And the Parergon in the Post Card and Beyond

Richard Burt

Reading Burns:

Repetition, Reproduction,Publication,

and the Parergon in The Post Card and Beyond

Commentary without comment, not likeMarxismwithoutMarx. When does comment, annotation, become discursive? Anecdote an anecnote?

Difficult to tell not because one reaches an aporia but instead confronts not reading and nonreading? Paratext supposed by go to be unread, invisible. JD conceals ciphers illegible. An economy of no returns. Speculation. But kind of investment? Graphic economy as opposed to an “Icon”omy. Value of reproduction(s) of the postcard, the hit of the image, as opposed to describing it. No comment as a comment, a non-denial denial, All the President’s Men.

Burn everything as opposed to publish everything. The narrators of the letters talk about the book project, whatthe title will be, what the preface will be: this is a correspondence, but utterly unlike the HantaiCorrespondences, which sorts out painting, letters in facsimile and in diplomatic transcription. Mutliple reproductions of the same postcard in The Post Card. No way to know that it is a postcard, however, as the reverse side is not reproduced, the side with information, caption, etc. This part is not published, not transcribed.

Is the first line a quotation of first line of Dissemination, also about prefaces?

Burn After Rereading

Reread Before Burning

Insupportable Reading

IS the notion of a beginning merely naïve? The end as the beginning, with the move to “tu” in the footnote. The paratext as a graphic “place” ; Glossary stops shot of an index. Gives the note number, but not the page number.

Reading randomly; backwards; by chance, as in “Meschances.”

Decipher, 42

Facsimiles in The Post Card. Already reproductions, iconography, versus ekphrasis

Cutting and pasting, 41

And moreover I obey at every moment without seeming to: to burn everything, forget everything . . .

A great-holocaustic fire, a burn everything into which we would throw, finally, along with our entire memory, our names, the letters, photos, small objects, keys, fetishes, etc. And if nothing remains

Facteur de la verite, 40

For the moment I am cutting and pasting. 41

And while driving I held it on the steering wheel 43

Decipher, 43

N,the stamp is not a metaphor. 46

Who is driving? Doesn’t it really look like a historical vehicle? A gondola? No, except plato is playing gondolier, perched in the back, looking away in front of him the way one guides the blind. He is showing the direction. 46

For us, for our future, nobody can tell. 47

She will put the letter back into circulation once she has read it. 49

And the case will be proven, 51

To enclose myself in a book project. 51

False preface to Freud, 51

Doubtless the book will be called Legs de Freud 52

And it would also inscribe Le facteur de la verite as an appendix, with the great reference to the Beyond . . . 53

This is the law of the genre/gender as was said in the note of the Facteur that they evidently have not read at all, the note that installs the entire program, note 6 precisely: “le poste differs from la poste only by gender” (Littré)[1] 54

That note is on p. 411, though the page number is not given, and Bass translates it differently: “gateway post:. Le poste [in the sense of osition] dffers from la poste {in the sense of mail] only gender says Littré.

Bass adds a note in brackets that is nlonger htan Derrida’s, explainging “the various editions nad translations of Lacan,” and observes that the English translation of the Ecrits by “Alan Sheridan states that the slection of the essays for the English Ecrits [Bass omits the subtitle, A Selection] is “Lacan’s own” (p.vii). Thus, fr reasons to be determined, something has changed: the “Semnar” no longer has he ateway post that Lacan previously had emphasized, and, as just staed, does not appear in the volume at all.]” 421, n. 6.

Now that Bruce Fink’s Ecrits: The First Complete Edition in English [Hardcover]

Jacques Lacan (Author), Bruce Fink (Translator)W. W. Norton & Company (December 16, 2005) is out, should that be read as sreotred version the way new translation of Kakfa or new editions of Faulkner are? What is the relation between selectionand complete? Doesn’t first complete render the Ecrits editions unreadable, as if there were a complete, closed, single definitive edition? Did Lacan give the English edition a different heading? Or did he approve, as he did Jacque Lain mIllers French editions, what Sheridan had decided to select?

Bassnote p. 420 Throughout I will refer to the English version of the Smnar, translated by Jeffrey Mehlman, in French Freud, Yale French Studies, no 48, 1972 All references in the text will be given by the letter S and a page number.

Derrida’s note 4, p. 420:

A note inPositions(1971-72, p. 107, n. 44) announced this reading of the “Seminar on The Purloined Letter,” which was the object of a lecture at the Johns Hopkins University in November 1971.

French cover and Chicago book cover both reproduce the image.

“Bass Notes” (La-Bas)

Illustrations courtesy of the Bodelian Lbrary, Oxford. Cover illustration: Plato and Socrates, the frontispiece of Prognostica Socratis basilei, a fortune telling book. English, thirteenth century, the work of Matthew Paris. MS. Ashmole 304. Fol. 3IV (detail). <on the copyright page.

