Sluiproutes en dwaalwegen

Aspecten van een liminale poëtica toegelicht aan de hand van het werk van Jacq Firmin Vogelaar

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Summary

Mary Ann Caws once remarked that ‘threshold awareness’ may be characteristic of a particular way of thinking in present day poetics. This remark was based on her analyses of literary works by a great number of French authors (from Mallarmé to Bonnefoy). In these works she found a constant reappearance of the image of the threshold, as an indication of a particular way of thinking that concentrates on passages, on that what dwells between the thoughts, or rather between the words and sentences that are used to express thought. That Caws' remark was not the fruit of a purely private observation can be demonstrated from a range of works in the fields of philosophy and literary theory. In these works a fascination with the image of the threshold is apparent as well; so much so that one could speak of a topos. The topos of the threshold is found to give access to a complex of ideas about the nature and function of literature. Philosophers make use of the topos when speculating about the boundaries between mythos and logos; literary scholars are more inclined to pay attention to the formal consequences the threshold topos has for the composition of texts. The writings of philosophers and literary theorists lead one to assume that a ‘liminal poetics’ is at work in the writings of certain modern authors.

In the first chapter of this study, entitled: ‘Threshold explorations’, the topos of the threshold is shown to be of considerable importance to critical views on modern literature. These views often refer to speculative knowledge about the importance of the threshold in mythological imagination: threshold rituals are supposed to have represented the passage from the profane to the sacred world. They are said to be specifically related to initiation rites, and, more generally, to rites of passage (rites de passage). Mircea Eliade pointed out that threshold symbolism is linked to a potential of experience that was dispelled from modern consciousness. The revival of interest in the world of mythology that can be observed in the present century has given new weight to threshold symbolism; but here the threshold does not only function as the access to metaphysical knowledge. The threshold serves as a symbolic place on the boundary of communicative order; it gives access to a concrete knowledge that resists formalization and verbalization. This point of view appears in the writings of Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, authors who chose the passages between mythos and logos as their field of in-quiry. Benjamin, Foucault and Derrida conducted their threshold explorations mainly in the field of modern literature, where they found the breeding ground for their speculative insights. In their essays the outlines of a literary philosophy may be perceived. Literary criticism in its more restricted

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sense also made use of the topos of the threshold, being especially concerned with its formal consequences for literature. In the first place threshold symbolism plays an important part in quests, that often follow the pattern of the rites of passage. It was demonstrated in the theory of the novel (Lotman, Van Baak) that the threshold plays an important part in structuring ficitional reality. Michail Bachtin in particular attached a special significance to the threshold topos, holding it responsible for the ambivalent structure of fictional reality. His study on Dostojevski shows us that the threshold topos does not only function as a location where the action of the novel enfolds; the topos also makes itself felt in the construction of the novel. Threshold awareness pervaded genre theory too, as becomes clear from Gary Saul Morson's study that discusses threshold texts as quests for a form for formlessness. In avantgarde, modern and postmodern literature, the threshold topos becomes a symbol for the por-trayal of the writing process itself (the portrayal of how a text is generated). This point of view was expressed in studies by Barthes, Kristeva and Stewart. In the present study an attempt is made to formulate these views in terms of a ‘liminal poetics’. The adjective ‘liminal’ derives from the Latin name for threshold, ‘limen’. The term poetics here covers the study of the structural mechanism that makes the text point to itself, and that has the power to create ambiguity (Eco). This structural mechanism is termed ‘liminality’ in this study. The function of this term is comparable to that of ‘literaturnost’, a theoretical term coined in the twenties by the Russian formalists for those qualities in texts that generate a literary effect. Seen in this way, liminality refers to the situation that texts point at themselves as representing a passage. Liminal poetics comprises the description of textual strategies that represent a text as transitional space.

Different aspects of this liminal poetics are presented and commented on, using as an example the work of Jacq Firmin Vogelaar, who, in Dutch literature, is classed as one of the experimentalists. In 1964 Vogelaar first published a volume of poetry and a collection of short stories. In subsequent years he was to experiment with the narrative form, particularly in novels like Anatomie van een glasachtig lichaam (Anatomy of a vitreous body) [1966] and Gedaanteverandering of 'n metaforiese muizeval (Metamorphosis or a metaphorical mousetrap) [1968]. In the seventies he published various parts of a new project named Operaties (Operations), where the narrative form is virtually absent. Narrative forms are minimized in favour of ‘operations’ on texts. Raadsels van het rund (Enigmas of the bovine animal) [1978] is the central work in this project.

In the second chapter, ‘Threshold stories’, I show that the topos of the threshold frequently appears in Vogelaar's work from the sixties. The topos directs the reader's attention to the principle of liminal construction that can be recognized in his novels and short stories. This principle reveals itself, for example, in the uncertain status of the characters, and in the metamorphoses and role-reversals, whereby the rendering of these

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roles is of less importance than the moment of reversal itself. The action of the novels and short stories is characterized by a portrayal of transitional situations. The perspective on fictional reality is always ambivalent. The topos of the threshold does not only affect novelistic conventions in general, it may also lead to a change in the rules of a certain genre: the threshold texts that are thus generated, are difficult to classify. Gedaanteverandering of een metaforiese muizeval may be read as a crime novel, as a parody on a crime novel, or as a novel of initiation. But narrative conventions are put to the test when the protagonists experience brief moments of disorientation. Time and time again the protagonists find themselves in situations that verge on the autistic; the links between words, between conventional units of meaning have been cut. The portrayal of these moments is exemplary for the ultimate theme in Vogelaar's work: the portrayal of the process of writing. There too the short moments of disorientation (in Vogelaar's stories these moments often occur when the protagtonist literally finds himself on a threshold) are the fertile places where things appear in their unnamed state. These threshold situations seem to offer a view on a concrete knowledge that is situated between the words and the sentences. In Vogelaar's work they are termed ‘Het’ (‘It’); they are a reference to a neutral space, the domain of the wordless world. The fortunes of the protagonists are transposed to the fortunes of the author, who tries to approach this neutral zone. The author makes use of a number of strategies to portray his attempts at rapprochement.

In the third chapter, ‘Thresholdtexts’, these strategies are described in an analysis of some fragments from Raadsels van het rund. It is demonstrated that they are an exploration of the passages between text and paratext, between text and context. What is usually in the margin (titles, notes, commentary) now forms the centre. Raadsels van het rund can be read as a ‘threshold text’ (Genette) that is constructed with the use of threshold texts. This formal composition reflects an important theme in the book: the investigation of the boundaries of communicative order. The book steers a middle course between writing and silence. On the one hand a lot of attention is devoted to the meaninglessness of language in commonplaces, and the mechanics of the bêtise. On the other hand interest is shown in hermetic texts that place themselves outside communicative order. In the second part of the third chapter intertextual analysis shows that Raadsels van het rund contains fragments of texts from the history of these threshold explorations (from mannerism to art brut). In this way the book itself documents the tradition from which it springs: the history of modernity.

Threshold awareness appears to be particularly characteristic of the intellectual and artistic attitude that represents one of the mainstreams of modernity: scepticism towards a one sided view on rationality. Through its use of intertextual references Vogelaar's work firmly establishes itself in that tradition.