Bartleby

[Paul Mackin]

Sorry, Otto. No, it wasn't you, it was Kurt-Werner. By the way, I meant 
to attach no fault to the use of British-style English.


The whole thing merely drew emphasis for me to the fact that American 
English (as used by poor Bartleby) practically demands the ellipticizing 
of the infinitive verb in this particular type of construction. Whether 
such has anything to do with the incompleteness and agrammaticallity 
Deleuze talks about I don't know. Would have to read the article I guess.

P.


Otto wrote:

>Heikki:
>
>>Deleuze has written this essay, "Bartleby; or, The Formula",
>>which is included in _Essays Critical and Clinical_. (U of
>>Minnesota Press 1997.) Deleuze sees that the agrammatically
>>incomplete "formula" of "I prefer not to" opens a rip in the
>>fabric of the social, confronting the social with something
>>it does not know how to react to, stymieing [sp?] all speech
>>acts....or something.
>>
>
>
>"Der 1995 gestorbene französische Philosoph Gilles Deleuze hat "Bartleby"
>einer großartig-intensiven Lektüre unterzogen, die Bartleby (& Melvilles
>Sprache) mit anderen Werken sowohl des Amerikaners als auch Kafkas oder
>Musils vernetzt. Wer vom Rätsel der Melvilleschen Erzählung einmal ergriffen
>wurde, wird hier eine Zuflucht suchen, die ihm die Transparenz der Erzählung
>abgründiger macht. "Bartleby" habe eine "neue Logik erfunden, die zur
>Aushöhlung der Voraussetzungen der Sprache geführt hat". Hofmannsthal, der
>seinen Lord Chandos in seinem berühmten Brief das "Pelzigwerden der Worte im
>Munde" beklagen ließ, konnte von dem amerikanischen Vorläufer noch nichts
>wissen."
>
>Gilles Deleuze: Kritik und Klinik. Aus dem Französischen von Joseph Vogel,
>edition suhrkamp Nr. 919, Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt a.M., 2000, 205 Seiten,
>19.90 DM.
>http://www.titel-magazin.de/vila_matas.htm
>
>" Ah, Bartleby! Ah humanity!
>http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/bartleby/bartleby.html
>
>It wasn't me!
>
>Otto
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
>To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 8:27 PM
>Subject: Re: Bartleby
>
>>Wonder if Otto's British-style retranslation back to English "I prefer
>>not to DO" would appear to Deleuze any less agrammatical and incomplete
>>than the American author's mere "I prefer not to."
>>
>>To my American ear the "do" always sounds overdetermined and redundant.
>>
>>Perhps D. had a completely different thought.
>>
>>P.
>>
>>
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