My post card dissertation 54

But I would really like to call the book philately 65

No, I will never rewrite it, that letter. 57

Read this letter now at once many times and burn it. 58

Although the criterion for distinguishing between books and letters remains open. I do not believe in the rigor of such a criterion. 61

I’m not makingit up! 63

You see him reading me at this very instant 67

The old dream of the complete electro-cardo-encaphlo-LOGO-icono-cinemato-bio-gram—I mean first of all without the slightest literature, the slightest superimposed fiction, without pause, without selection either of the code or of the tone, without the slightest secret, nothing at all, only everything, 68

This final total card (my absolute pancarte), that you be able to read it, hold it in your hands, our knees, under your eyes, in you, that you inherit and guard it. 68

Reads aloud, 69

No rigorous theory of “reception,” however necessary it might be, will get to the end of that literature. 71

A holocaust without fire or flame 71

Finally, he would consent, see The Purlined Letter, and the queen too, and Dupin too, and the psychoanalyst too” 71

Purim Pur lot 72; 74-75

Difficult to tell 74

Believe without proof 76

When I photograph myself alone in stations or airports, I throw it away or tear the thing into little pieces that I let fly out the window if it is a train, leave them in an ashtray or a magazine if it is it’s an airplane. 79

Amnesia 77

In the name f what, in the name of whom publish, divulge—and first of all write, sine it amounts to the same? I have published a lot, but there is someone in me, I still can’t identify him, who still hopes never to have done it. And he believes that in everything that I have let pass, depart, a very effective mechanism comes to annihilate the exception, I write while concealing every possible divulging of the very thing that papers to be published. 80

Okay, let’s drop it. I am rereading myself, thus at the end of the word “lottery” 81

When you are reading, 79

It has to be read in Greek, 87

Okay, let’s drop it, I will continue to scratch, read while writing my knowing letter, rather than taking note’s on those little white pieces of cardboard that you always don’t give a damn about. 87

And he adds, following my finger (I am citing but always rearranging a little. Guess the number of false citations in my publications . . . ):” 89

Postcard structure 89

Literature epistolary genres, 88

To read among others, the Socratic letters in which he grouped the anecdotes concerning the life, method, and even the death of the Athenian philosopher [Socrates]” 91

Prophylactic guarding of the letter incorporated in the “by heart.” 93

The Oxford card is looking at me.. I am rereading Plato’s letters. 93

Together we should bring to light a history (genesis and structure) of the libraries of the great thinkers and great writers: how they kept, arranged, classified, annotated, “indexed,” archived what they really read, what they have pretended to have read, or, more interesting, not to have read, etc. 92

Always reports, feigns reporting, as if he were reading 93

But contrary to what goes on in ThePurloined Letter 95

Reading it will be impossible to understand94

The other does not answer, is not published 96

The one wh scrtches nad preteds to write in the pace of the other who writes and pretends to scratch. 98

Dream of the original imporint . . Visa o Masercharge. . . tympan 101

Ciphered letters, 93

I have said it elsewhere 124

Phomomaton of myself 125

they could never give me a truly satisfactory answer on this question, how they distinguish between a letter and a parcel, a dead letter and a dead parcel, and why they did not sell the so-called dead letter at auction. 125

Derrida anticipates the cell phone on vibrator mode:

When will we be able to call without ringing? There would be a warning light or one could even carry it one oneself, near the heart or in the pocket, for certin coded calls, some signal. 87

Rite versus lean by heart 82

Burn by Heart

Strange story. Again you suspect me of have sent it. I do no dare open it to reread it . . . But I will not send it to you a second time—in any case, I will never read it. 76

No more than this card that you are reading now, that you are holdin gi your ahdns or on your knees. 73

Signature 73

Reading the last one (for it is he who reads me, you see him here . . . 63

Another way of saying that you had reread it, no? which is what one begins doing when on rereads, even for the first time. Repetition, memory, etc. . . . P. asks D. to reread before burning, so be it, in order to incorporate the letter (like a member of the reistance under torture). 59-60

Rearviwew mirror of an automobile that pauses 60

One day, please, read me no more, and even forget that you have read me. 36

And son we will be able to afford that answering machine. 36

I’ll see you before you read this. 36

For this for life I must lose you, for life, and make myself illegible for you. . . I have not destroyed anything of yours, your scarps of paper, I mean, you perhaps, but nothing of yours. But it would be fatal. (I am still en train, this is getting harder and harder to read no doubt.). 34

I always come back to the same card. 34

Repetition compulsion is understood even less, 35

All this because you didn’t want to burn the first letters, 14

Lacan, in truth, meant to say what I said, under the heading of disemmination, What next! As for me, all the while apparently speaking of dissemination, I would have reconstituted this word to a last word and therefore into a destination. In other words, if it can be put thus, Lacan already meant what I will have said, and myself I am only doing what he says he is doing. And there you are, the trick has been played, destination is back in my hand and “dessmination” is reversd into Lacan’s account. This is what I had describe to you one day, three-card monte, the agility of the expert hands to which one would yield oneself bound hand and foot. 151

With stupefying dexterity they move three cards after having you choose one. 36

The coded “words” to which Alan Bas refers in his glossary are “EGEK HUM XSR STR” p. 148 (Bass does not give the page reference, and is no longer glossing, though the last entry does refer the reader a footnote.)

