the wordprophesy. Its Latin cousin is vaticinor, to
foretell, to play the harp, to rant and rave. Little did I know that the strange
word oracle had a strange lineage. The strangeness lies beneath a veneer
of contrasted ideas: the boundary place, the edge, and to rant and rave.
Boundaries are clear; in fact, in order for the word to function, the
boundary must be clear. You can walk toward the beach, for instance, and
see from a long distance off where land ends and water begins. And in a
facile sense of defining the word, an oracle, orprophecy, is the
establishment of a boundary for some aspect of the future. Prophesy, that
is, clarifies a distant point in time; it is a story that corrals understanding
of the future, and in doing so determines the point beyond which
knowledge is forbidden.
Rant and rave is not as co-operative. One thinks of teenagers, or
senile geriatrics; of anger and madness. Question: how does rant and rave
fit with the boundary place to makeprophesy?
The how is not important in this case. What is important to
consider is the strident contrast of ideas inside of the word oracle. To rant
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and rave and, simultaneously, to define a boundary, is part of the
performance of an oracle.
Because of this ungainly requirement, the oracle say the woman
at Delphi, chosen and touched by the Gods requires a translator. Called a
priest, this man carefully listens to the nonsense of his charge, and then
interprets the sounds for the inquisitor, who often is a young prince caught
in what has come to be known as the crisis of identity.
Oracular cane. This benediction can not be ignored: when Cane
speaks, it tells the truth, but in an incomprehensible tongue. One relies on
the priest, an intermediary; but who is he?
oracular, our primary experience with Cane, is an electrical
shock, a ritual, the choreographic structure encompassing the narrative: a
prince, with the leisure to be introspective, leaves home and pays a visit to
the oracle. Who am I? What will I become? he asks. The oracle takes a
deep breath, and begins; the prince, confused by her babble, turns to a
priest, who stands at hand; the priest listens, and reflects, and then speaks
in the princes tongue; and the prince returns home with this knowledge
What is the nature of the oracle? What kind of power does she
possess?7
P.iv Spelling it Out
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This essay has a conflicted character due in part to the character it investigates. I
discuss the relationships between intention and action, the past and the present and the
future, fiction and non-fiction, all under the rubric of narrative; I discuss these systems
with the implicit aim of drawing lines, of distinguishing one element from another. That
this abstract endeavor is probably impossible to accomplish like the dreamer who
knows he dreams, but still desires is more than a little frustrating. Then why continue
along this vein? As it will become clear, this vein is first, of the text, Oracle Night, and
second, of my interpretative approach. That is to say, mine is not, for the sensation of
experiment, a contrived position; it is, I think, a necessary one.
Finally, I want to warn you about idiosyncrasies of the essay, and provide a word
of explanation.
Spelling it out: I do not always explain beforehand my direction, my course, myreason for selecting one lexeme over another. I have thought of two reasons to
warm this reticence. First, I often do not know where the text is taking me; you
are not alone in the disoriented experience. Second, I have made many
assumptions, a few of which are these: a) You have read the text; b) You have
read related, supplementary, etc., texts; c) You can foresee the end of a query
before its arrival, fill in the gaps of my implications, and are basically astute
enough a reader to converse with me about the problems I raise. Does not all of
this go without saying?
The First Person Singular: The generic plural, We, and the archaic One, inexpression of the authors position, are conventions, kinds of fiction, and in my
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view, noisome. My I, which is no less fictional than We but closer to the
truth, designates in this essay several things: a) myself, the author ofthis text; b)
myself, the reader ofthe text, Oracle Night; c) my vicarious self, the double of the
protagonist. Occasionally I forget myself, and a generic We comes through (I
cant catch all of them), and occasionally a We is used, as anybody who takes
reading seriously will understand, to express my alliance or complicity with a
character in the text.
I appreciate clarity. This essay is a concerted effort at reconstruction, anarchitectural act. To succeed it requires transparency. However, words are
ambiguous things; and ambiguity has a rhetorical purpose. For these reasons I
have not liquidated all of the related problems, i.e., unanswered questions,
analytical dead-ends, innuendos, etc.: either I can not achieve this, for the nature
of a word, or I do not, for the nature of my argument.
Continuity: Related to ambiguity is the question of formal continuity. This essayis literally broken. Figuratively, there is unity, a continuous thread, a sound
structure. But this structure is afigure of speech, or more specifically, a figure of
my narrative. It demands your participation, your insight. If the structure were
delineated and contained within safe limits, then its function, I think, would be
compromised.
P.vDramatis Personae
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Oracle Night is a novel about identity, the identity of a convalescent, the identity
of his work, I call it a memoir, but it is also a fiction; the identity of a moment in time,
and even more abstract, the identity of the reader. There are countless pieces of this
puzzle to sort through,8
and often the investigation seems endless, and I feel like the
wizened crackeddetective who will not let a certain unsolved case go, poring over the
evidence for decades. But things happen, and a trace appears, heres a fissure we didnt
notice before, and light, and clarity where the dust hasnt settled. With renewed vigor and
determination (madness la Ahab, Sutpen, Orr) we press on.
I act, by necessity, as if today, and these words, were my last. I know otherwise.
In the pleasure of reading Oracle Night and of composing this essay, I glimpse myself,
who I am, and what I will become. The phenomenon is dazzling. But not, I suspect, to my
eyes alone. I would be nothing without the loyal friendship and assistance, intellectually
and realistically, of my colleague, Matt Montgomery; or without the encouragement and
guidance of you, my readers, Professor Geoffrey Green and Professor Beverly Voloshin.
I hope your experience with this essay is as rewarding to you as the last two years of
reading and writing in your acquaintanceship have been for me.
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Part One
The trope my structural activity is most concerned with is synecdoche. As I said
above, an understanding of the structure of the text will contribute to an understanding of
the structure of its protagonist; and vice versa. There are numerous kinds of synecdoche
in Oracle Night, each of which I will describe in time, in turn.
In this part of the essay, I analyze the first twelve sections of the text. Since the
results of my labor appear unpolished and disparate, I make this note as a reminder: at the
center of this part is a narrative structure built with the figures of a supplicant, an oracle,
and a destiny. What I only suggest in this part, but what will become clear, is the
coupling of Orrs memoir with Orrs fiction. In other words, here is the foundation of a
larger structure; here is the description of a trajectory between a real present and an
imaginary future.
1. Sickness 9
The admission of illness imposes certain conditions. I read, I was sick. For a
time, I was not myself. Now Im better. Now Im healed, back to normal. And also,
While I was sick, time almost stopped. Or how can one explain the unpredictable
occasion of treachery in the body I have no recollection of the passing of time during
thattime. In either case, the admission, the opening sentence, establishes a boundary, a
limit to the story that is about to unfold; it creates an ambiguous moment in the past, and
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the intention, now, to clarify this ambiguity. I had been sick for a long time (1). The
statement connotes introspection, reconsideration, a search for differences and deviations
in the self.
I, the recipient of this claim, sympathize. I understand sickness. I understand a
breach of trust. Which is to pose the question, should I now trust a convalescing man?
What exactly is an unambiguous moment, an unambiguous state of health?
The sickness, in this case, is also a kind of citation. The opening is not itself; the
text, in its resemblance to the opening of Poes story The Man of the Crowd, is sick:
For some months I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent, and,
with returning strength, found myself in one of those happy moods which
are so precisely the converse ofennui moods of the keenest appetency,
whenthe film from the intellect, electrified, surpasses as greatly its
everyday condition Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived
positive pleasure even from many of the legitimate sources of pain.10
Metaphysically, for my protagonist, the sickness persists: in the present, he is seen
as a miracle, a freak, almost like the walking-dead, a man who breaks natural law and
gets away (1). This strain, however, attacks the ally, Poe, whose protagonist rises and
surpasses normality; our narrator descends. He is alienated from his own body; he
recalls himself as a phantom, as half of who he thinks he was, as if to say, Was I that
man?
