Antonin Artaud Selected Writings Ed. Susan
Sontag
As most of you know, I took a class
on Artaud at NYU. Granted, I hated the class. But that doesn't mean
I don't harbor some kind of strange fascination with Artaud. Don't
get me wrong. I don't like him. I don't like him and I don't
like him and I don't like him... Which pretty much means that he terrifies
me.
The hefty little Sontag ed. is about 1/100th of Artaud's blatherings.
Man, that dude wrote. I mean, really wrote. Wrote all the way through
it. Gotta respect that. As a writer, I think Artaud was really important
for me. He was like a measuring cup.
I looked in the Artaud-mirror. His passionate affirmations and denunciations,
his selfishness and vanity, his indulgence, addiction, intoxication.
He writes like a lunatic inside me.
...It's the spider-web sanctuary,
the onouric tuft
of where-ere the sail,
the anal plate of anayou
(You're not taking anything away, god,
because it's me.
You've never taken anything like this away from me.
I'm writing it here fo rthe first time,
I'm finding it for the first time.)...
(The Return of Artaud, le Momo, 523)
Man, I don't know what, but I've got to do something--I've got
to do something about it.
This is why:
the great secret of Indian culture
is to bring the world back to zero,
always,
but rather
1) too late rather than sooner,
2) which means
sooner
than too soon,
3) which means that later can come back
only if
sooner has eaten
too soon
4) which means that at the same time
later
is that which precedes
both too soon
and sooner
5) and that however quick sooner may
be
too late
which does not say
a word
is always there,
which dismantles
all the sooners
point by point.
Commentary
They came, all the bastards,
after the great dismantling,
revealed from the bottom to the top.
(Here Lies, 545-546)
Whew. Now that's a poetic philosophy of time: self-indulgent and
drippy. Don't ask me why Artaud's madness makes me so happy. I just
sit back and enjoy the ride.