‘Es gibt einen wahnwitzigen Willen, to exhaust the language in the smallest sentence. It's probably related to the imbalance, that exists between language and discourse. The language is that, with which one can form an absolutely infinite number of sentences and statements. the discourse, just like that, diffuse, yielding, atmospheric, protoplasmic it may be, no matter how strongly it may be directed towards the future, is quite the opposite, always finally, always limited. One will never get to the end of the language with a discourse, as long as you can dream it. This inexhaustibility of language, the discourse always about a future, that will never end, keeps in limbo, makes the obligation to write tangible in a completely different way. One writes, to get to the end of the language, to consequently get to the end of every possible language, to finally close the empty infinity of language through the fullness of discourse. —
You write too, to have no face, to bury himself under his writing. One writes, with it life, that you have around the sheet of paper, Next, outside, far from him, that's not funny at all, but full of worries and rather boring, exposed to others, being absorbed by this little paper rectangle, that one has before one's eyes and whose master one is. Basically, writing is an attempt, any substance not just of existence, but to bring the body to it, to spill into these tiny traces via the mysterious channels of pen and writing, that you put on paper.—–
And yet again and again life begins outside of paper, it always goes on. It can never commit itself to this small rectangle, the heavy volume of the body can never unfold on the surface of the paper, one never goes over to this two-dimensional universe, to this pure line of discourse, one never succeeds, to make yourself small and delicate enough, to be nothing but the linearity of a text. And yet that is exactly what it is, what you want to achieve. That's not how you let go, to try again and again, pull yourself together, to confiscate, to slip into the funnel of pen and writing. You would feel justified, if only you existed in this tiny quake, that tiny scratch, that freezes, and between the tip of the pen and the white surface of the paper is the point, the fragile place, the moment that has just passed, in which one finally fixed itself, definitively established, only writes a legible trace for the others, who has lost every opportunity, to gain self-awareness. Also this type of repayment, the mortification of himself in the transition to the signs gives writing its obligatory character.’
This is amazing: Michel Foucault does not call himself Ecrivain (writer), but a writer. That rare face-to-face conversation, that Bonnefoy carries with him, and which is about himself and his relationship to writing, he didn't really feel comfortable, because he, as he always says, considers his biography unimportant for his work. So what is he?? philosopher? sociologist? ….he calls himself “Diagnostician”, similar, like the doctor and surgeon (his father). But in the talks, which you can read here, one recognizes, that the “Diagnostician” and “structuralist”, of the “Systemtheroretiker” and surveyors fully as language artists (and also to a degree as a narcissist) is in his work. That being said, he is not a poet, because he didn't make it, to write novellas, because he has no imagination. But it doesn't depend on that, or?!
Rarely have I read something so brilliantly written, like these conversations between Bonnefoy and Foucault. It's not the imagination or a story, that makes the poet, in my opinion, this does not have to be! It can be the kind, how he thinks, thinking begins and how he derives his language from it …. it's the passion, the radicalism, the sign of unmistakability, der Ton …!!!!
this Foucautsche language is used in the works u.a. “order of things” and “analytics of power” however very very abstract and difficult (for me and probably everyone else, not philosophy, Studied history and other scientific subjects), he ties together as many scientific terms as rat tails, and every concept contains a hidden knowledge, so that you first have to open and understand the individual terms, what they mean on their own, e.g., the term: Episteme ….
I read Foucault, although I cannot do this because of my intellectual abilities. i read it, because it fascinates me, as he can think, can speak, can write. Because he, neither left nor right, with his analysis of psychiatry and insanity, he rehabilitated the so-called insane and questioned the advent of medicine as an instrument of power. However, he is not a critic, he just misses, shows. And an answer to an elementary question is always more complex and difficult for him, e.g., the question of how power works; not from top to bottom. More across. But it seeps through the entire social body. (that word again!)
On the other hand, what he says here about his relationship to writing itself, is very close to me. Much closer, than, what a contemporary novelist would say about his writing …..
His work seems to have been his life (da hätte er wohl wieder widersprochen wegen dem Bezug zu ihm) …. this is in each of his sentences, here, unmistakable.