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Alienated from time, from his body, from his words, our narrator, it would seem,
can shirk some responsibility for what follows. He speaks a kind of hearsay, from a
contrived position of innocence.
2. The Morning in Question
Here is the beginning, a second beginning, a second, specific ambiguity. I reread
what precedes this morning as a prologue, as a song encapsulating the essence of the
narrative I presently enter. I am now, or will soon, drift along like a spectator in
someone elses dream (2). And time will merely pass (3).
The narrative, however, is not a dream-vision. The narrator does not describe or
imply the illogical, magical, or absurd, any of the characteristics of a dream. Indeed, his
tone resists ambiguity; he pays close attention to detail.
I shall pay close attention to detail.
The estrangementI described above is repeated, in variations, in what follows.
The narrator stands apart from his experience, in reminiscence.11
What does he see in his
review? Ill gloss the obvious.
Names. On the morning in question (3) our narrator is on, and in, Court Street
(3). He enters a stationery shop, apalace (4), before which is a paper simulacrum of New
York, the city he inhabits. Inside the shop he confuses the initials of the proprietors
name, M.R. Chang, formister(8); in exchange, M.R. Chang confuses the narrators
name, Orr Sidney Orr, for the conjunction or(10).
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Number, measurement, space and time. Approximately three and a half months
separate the morning in question from Orrs release from the hospital (4); twenty years
separate the morning in question from Orrs present, the moment in which he writes
(9). The model of the city consists ofstationary towers (3); Changs ledger is made up
of columns (4); my narrator, who, this morning decided to go the other way, turning right
instead of left, heading south (3), makes horizontal peregrinations in one plane, and
vertical (descending) in another; the footnote (9), in its spatial position, is a diminished
text, a subtext, and also, in its temporal position, a metatext, an afterthought, a review and
overview of the text.
Universals. Space and time compel me to skip over a few particulars the
Hammett episode, modeled on Hawthornes story Wakefield; the allusion, in the word
lidand its context, to Poes story The Premature Burial in order to color in one of the
predominant themes of the narrative. The world is governed by chance. Randomness
stalks us every day of our lives, and those lives can be taken from us at any moment for
no reason at all (14).12 This thesis immediately pertains to the Hammett episode, the
story of a man named Flitcraft (13); simultaneously, Orr is a man who was supposed to
die, who surprised everyone, including himself, in living. The overlap, the semblance of
characteristics the authors experience predicting the experience of his character; and to
further complicate this relation, the character of Flitcraft, Hammetts invention, was
handed-over to Orr by John Trause (12), another author suggests a complex relation
between what is called the fiction and its environment of invention, ostensibly a non-
fiction. But this inquiry is impatient, slightly beside the point. The problem of chance is
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what I want illumined. The sentence, The world is governed by chance, in the context
of a man with a questionable past, for whom unidentified trauma occurred, and whose
name, Sidney, evokes without artifice the homophones cede and n, calls to Jocasta,
wife of Oedipus:
What should a man fear? Its all chance,
chance rules our lives. Not a man on earth
can see a day ahead, groping through the dark. (1069-1071)13
Here, then, is the twilight of the day in question. Is the answer to the question
randomness ororder? What are the consequences of choosing one over the other?
The list of questions and narrative-points I here provide has a twofold purpose.
First, I must reveal the tone of jurisprudence. Sidney Orr begins his narrative with an
unstated question, a questionable question, and begins in the proximity of law, on Court
Street, inside an edifice that shows to the world its universality and order, wherein the
definition of commonplace words, names, is closely scrutinized. Second, I want revealed
Orrs attention to structure, the microcosm and its constituency, and also the structure of
the macrocosm, of which Orr is not entirely aware. While he amends his narrative,
providing details in the form of footnotes, he alludes, primarily in the text,14
to countless
other narratives, one of which concerns Oedipus, who, on the approach to his destruction,
blithely amends the story of his life.
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3. Oracle Night I
The first entry into Orrs notebook is a microcosm, a novel-within-a-novel. Nick
Bowen is the protagonist of the embryonic novel. The mature novel is the one in Bowens
possession: Oracle Night, by Sylvia Maxwell.
I want to highlight the insignificant detail of the order of entries in Orrs
notebook. I suspect that the inner-notebook synecdochically reflects the outer-notebook,
Orrs primary text. Of course, this suspicion can only fully develop from the end of the
narrative; by the same token, here is a case in point of the reader-as-detective.
Details become significantin retrospect. Reading is actually rereading. An
argument against a theory of present-tense reader-response might go as follows: the total
significance, the full meaning of any aspect of a narrative is necessarily constructed from
a point beyond the end of the narrative, when the fullness of the narrative has been
experienced.15
The reading-moment is incomplete in itself. The reading-moment is a
prophetic moment, in how it draws pieces of meaning from the future, from what will
happen. Until this future is realized, nothing can be said conclusively.
the sentence does not consist solely of a statement which after all,
would be absurd, as one can only make statements about things that exist
but aims at something beyond what it actually says. This is true of all
sentences in literary works, and it is through the interaction of these
sentences that their common aim is fulfilled. This is what gives them their
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own special quality in literary texts. In their capacity as statements they
are always indications of something that is to come, the structure of which
is foreshadowed by their specific content.16
The meaning of any particular word or phrase involves the leap of information
through time, over the textual terrain. Be patient.
I will describe this phenomenon in more detail. Envision a map of the book, over
which, like the descriptions of airplane routes from city to city, lines are drawn,
originating and terminating in hubs, loci of meaning, or more precisely loci of authorship
(origin) and readership (destination). What do these lines communicate?
3.iA Novel
Oracle Nightbegins with a war, in the theater of chance; it also begins with the
imminent conclusion of this war.
Oracle Nightis a memoir, a return, in the mind of the narrator, to a catastrophic
moment.
Oracle Nightbegins with a bifurcated question, a selfish question: it is both the
question itself, and also the question of the questions existence.
The juxtaposition of multiple narratives requires some explication. Bowen (Orrs
fiction) is reading Maxwells fiction (Orrs sub-fiction, and metafiction) when Rosa
Leightman (Orrs fiction) enters (16). Since Leightman is related to Maxwell, Bowen
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senses the uncanny: the woman before him is a variation, by blood, of the woman above
him, his employer, the author of the book on his desk, who is also a woman behind him,
temporally, and beneath him, ontologically, in the sense that Maxwell creates fiction, is
connected to fiction, and is herself a kind of fiction.
But are these designations ofOracle Nights and narrators necessary? The
conflation of novels and narrators could be a point of the narrative that denies natural
categorization, i.e., denies my designations, the winnowing. In which case Oracle Night
begins with something like a war, something like a question of knowledge, and also
something like a sickness, and something like an investigation. A piece of the narrative
reflects the complete narrative: my Oracle Nightdoes not begin with the imminent end of
a war, but sinceOrrs Oracle Nightdoes begin in such a way, it is possible toreadthe
second beginning, Orrs, in its precursor. And vice versa. A part of our beginning is in a
part of his, thisbeginning.
The beginning of the story, then, is unclear. Of this I am sure. Is it here, or there?
Is there one beginning, two, three, more?