I await everything from an event that I am incapable of anticipating. 47

Speaking of which, M., who has read the seminar on Life Death along with several friends, tell me I should publish the notes without changing anything. This is impossible, of course, unless I detach the sessions on Freud, or only the one on Freud’s legacy, the story of hteh fort/da with little Ernest. 41

Without seeming to burn everything, 40

I think I made this film for myself even before I knew how to drive. If I were not afraid of waking everyone I would come, in any case I would telephone. When will we be able to call without ringing/ [aniticpates the vibe setting on cell phones]There would be a warning light or one could even carry it on oneself, near the heart or in the pocket, for certain coded calls, some signal. 87

“and not only in the way a negative is developed” PC, 43

“Thiese letters f “Plato,” that Socrates, of course, would have neither reda nor written., I now find them greater than the works. I could like to call you to read oout loud several extracts from the “stands” they have mandated, commanded, programmed for centuries as I would like to use them for my legs. I am typing them, or rather one day you will return this letter to me). . . . And if I read out loud, the most irreplaceable ones, don’t ‘ you think . .. you always imitate better than I). Listen . .[reread it as if I had written it myself, starting from the “philosopher’s notes, especially the end which more or less [note Derrida’s comments on “more or les” a phrase his father used, in For the Love of Lacan] says this—but the whole thing would have to be retranslated: This letter, all three must be read together as much as possible, if not at the same time and as often as you are able. Look at it as a way to take an oath and as a convention having the force of law, on which it is legitimate to swear with a seriousness mixed with grace and with the badinage of the serious . . . Take as a witness the god chief among all things present and future, and the all-powerful father of the chief and its cause, whom we all know, if we philosophize truly and with all the clarity possible for men enjoying beatitude.” It has to be read in Greek, my very sweet one, as if I were writing it to you. Myself.) So then I pick up mycitation again,

8586; 86-87

Now here is the most ingenious finding: what remains a typographical error two out of three times in given Ecrits [Derrida does not bother to specify the editions or given the relevant page numbers] becomes [François] Roustang’s “slip,” Roustang having contentedhimself, somewhat quickly it is true, with reproducing the ur-typo, everyone including its author, turning all around that which must not be read.

Whose name I can say because he is dead”

Du Tout,” C, 519

Derrida will make more mistakes, 27 (“reprosuction” instead of “reproduction”), 27

Typo versus slip, 513

Typo? 216, “head” instead of the more obvious “had”

Typos, 152, 228

Reproduction of reproduction, 35; 37

It is Socrates’ writing surface” 17

Why prefer to write on cards? First of all because of the suppor, doubtless, which is more rigid, the cardboard firmer, it preserves, it resists manipulation; and hten it limits and justifies form ht eoutside; by means of the borders, the indigence of the discourse, the insgnifiacance of the anecdoque [sic]

I have so much to tell you and I will have to hold on snapshot postcards—and immediately be divided among them. Letters in small pieces torn out in advance; cut out recut. 22

I swear without reading or deciphering anything in it, I have torn out this page, at the date you can see, only in order to write to you, and to do so with a the pencil that you had left between the pages. 126

Thereby to give the slightest hope of reading it one day 127

I want to reread the entire corpus platonicum 129

Brotherl 129

You can feel he has a hard-on in his back 128

And they publish everything 132

I remember the ashes. What a chance, to burn, yes yes [no punctuation]23

This entire post card ontology 22

Two hands, the mystic writing pad, 25

That we will be able to send sperm by post card, 24

For example, I write on post cards, oh well I write on post cards. “I” begins again with a reprosuction (say, I just wrote reproSuction: have you noticed that I make more and more strange mistakes, is it fatigue or age, occasionally the spelling goes, phonetic writing come back in force, as in elementary school, only to others whom I confusedly looked down on—the lapsus or “slips” obviously). And by means of a reproduction that is itself reproduced serially, always the same picture on another support, but an identical support, differing only in numero. 27

The postal principle 27

7 hours in the car with the old film of the accident to resolve everything, 87

I still do not know how to see what there is to see. 16

As if he were running to catch a moving train, 17

On the back of the same card, Iw write you all the time, 16

Out of this atrocious exclusion that we make of all of htem—and every possible reader. The whole reader. 16

I had read in his glance that he was begging for the impossible. 14

Write it in cipher, 1

Silent move, 13

But that which checks

As if what is invivble here could take a reading into account.

502

archive, 506

the decryting, in these conditions, can no longer come from the simple and alleged interior of what is still called, provisionally, psychoanalysis.