Visiting Raymond Queneau

Today I was writing an email and actually succeeded in stating that if one insists on saying everything - he is sure to fail. At first glance, a bit odd for someone who writes but as it is found out rather sooner - the inner eye is strabismal and refuses to yield but a paradox.

As I try to explain in my little text on the Serbian author, David Albahari, soon to be found on http://www.journalist-und-optimist.de/?page_id=36, reading can predominantly be seen as a psychological act, combining the medium and the two people involved and thus - a number of possibilities are possible as outcomes.

But, does not the fact that something can be seen from numerous angles rob us of the possibility of seeing? As I read in one book, we all know of truth just as we all know Colosseum is big. But who on Earth has ever seen Colosseum?

This is why I find the ending of Queneau's Stylistic Exercise particularly apt. After rendering an incident in 20 different fashions, the show ends in a cacophony of groans and shrieks.

Connected to this problem or not, I also find - as you may already feel - that each repeats his own story all the time, as can be witnessed in such different endeavours as beginner philosophy or music. Why do I need 200 words for something I already explained to myself 10 years ago in a sentence?

Even if pointed the right direction (as if that were possible), we invariably answer the call of nature and wander off into the field.