However, this playful ambiguity comes as no surprise. The conflation of
narratives is only a facet of the puzzle. The narrative is also indefinite, adrift, about
levitation, and with levity. Eva Bowen can have any of three possible jobs (23); Nick is
suspended in midair (26).
The footnotes grow, invading the space of the text. Which is the text, now; which
the story, which the commentary on the story?
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The eerie indefiniteness manifests in de Koonings sketch, Self-portrait with
Imaginary Brother(17). Here is a true self, a testament to the real life of the painter,
beside a fictional figure, who is not, as in Drer, mythical. The other figure is not Venus,
not Death. The figure is an abstraction of the painter as a younger boy; he is the image of
de Koonings memory of himself as a child; or, stranger, he is the image he might have
hadof himself as a child as a child.
The question to which I will return many times is this:
Where is the origin? (Who is the child?) What isoriginal in or
about the text? Can everything in Oracle Nightfind its analogy
in the de Kooning sketch?
The question of the origin introduces the oracles
theme: if nothing is original, then everything, to some degree,
is predictable. If everything is a kind of copy (and the notion oforiginality only a result of
scattered copies and forgetfulness), then there is a way by device, by algorithm, by
inference of predicting, for a given scenario, what will occur next. In other words,
unoriginality permits, in the destruction of a unique thing and of an atomistic view,
meaningful resemblance, the relationship one thing (de Kooning) has to its predecessor
(the child) without whichunderstanding of the thing would be impossible.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD?
3.iiAn Ethics of Ambiguity
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One problem unoriginality poses is an ethical one. I will restate the problem
briefly.
When Orr interrupts the Bowen narrative, and reveals himself as its author, as its
sketcher(22), figuratively lifting the lid off his fiction to permit a view of the works, he
undermines all ethical trajectories suggested by the narrative. If there is any moral weight
to the story, then revealing how it is structured saps its strength. The moral of the story, I
would like to show, necessitates a pure, untouchable form.A moral is singular and
unequivocal; it is self-evident, as the form of such a story is self-evident. There is no
inside to a such a form: the form is transparent. To see the works, all of this is to say,
indicts morality: ifthe works differ in any way from the form of the moral, or the form of
the story, then the story is amoral.17
The relationship between the inside and the outside (form) of a narrative is a
variation on a theme I have still to introduce.
Young Oedipus, for the impugnment of his birthright, goes before the Oracle at
Delphi.18 Two questions: first, does Delphis pronouncement reveal the works, the
mechanism inside of Oedipus, of his narrative? Then, what is ethical about the princes
problem, and how is the pronouncement related to this? I ask these questions to introduce
a turn on the dichotomy I stated above. In a sense, Delphis pronouncement is the
mechanism inside of the narrative, and it does differ from the eventual form of the
narrative; in fact, young Oedipus conscientiously makes this difference, by running away
from Corinth, and toward Thebes. But clearly Oedipus the Kingis not an amoral
narrative. Any amorality, then, about Oedipus he is a murderer, he commits incest
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must have its root elsewhere, in a sub- or metanarrative, in a narrative in any case
different from the one read by Delphi.
In this regard, the difference between the inner narrative and the superficial one,
or the form that narrative presents, does not necessarily imply amorality. I will return to
this problem.
3.iii Order of the Night
Bowens logic attributes intention and significance to phenomena of the cosmos.
Furthermore, he is egocentric, believing that occurrences in the world happen for him,
with him in mind.
His evasion of the falling gargoyle is his escape from what is planned for him,
against him. It is also an escape from himself, from his fate. For a moment he is not in the
place where someone (himself included) expects him to be. He is, like Wakefield, out of
step.19 Still, by a peripheral view, the gargoyle strikes: it kills Bowen, and the man who
walks away from the accident is somebody else. On the other hand the gist of Bowens
paradox it is Bowen saying to himself,Dont think about the past, its not your past
(65). A vestige of the other man exists inside of Bowen; or Bowen himselfis the vestige
inside of somebody else. The separation is not clean.
It is not a clean universe. Accidents happen all the time. Bowen, for unclear
reasons, sees the universe as an ordered, meaningful system. And his life is meaningful
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because of this system; meaning is bequeathed to him. In himself, Bowen suspects, he is
nothing more than a cog in a cosmic machine, an automaton.
The implications of this view are numerous and somewhat banal. I will only cite a
few. There are two types of meaning implied by the scheme: theocentric and
anthrocentric. That is, meaning comes to Bowen from an omniscient being; or meaning is
wrested and derived, by interpretation, from the workings of the universe. (The latter
does not necessarily dismiss the omniscient being; it only makes him stingy.)
it is by the regular return of the units and of the associations of units
that the work appears constructed, i.e., endowed with meaning; linguistics
calls these rules of combinationforms, and it would be advantageous to
retain this rigorous sense of an overtaxed word: form, it has been said, is
what keeps the contiguity of units from appearing as a pure effect of
chance: the work of art is what man wrests from chance.20
4.John Trause I
Orrs walk follows a path between perspectives. He is positioned between one
present [2002] and another [1982]; between a present and a past; between numerous
selves the writer, the character of his memoir, the husband, the friend; between grades
of objectivity, subjectivity, imagination, and fiction.
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His entrance into imaginary space (29) has a vertiginous effect. In the way the
mystery of a murder seeks resolution (in narrative-magnetism, the fulfillment of
expectation and law), Orrs recollection wants to identify itself with fact.
The detective, before a corpse and clue, in anticipating his adversarys next move,
splits himself into two imaginary characters: the adversary (perpetrator of murder) and
the detective. He walks backwards. Figuratively, he choreographs the murder;
objectively, he correlates clues in time and space. He will recreate the moments prior to
the murder, recreate the actions of the murderer and victim. He will play the role of the
murderer, will persuade the chief investigator that his rendition of the crime, while only a
rendition, is logical, consistent, plausible, and possible. To what end? The anticipation of
the next crime; the detective wants to lead, to precede the murderer by a step. This is a
dangerous game, for two reasons. The first is obvious. With his back turned, as the faux
murderer, the detective is vulnerable to the real murderer. The second reason is more
subtle. The detective stands, he believes, for the law; he may actlike a murderer, to the
letter, but the consummating actis beyond his ability, against his character. He will
reveal himself in his diffidence, in his eventual reluctance, to move forward.
The moment of the detectives hesitation is an opening, a gamble, an opportunity,
and paradox. In the crucial second, he must turn, jump out of character, and confront the
narrative. For if the detective does not consummate his act with the act, namely murder,
then he will fail in anticipating the next crime: a second murder is committed. And
clearly, if the detective forgets himself and upstages his adversary by committing the next
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murder, then a second murder objectively, to his protg, by the original murderer is
committed.
Sidney Orrs story, the approach to a solution, the answer to the question of a day,
is a form of detective work, necessarily investigative, necessarily incomplete.
The murder will occur.
My structural activity, too, compelled by a desire to maintain law and order, to
capture the adversary before he kills again, is the enactment, the articulation of the
narrative, ofhis narrative.21
I follow. I lead. I mimic my adversary (an author),
anticipating his moves, words.
On the one hand, I describe the quotidian. Imitation is a source of pleasure.
Imitation offers a form of order and rhythm; I learn by it.22
But consider the question
such imitation poses for reality, my present, the moment I write these words. The real,
and tactile, come into conflict with the imaginary.
Orr projects himself in multiple, contrary directions. He moves through the rooms
in Trauses apartment; he writes of this movement in 82, in 2002. The room he describes
is simultaneously a real place, once visited by him; and also a literaryplace, a description
on a page, in the ink of his recollection. The object of reminiscence is at once the afterlife
of the object, and also the moment of remembering, or if it is our means, of writing.23
4.iRichard Ostrow
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In this microcosm, Richard Ostrow renders Sidney Orr, a man transfixed by a
moment in the distant past. By means of a machine, Ostrow becomes oracular. He knows
the future, in the perspective of the second, artificial present, of the projected company,
his family. He looks upon himself rather,from the point of view of himself at fourteen,
in the other present and upon his sister, mother, father: it is 1953.24
And now,
mechanically and magically, Ostrow knows the future, knows the fate of each person.
Time is delible. Ostrow returns to the narrative to ponder an ambiguous moment;
a moment prelude to disaster. He wants to revise. He wants, possibly, another machine, a
device that, via image or sound, will undermine his present, fold the present in half and
thrust it backward, into the past. The present, he imagines, like the oracle, is notsingular,
not a monad, but a multifarious phenomenon. With it comes the vertiginous sense thatI
have been here before, done this before, and for this reason I should know what will
happen next; vertiginous because my orientation is such that I do not (think that I) know
the future. The sudden gift of this knowledge is like a blow to the face.
Communing with the dead exposes my subjectivity to its limit, its extinction. I
will eventually learn, in this dialogue, of my end.
Consider the paradigm of the oracle. Oedipus visits Delphi to learn of his future.
The oracle is mortal. Still, knowing some of the future the death of the supplicant; her
own death, too Delphi is not as mortal as Oedipus. Her unlimited vision makes her like
a god, somewhat immortal. From her perspective the supplicant is a ghost; from her
perspective his death has already occurred.
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My point is this: communicating with the past is an oracular activity. The
communicator knows the future; he will then establish a future perspective in the context
ofa moment in the past. The present, it follows, becomes like something past;
immediacy, the presence of the communicator, is now exchangeable for what is dead.
5. Grace I
The sound of Orrs voice retains his wife, anchors her to him. His words are
sounds alone, mesmerizing.
In the shadow of a lie Orr reacts by expressing his need to draw Grace close, to
prevent her drifting away. He associates the presence of untruth with loneliness, the
removal of his wife, the distance she creates between them.
How close am I to Sidney Orr?
When proximity and mesmerism are accomplices to a word, skepticism must
inform my understanding of that word. The space between the word and its meaning is no
longer a secret. What happens herein, between utterance and understanding, between use
and the thing itself?
Green, says Orr,is innocence.
Envy, Grace replies (49).
Here is a possible resolution to this odd chord. Orr says innocence when he thinks
envy; he cannot bear to utter the word. Grace says envy because she reads Orr, she
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deciphers him; Grace knows his word connotes an opposition. She also knows that Orr
could justifiably envy John Trause.
This coding troubles Orr. When the meaning ofgreen drifts, it vivifies Graces
exteriority, her antagonism. It is a minute example of Orrs inability to control the
meaning of his own story.
Orr, author of this account (and example), cannot thereafter put the characteristic
of Graces into words. Possibly because he is not fully aware of Graces character;
possibly because this element is ineffable, closely resembling the quality of his (Orrs)
language that lets Bowen insult Eva with words from across the boundary of their
relationship: Shes the kind of woman who could turn a man inside out, he says, of
Rosa, whos seated across the room (24).
The uncharacteristic word, behavior, motif reveal a facet of verity. It is a grisly
clue. Orrs remark might be, Ill recount everything exactly as it happened. Although I
would like to change the words, I cant. It is against my constitution to meddle with the
truth. And mine is a true account. This innuendo, of course, throws verity itself into
question. It throws Grace, too, into the light.
Bowen is Orrs invention, a real character. Any uncharacteristic behavior of his
can be chalked up to Orrs artifice, his fiction.
The same cannot be said of Grace. And while the question of her
uncharacteristicness is interesting, I do not think it is as puzzling as the primary question
of her character. When Grace is in character, whos character is she?
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Grace is half a character. As previously, with the rooms of Trauses apartment,
the woman is real, and literal; of history, but also of Orrs reminiscence, his imagination.
The conflict Orr experiences is not so much dramatized, or of the narrative, than it is one
of ontology. Who is Orr? Where are the boundaries between his states of authorness,
memoirist, character, and husband? In other words, Orr may want to record the true
account of a conversation he has with his wife; but the closer he moves to what he
perceives as the truth, the closer he also moves to his status as the author, the interpreter
of his memory of the experience.
Truth is transparent. Its inside and outside are one and the same. It does not
require interpretation.
What results from Orrs problem is a form of silence, silence between Orr and
Grace, and silence in Orr himself. He does not question Grace. He defers responsibility
for the answer to Grace, naively assuming that the problem is not his; which defers his
own character. From another tack, ask, how else could Orr respond to Grace? He could
be passive and think nothing of her behavior; he could be assertive and address the
strangeness, confront her with What is the cause of your silence, disquiet, anger? Or
more specifically, What did I do to make you this way?
Orr calls Graces act uncharacteristic (54). He recounts, actually, in good faith,
her silence, he recreates the mystery in the heart of his wife. Simultaneously he turns his
back on the chasm of his own character. By not taking, or at least assuming,
responsibility for the unnamable between them, Orr becomes uncharacteristic of Orr. He
is divided, like Bowen, like Ostrow, like Dupin.25
The other man whom Orr assumes to
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be the cause of Graces silence, and to whom Orr leaves responsibility is an imaginary
projection of himself. He is the marble-player; he is the detective with questionable
ethics.26
By not confronting Grace, and asking her why she is upset, Orr perpetuates the
presence of his imaginary other; moreover, he suggests an illicit intimacy with this figure.
Now, does Orr want this criminal unity? Does he want to be a man with a fractured
consciousness, who looks at his wife and sees an imaginary woman (Eva), who goes to
his friends apartment and feels that hes inside one of his own stories?
The delusion is unlawful. Orr will trap Grace inside of a fictional idealism: Grace
is a superwoman and a sphinx, all that a man desires, but also inscrutable, unfathomable,
even dangerous.27
Grace, clearly, is not a sphinx, or superwoman. Grace is pleasing, eloquent, free;
words illegible to Orr.
6.Nick Bowen I
The other man is allied with chance. It is chance, Orr wonders, that governs the
universe, and attacks his will to live, attacks his intention to write a true account. His
narrative gives order to the universe.
The other man the inscrutable (criminal) man of the crowd will not turn and
reveal his face, not speak for himself.28
He requires Orrs presence, Orrs voice. Thus a
confusion of pronouns, a ubiquity and obscurity of OrrsI. How far into his fiction
(Bowen) will Orr trespass? The I in this case sounds like the I of a narrator; but Orr
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is not the narrator of Bowens story. He is the author. In any case, Bowens narrative is
barely a story, and more of a sketch (22). Do these qualities the storys unstoriness; the
misplacement of its narrator necessitate Orrs presence, guidance, interference?
The writer, I wonder, does not ask himself, in the moment of invention, whether a
characters action is right or wrong; that is, right or wrong in itself, apart from the
scheme of the narrative. The author is like the oracle, in that he has a view of the entire
drama, he knows the end in the beginning and middle. Even when he denies this, as Orr
suggests; Bowens end ultimately comes from (by indictment, prediction) the hand of his
creator.
Orr, again, would defer responsibility for his characters action, since the action
merely mimes the action of a different authors (Hammetts) character. This begs the
question: Is there a unique, original action in fiction? Is the author ever responsible for
what his character does; for what his bookdoes?
The question of responsibility has a far reach. In the arena of unoriginal literature,
the author has little or no responsibility for his character, reader, or himself. This fiction
however, which is also a memoir, is purposeful, it has transformative potential for its
writer. In this case the narrative seeks, not exclusively, to answer a question, to locate a
missing day. Orris responsible to himself, to the success or failure of his project.
Precisely, either he recovers the day, and thatcrucial aspect of himself, or he lets it
deteriorate.
Oedipus:
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This man you know him? ever see him there?
Shepherd:
Confused, glancing from the
Messengerto the King.
Doing what? what man do you mean?
Oedipus:
Pointing to the Messenger.
This one here ever have dealing with him?
Shepherd:
Not so I could say, but give me a chance,
my memorys bad (1237-41)
Unoriginality has pernicious results. As above, with Orrs removal from Grace,
the ontological mystery about his position in his narrative the embedding of multiple
narratives, the stories-within-stories reveals a principle of construction. Orr is
cataloguing, forming a pastiche. One may carp and say the stories of the catalogue are
each original pieces; and this might be true. The problem is in the form, the implication,
in the precedent of a pastiche: this story shows how stories depend on other stories. This
is a story that cannot stand on its own. As a result, the origin of the story is lost. The story
that depends on (and from) another story opens the possibility of dependence on further,
more microscopic stories. Originality, a theoretical but malcontent ghost, is shoved off,
back, deferring to another narrative, another author.
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Orrs words are sounds alone, mesmerizing. The meaning of the story relies more
on form than it does content. Scheherazade, for example, contrives open endings to her
stories, in order to continue the story the following evening; in order, as the story goes, to
keep her head. Death, unoriginality would imply, is the real end, the only end to the story.
The pastiche sends a spotlight, a straight beam for the reader onto Thanatos, the
undisputable conclusion.
But my gentle interpretation of the pastiche is also a story, another story, a figure
of speech. Hammetts Spades Flitcraft, Flaggs visions (which I approach), and
Delphi: the story is an indicator, a test (like Hamlets play) of the future. Its purpose is
metaphorical. The experience of the future occurrence expressed in narrative interludes
is actually an interpretation of the occurrence, an interpretation that wants to effect the
present, to adjust our awareness of what is happening. Of course if the future occurrence
is real, i.e., will we believe in the oracle, then it necessarily takes into account its own
interpretation.
At this point, I only anticipate the complexity of this problem.
7. Oracle Night II
Oracle Nightbegins with a war, an explosion, blindness, like Hamlet, with a
staggering figure, the enemy, the question of identity. What does the pronoun I, here,
designate? Whos there?
Who am I? It is the distillation of every question for the oracle.
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Who is the author of the text? Is it Sidney Orr? Maxwell? Trause? Someone else?
Our narrator, Orr, contains this slight ambiguity; he owns it. Any time the question of a
name occurs, I turn to Sidney, returning to the moment in the Paper Palace when M.R.
Chang confused Orrfor, first, or, and then, oar(10). Is the narrator part of a conjunction,
a connector of alternatives; can he unify what is disjunctive; will he correct or rephrase
what was stated previously?
Orris reason to pause, to wait, expectantly, for the conclusion. In his company, I
cannot repress a sense of imminence.
Or is he more tangible than that; a suffix to abstract verbs, a transformer that
makes them more like me, an agent, aprojector, a sensor, an inventor? Or is he even
more tangible, like gold, like the change in my pocket, like the block of iron holding my
papers down?
Or may I introduce alien homophones the letters dont care about borders and
suggest that our narrator describes the difference between hors, a French word for
outside and exception, and or, a French word for now and therefore; a
description of the rope in a game of tug-of-war, where one side stands for immediacy,
presence, action, lucidity, and the other side for misfits, anomaly, deferment, or even as
my Mexican aunt invariably says about, for example, the dishes in the sink, maana?
And also I cannot neglect its (relevant) permutations, the ora in oracle, which, as
a verb, speaks, supplicates, prays; and also, as a noun, defines a boundary.
Thus oracy, the ability to express oneself in and understand spoken language.
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And, genetically unrelated, but not irrelevant, orrery: a machine that represents
the solar system, the position of the planets at any given time.
Orris part of a machine that makes us privy to all states of the cosmos.
And, no surprise, his given name, Sidney, contains, among many things, the stars.
I would like to stop there. Clearly, more can be said; more must be said. I wonder
if Ill return to this, concentrating an investigation to and on Orr. At the same time, the
puzzle is omnipresent, owned by the narrator, referred to in every word of his account. In
a sense, there is no return for there is no turn, no leaving this man. The question of the
day is, what can we do with Sidney Orr? Who is he?
Lungs gasping for air, my skin perpetually awash in sweat, I drifted along
like a spectator in someone elses dream, watching the world as it chugged
through its paces and marveling at how I had once been like the people
around me: always rushing, always on the way from here to there, always
late, always scrambling to pack in nine more things before the sun went
down. (2-3)
Exiled from the world, Orr and his narrative present forms of blindness, amnesia,
the despair in knowing that the mind contains what is known andunapproachable,
inaccessible.
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Is or, here, one word or several words? The linguist and the philosopher
will perhaps say that each time, since the meaning and function change,
we should read a different word. And yet this diversity crosses itself and
goes back to an appearance of identity which has to be taken into account.
If what circulates in this way is not a family of synonyms, is it the simple
mask of a homonymy? But there is no noun: the thing itself is (that which
is) absent, nothing is simply named, the noun is also a conjunction or an
adverb. No more word: the efficacy often comes from one syllable which
scatters the word. There is, therefore, neither homonymy nor synonymy.
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7.iIn the Dark of Night
The exiles view of the world presents itself in other figures. Everyone gazes into
murky time. Genevive looks back in the way Orr looks back, manifest in her memoir,
Oracle Night(61). Richard Ostrow looks back; John Trause looks back. Nick Bowen and
Lemuel Flagg look forward, abandoning their prior selves. I am reminded, again, of
Benjamins angel of history, a synthesis of the two figures I am describing.30
Walking
backward into the future, the angel watches helplessly as the singular event, the
catastrophe, history,piles upward at her feet.
The observer of history the direction of the gaze, forward or backward, does not
matter cannot choose what he sees. The observation itself, it would seem, excludes will
and judgment: the painful as well as the pleasurable will appear. That is, to gaze is to
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expose myself, my vulnerabilities. The alternative is to close the eyes, to choose not to
look. But is this plausible? Can Flagg, for example, make this choice? (He does: he kills
himself.) Does Ostrow make this choice? (He does: he decides to not look anymore. He
buries the dead for a second time.) Does Orr make this choice? It is unclear. In his
resistance to chance lies an attenuation of his will, the air of determinism. Orr is not
inquisitive; he is disengaged with the world, ambivalent to, specifically, Grace. He
presumes that the direction of his course, and the compelling force behind him, is out of
his control.
Are these valid points? Or do I address one of the infinite tacit fictions rooted in
Oracle Night?
Flagg, who prevails over his destiny, could answer Yes, and No. His suicide
demonstrates that the pull of fate (at least, at most, in his case) is escapable; or that there
exist for one trajectory (of Being) two destinies. Fates, or Flaggs, his Will, a destiny
that may only be suicide, the destruction of will; as ifWill were a slave to Fate, the
intermediary between Fates Regime of the Future, and the present ego.
However, Flaggs suicide is his fate. Flaggs interpretation of his vision, of
Knotts infidelity as the doom of his marriage andas his end, may only be the
penultimate act disguisedas the ultimate. Fate plays with us, with our notion of, and
fixation with, uniqueness. Fate plays with Flaggs assumption that infidelity can mean
one and only one thing, namely, his end.
You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring
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a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see
you will kill your father, the one who gave you life! (Oedipus873-875)
The end is a concept on the margin of our language. It sits on the fence, useful,
but not fully trusted, incorporated, or understood. Flagg, Orr, Oedipus, myself, we cannot
define this term. With our attention, it moves out of reach.
8.Nick Bowen II
Technically, Bowen is not struck by anything more than an impulse. His story to
Ed Victory Ive already been struck by lightning once today (63) is idiomatic,
banter, and also unique, with a kernel of truth.
Lightning is a gargoyle and Rosa Leightman.Lightning encodes Flitcraft, the idea
of levitation, the man who flies, changing places and identities in an instant. The
gargoyle/Leightman/lightning is Bowens transformer and fable, like Hammetts Spades
OShaughnessy, here is the potential of weightlessness, lawlessness, an opportunity to
escape.
In the fable, Bowen imagines that the gargoyle connects with him, imagines,
moreover, that the gargoyle is intendedfor him. He goes so far as to imagine, by the
phrase (63), that the gargoyle is meant to destroy him. But he escapes, he survives.
One aspect of the aura of this tale suggests that Bowen disappears in order to find
the cause behind the gargoyle, his assassin. He disappears in order to exact revenge.
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Thats another story, only the beginning of which is suggested here. Bowen will write his
own story; he will fictionalize, abstract a drama from an accidental event. This does not
simplify the drama; I am not saying that Bowen was lucky in avoiding the accident. The
accident itself is less meaningful than Bowens response to it. Bowen might have left his
wife, and gone to Kansas City, regardless of a falling gargoyle.
On the other hand, Bowen simply fictionalizes. Bowen knows that what he says is
not true. But hes a man on the run. Hes covering himself with stock lies. There is an
aura to the performance. It is the American Dream gone sour; the American Dream that
lets anybody become anybody. Here is the place where everythings for sale, in a land of
limitless opportunity.
The lie, or is it merelyfiction, is thrown into the light by its contrast to an overt
semblance of truth. The verity of Orrs addendum (63) can be tested; I can check Kansas
City archives, for July of 1981. But to what end? Is it unheard of for an author to
historicize fiction? No. Should I make a catalogue, parallel lists, of true events and false
events in Oracle Night? The assay would do nothing for the novel; the truth and untruth
of material is not important. No, not exactly that: the truth/untruth of material in relation
to my world, the environment of this interpretation, in the context of this reader, is not
important. The relation of truth/untruth is only important in the contextof the novel. In
this regard, it would be informative to find out when Orr lies.
8.iHis Parole
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Bowen, in a place strange and flat (68), is in a revealing position. If my
structuralist activity ofOracle Nightbegins with the four hundred and ninety five pieces,
exhibits, evidence of Orrs acts, then it should end with a description of rules, some rules,
a langue not of Orr but in which Orr lives.
Another way of describing my scheme is this: the langue, a language system, is a
murderer. I, a linguist, am a detective. The parole I define as a series of corpses. It is my
job to study the corpses and infer the murderers M.O.31
One corpse is Nick Bowen. He speaks in terms ofheight. To understand his life
up to this point requires an understanding of verticality, of diminished horizons; an
understanding of New York, of the relation between an absent horizon and contingency.
Another corpse is the book in his possession, Oracle Night, which he reads four
times in a row (65). I conjecture that Bowen transforms himself into Lemuel Flagg, the
man who turns his gaze forward, blindly. Or, by further inference, conclude that a look
backward, in reminiscence, is a look upon oneself; and since Bowen disowns himself,
when he looks back, he looks onto nothing.
It is the book. This is our talisman, our safe passage to the murderer. (Revisit
Oracle Night.)
Does Bowen see his future therein? Will he be betrayed, as Flagg is betrayed?
Will he commit suicide, as Flagg commits suicide? It may be the case that the text of
Oracle Nightis never the same text twice, for different readers. Each reader finds a
unique future. Question: If that is the case, and since I know the end, what in Oracle
Night describes Bowens destiny?
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Another corpse, less obvious, is the word, any word, the minute aspect of the text.
My reading (and yours) creates immediacy, a presence. I may turn back in the book, to
review what Ive already read. This is significant in that the act of rereading is not
analogous to the act of remembering. The past, unlike the text, possesses an illegible
quality; the text is always legible. The reader has a diachronic and oracular view; there is
no past, present, and future, in the textual context. These states are self-contained, unified
in the whole, and in this view, closed text. I become, in the reader, a rendition of Flitcraft.
My present can be abandoned. I can after Orrs guidance, cutting through the time and
space of his narrative switchback, spiral, zigzag over the terrain,
32
return to a prior
position, old ground, and trace again, in search of the spot, the mark, an M, or O.
8.ii The Measuring Bandit
The end is imminent. Move on, the text says: move! The review reading
backward is only figurative. The fact is that the narrative is a one-way street, and Orr,
in his oracular mode, has a teleology in mind: he envisions, momentarily, the collision of
three lines, Bowen, Rosa, and Eva. For unclear reasons, he postpones this collision. He
wont complete the story. The cause is perhaps fatidic despair: the constriction of destiny
around a moment of anagnorisis. Orr traps himself in a character who is enlightened (by
Rosa), and buried (by Victory), in a character who only looks forward, but who works for
a man (Victory) at reviewing, revising, and restructuring the past, in a character who
abandons memory, but who works for a man whose raison detre is memory.
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The trap is a coil, like a spring: linearity in one plane, circularity in another.
The trap is a braid: one strand is time, another space, and the third matter. Victory
wants to disassemble his spatially (geographically) ordered library, and reassemble it
chronologically (74), which he claims to be the superior system.
Whatever the final organization looks like, it will not be entirely chronological.
The geography will only be dispersed. From a particular angle, a glance, a spatial-order
will endure. For this reason, Victorys project is short-sighted, forcibly without horizons,
ironically self-aggrandizing.
Yes, said Dupin. The measures adopted were not only the best of their
kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been deposited
within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond a question,
have found it. The measures then were good in their kind, and well
executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case, and to the
man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the Prefect, a
sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs33
9. Grace II: Intermission
Grace suggests a moral, karmic order in the universe. When she asserts that her
sickness is caused by, and in exchange for, her behavior toward Orr the prior evening, she
is half right. Her sickness is caused by her secret (which I approach); by her complicity
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with Trause, in his quip at Orrs embarrassing affliction, At least you know youre not
pregnant (41).
10.Eva & Rosa
The story ofthe missing husbandis popular. Every husband goes missing some
time. Without evidence of a crime, there is nothing inherently criminal about Evas
absent husband.
The response of the police to Evas request ricochets the problem, and forces the
inquirer to internalize it, to realize that the problem is her(quasi-) problem alone. There
is nothing the Law will do for her. Such a response puts the inquirer in an un-lawful
position, in how her view differs from that of the Law. It compels her to take the law into
her own hands; if she is to solve the problem, or at least discover if it is a real problem
(lawful) or her fantasy (unlawful), then she will need to take action outside of the
jurisdiction of the law. She will temporarily invent her own laws.
Consequently, Eva lies. She pretends, in relation to the world, that her life is
normal, that her husband is home, sick. The lie gestates in incredulity. It is possible, Eva
considers, that Bowen is notmissing but only a philanderer. And one step closer to reality
(or is it one step away?) is the idea of Bowens kidnapping: that Bowen remains her
husbandbut has fallen into a trap, and is held captive. In any case, Eva is terrified of
revealing one of two possibilities: either she has been abandoned, un-wifed; or she is
crazy, in believing that Bowen has been kidnapped.
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Her condition is exacerbated by her actions. She cancels Bowens credit cards;
what choice does she have? Soon she will pay his delinquent fees (83), pay, she thinks,
for her husbands (a third scenario) dementia. If Bowen wanted to hide from her, if he
had a secret, he would have covered his trail. Payment of the fee annuls the secret: the
man is out of his mind, or kidnapped, taken, in both cases, against his will. Still, without
him, Eva cannot confirm one suspicion or the other. And she realizes that her decision to
cancel the credit cards assuming theyd been stolen; her action makes sense; what
choice does she have? forces her husband into a form ofdelinquency, and has possibly
widened a rift between them. She must fear her own sense of obsession, of unduly
maternity, of wanting to be too close to her husband. This is why she breaks down: Eva is
in an impossible position. Any action is the wrong action. If she does not cancel the credit
card, then the thieves who kidnapped her husband will use them (Bowen is either out of
his mind, or kidnapped); if she cancels the credit card, then the thieves cannot use them;
but if there are no thieves, and Bowen is notout of his mind, and absent by his own
volition, then he will need the credit card, and her decision to cancel the card attacks
Bowen, something Eva, who hopes to recover him, can not do.
The bestscenarios delinquent fees suggest to Eva are these: Bowen is out of his
mind; or Bowen is kidnapped.
The paradox I brush against is this: silence is the word that dies in being born.
The thread binding Bowen, Eva, and Rosa, is their relation to silence, an inexpressible
word. In the way Bowen appeals to Rosa (via her answering machine), Eva would appeal
to Bowen: At least tell me that you dont want to talk to me. The silence creates a
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secret, the potential of a secret. And that the secretis speech itself, turns the content of
this secret into its form: refusal to give the secret is also, in appearance, a refusal to
speak. However, the inquirer does not know this. Her (and his) language differs from that
of the secretor. At least tell me that you wont tell me they might ask, not knowing that
silence un-speech is also spoken, also a signifier.
11.Ed Victory
The balance of qualities between technological device (Flitcraft, pills, telephone)
and character (Orr, Bowen, Rosa) is the anthropomorphism of the device.
Those notebooks are very friendly, but they can also be cruel (45)
I am not as piqued by this phenomenon as I am by the opposite transformation,
the techno-morphism of character. I mean by this term the proximity the character has to
the metonymic devices of its creation, namely, paper, pencil, pen.
The entrance to The Bureau of Historical Preservation is through a door in the
ground, in a derelict train yard. The land is hatched with parallel and intersecting lines.
Apart from the figures Victory and Bowen cut into the horizon, this is two-dimensional
space, a plane. The desuetude of the yard is accentuated by the vast sky, the immediacy
of open space, of freedom of movement, of irony and reminiscence. It is a wasteland.
Where are the trains? They have been replaced by planes. Travel is now primarily by
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flight, by rising up, by entering other dimensions. The middle of the country, once a
center of commerce, due to its position on the line, is now forgotten. Commerce,
monetary transactions, information: these aspects of culture transcend the plane, are now
metaphysical, poised against the attractive force of the earth.
Victory and Bowen momentarily iterate Orrs position in relation to his fiction:
above it, in scrutiny, skeptical of its reality. Nothing remains but to open the door and
enter, to find the cause of artifice in the works.34
Bowen, who is a sketch (22), who already wants dimension, now immerses
himself in flatness, penetrates the hatched plane and descends (like a gargoyle) into the
earth. The descent is unnatural: gargoyles should not break their footing; and only miners
and the deceased enter the earth. Breaking the plane, inventing a different line, trajectory,
and dimension, breaks the perimeters of the narrative.
With the disruption of linearity, the cause of any moment is obscured.
But whatlinearity? Orr is inside his Flitcraft, touring disjunctive space and time.
His narrative is full of holes, loops, mirrors, passage ways. (Bowen, for instance, in
entering The Bureau of Historical Preservation, trespasses in the domain of the author by
entering a metaphorical footnote, a subtext and metatext, the site of explication.) If I am
to define linearity I will need to include these qualities.
Or should I abandon the word? Am I, in talking about linearity, standing in a
wasteland, in the heartland?
That is, linearity is obsolete. What I mean by this word is something it fails to
describe. Something, I admit, that I fail to fully grasp.
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What linearity? What is transgressive about Bowens penetration of the plane?
The question does not have an answer. I am describing, I hope, the real vertigo I
occasionally experience when reading having climbed higher in the book than I meant
to, and looking back, looking down and also the vertigo (no, its inverse,
claustrophobia; he climbs down, in,and looks up) of our protagonist, Bowen.
Two shadows, then, rise and fall upon us: the first, from the house of memory; the
second, from a shrine to the present (91). We might live in memory; but we worship in
the present. I can relax, let myself be, eat, sleep, make love inside of memory; but when
inside the present, I stand back, I lower my eyes, venerate, I look actually, spiritually
at a hole in the ground, at an idea of my own presence, an idea of my love for the Law, in
abeyance and good faith.
11.i The End of Mankind I
Victorys end of mankind(92) is the beginning ofOracle Night. The novel is a
collection of short stories, satellites around the planet Mars.
The novel is the story of an oracle, and orrery, and of everything they contain.
Return to the beginning. Orr has poor vision. His eyes do not focus properly. He
wonders if he is a stranger in someone elses dream.
Is Orr Flagg, a blind oracle? Is Orr Flaggs vision, the avatar of destruction?
I am contemplating, in notes such as these, a structure for an essay that will use as
its foundation every story included in Oracle Night. Over this foundation will be a two-
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part, maybe three-, superstructure Bowen, and post-Bowen; or Hammett, and Wells
with periodic interruptions of present circumstances, Orrs excursions, say, to the
stationary store, and diner.
Return to the beginning. It is not clear whether Orr recovers from his condition of
drifting along like a spectator in someone elses dream. The transitional phrase,
connecting then to now, the introduction of his story to the story, or the present of Orrs
reflection, is Time passed (3).
11.ii Work
Bowen persists in the delusion of the existence of fate. He is rigid, unwilling to
the break the rules (and contact Eva). The rules, he believes, define him. Like Flitcraft,
Bowen adjusts his life to falling objects, and then when objects stop falling, he adjusts his
life to their suspension. The order of the day orders Nick Bowen.
His reasoning is tautological. What does his refusal to accept what happens as if
something else could happen; as if he has a choice in the matter suggest of the structure
of his universe? What kind of man does not acceptwhat happens? Fate supercedes
choice; acceptance is of fantasy. In other words, Bowen acts like a slave to structure
(Fate) who rebels by retaining his will (his name). Secretly he knows that Fate is his
delusion; and is not that knowledge what makes a delusion a delusion? That is the
unsettling problem of Bowens (and Orrs) character. Ultimately the self-centeredness,
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the reflexivity of his narrative corrodes the narrative. The fiction, in calling attention to
its fictionality (i.e., being delusional), works against itself.
Bowens reasoning is tautological not only in its circularity, but in its apparent
uselessness. His project, the puzzle forget the past; start over as someone else like
Orrs, is unsolvable as long as he continues to examine the structure and purpose of the
project itself. A meaningful conclusion, and non-tautological solution,will use sources
and references outside of the terms of the problem. The solution requires a selfless
gesture. The other conclusion, fictionally speaking, the one within the self, is a kind of
suicide. This is Bowens flawed demonstration, his willing denial of the past, and his (of
which I will not yet speak) destiny.
Victory offers Bowen parodies of this project. Victorys wives, he recounts,
abandon him or die young. There is, Victory might suggest to Bowen, nopermanent
erasure of anything. Victory can always marry again; and what will interfere with that
choice is out of his control. It would seem Victorys notion ofnothingness contains more
of an idea of permanence than does his notion of somethingness. The things of and in the
world remind him, and me, of their disappearance, absence, loss, movement toward
nothingness; the no-things of the world, should they appear, remind us not of their
presence, but of their determination to remain no-things, their formidable endurance.
Disappearance, then, is a phenomenon of the realm of the living, and is only an aspect of
transience. Bowen, in this case, of something, only pretends to erase himself; he really
has no idea, Victory is suggesting, of permanence.
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Despite this insight, and my rendering of him, Victory is not dialogically
philosophical. When he speaks, he speaks out, telling, not asking. Inadvertently, then, a
tenuous equality is established between the two men over secrets, words that cannot be
said. It is the trust shared by crooks of different gangs: the enemy of my enemy is my
friend.
12. Catastrophe I
Bowen fails to see Victory as someone different from himself, as anything more
than a small-time crook. Victorys warning goes unheeded, and a trap is sprung. Trause
(97), the test and bait, infiltrates the narrative; the double-agent of Victorys story marks
Bowen, and the unfortunate man is locked inside an underground bomb shelter.
How is the room structured? What are the circumstances of Bowens demise?
Ed has installed a self-locking door, and once a person enters that room,
he cant get out again unless he uses a key to unlock the door from the
inside
This is a hydrogen-bomb shelter, not an ordinary room, and the
double-insulated walls are four feet thick, the concrete floor extends
thirty-six inches below him, and even the ceiling, which Bowen thinks
will be the most vulnerable spot, is constructed of a plaster and cement
combination so solid as to be impregnable. There are air vents running
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along the tops of all four walls, but after Bowen manages to detach one of
the grates from its tight metal housing, he understands that the opening is
too narrow for a man to crawl through, even a smallish man like himself.
(104)
The room is a sibling to a jail. In order to exit, the person on the inside must be in
possession of the key. The person on the outside does not need the key to go in. Without
the key, that is, this partition is a one-way passage. Bowens dream of disappearance, the
destruction of his past, is fulfilled.
35
The prisoner will pass the moments before his expiration reading Oracle Night
and a 1938 Warsaw telephone book. The only way this activity can be interrupted is by
his discovery; by the action of someone on the outside; someone, ironically, above, who
will penetrate his impregnable ceiling. Bowen is helpless; nothing more, at this point,
than a reader.
With his premature burial (immersion in a strange flat land), Bowens two-
dimensional likeness is disseminated in the streets of Kansas City, appearing on walls and
lampposts.Have you seen this man? (105).Will the viewer of the image consider looking
down, looking up? The missing man, it is assumed,is among them, on their plane, in their
market, or bar, at their gas station; not beneath the ground. Furthermore a further
distortion of Bowen the missing man has attributed to him a signifier of guilt. The
innocent do not disappear; the innocent do not have their image disseminated. Bowen is a
narrative anomaly, a kind of criminal. He is outside of the Law, which will not recognize
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his disappearance, since the so-called (by Eva) disappearance possesses no criminal
evidence. Simultaneously, Bowen is also de-criminalized, in that there is nothing
contextually criminal about his condition (so what if youre accidentally locked in a room
it happens all the time). A suiting description of Bowens state would be narrative
purgatory: like Wakefield, Bowen momentarily risks falling out of step with the universal
order.36
His condition is neitherdisorderly nororderly; he is on the edge of, and between,
paradigms of understanding, risking his character, risking my ability to read him and talk
about him.
I will clarify this condition in another way, by contextual analogy.
Bowen will pass the moments before his expiration reading Oracle Night. The
manuscript ofthe novel is therefore inside the locked room, the site of Bowens death.
Any ontology I associate with this characters situation, I can logically associate with his
possessions. (His things will meet his doom.) When the lightbulb is extinguished, and
replaced by the orange coil of the space-heater, Bowen is clearly in his penultimate
moment. The problem is this: Oracle Night, or something we must call Oracle Night, is
not in the same moment. It is here, in my hands; it is the subject of this essay. And if the
novel is salvaged, how and why is Bowen not?
The paradox is presently in this form: the manuscript titled Oracle Nightis lost
and unreadable, but also extant and readable. The ontological status of the manuscript is
ambivalent. It demands of its reader the momentary suspension of understanding, of a
complete categorical description. Like Wakefield (another ambivalent figure), Oracle
Nightforces its reader into a tenuous position, into the cleft in the states of order/disorder,
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and movement/stasis. There is no telling on which side we might rise. Worse, Oracle
Nightdoes not offer a choice.
Im afraid that from this silence
something monstrous may come bursting forth. (Oedipus 1181-82)
The moment prior to revelation, prior to an understanding of the structure,
destiny, is horrific. Reading Oracle Nightelevates the reader to such a point of eminence
that I become like a king, a riddle-master, a man of action, who will very soon learn the
ignominious truth: who I think am is a fiction, and one with cruel consequences.
In the silence of this novel it is ubiquitous; I am complicit I permit the
gestation of a monster.
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Part Two
The strange demise of Nick Bowen marks the end of Orrs story. The nature of
the death-sentence startles Orr, in how it reminds him of the vicissitudes of fiction, and of
the exigencies, in the same stroke, of reality. He reconsiders his condition. He reminds
me of the beginning, of a hospital.
In this part of the essay, I analyze the next twelve sections of the text. Orrs
reference to the beginning (106) suggests a backward-fold in the narrative; coupled with
the fact that Orr creates an oracle, what follows is a prophetic fulfillment of the first part.
The foundation I have delineated is now built upon and developed.
13. Silence I
Orr, playing a god-like author, adumbrates a system of ethics. He considers
saving Nick Bowen; as ifhe, Orr, were not solely responsible for what befalls his
character.
Still, Orr rereads. I had put Bowen into the room (108). He is not only the
author; he is, like me, an analyst, a reflector, and a player in the fictional experience.
Like me, he reads deconstructively, resisting the flow of time, causality, and
expectation. We look beneath the hood, at the works: the engine, the texts, the cosmos.
The Aleph.37
Bowen, at this pause and juncture, should be given a choice contra
Hammetts episode.38
Bowen, unlike Flitcraft, needs a way to evade destiny, a way to
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create his own destiny, to write his own conclusion. Orr will invent a form of
independence, of self-reliance; he will abdicate his position, and make Bowen the author
of Bowens narrative. The universe, Orr wants to believe (or wants Bowen to believe) is
as Jocasta envisions: Its all chance, chance rules our lives (1070). The chancy
universe, I wonder, is the universe in which the individual may realize his Will, may
impose his order. But there is a quiet paradox about this vision. If I take the chance-
ordered (chaotic) universe to mean that there is no discernible, meaningful order in the
universe, and also thatthere is so-called free will, and that individuals, aware of their
freedom, construct for themselves meaningful lives, then will not such meaningful lives
appearorderly? Furthermore, for the aware (i.e., enlightened) and ambitious of society,
will not hisfreedom of will impinge on the will of someone who is less aware and less
ambitious; and will not the inferior end up depending on the superior; and will not this
relationship have structure, and through this structure to accomplish the end of the
superior will predictability, and order? The universe aside,free will implies, and
necessitates, societal order.Meaning is a communal phenomenon.
That is an optimistic and unrealistic reading of chaos. The truth is tyranny, at its
best, intends to batte