Transcript
Claire ParnetAnd if we were finished with "A", that would be nice. . . OK, then, we will pass on to "B". "B" is a little bit special, it's on drinking. OK, so you used to drink, and then stopped drinking, and I would like to know what it was for you to drink when you used to drink. . . Was it for pleasure?
Yeah, I drank a lot. . . I drank a lot. . . So I stopped, but I drank a lot. . . What was it? That's not difficult, at least I think not. . . You should question other people who drank a lot, you should question alcoholics. I believe that drinking is a matter of quantity. For that reason, there is no equivalent with food, even if there are people who eat copiously- eating always disgusted me, so that's not relevant in my case. But drinking. . . I understand well that one doesn't drink just anything, that each drinker has a favorite drink, but it's because in that framework that one has to grasp the quantity. What does this question of quantity mean? People make fun of addicts and alcoholics because they never stop saying, "Oh you know, I am in control, I can stop drinking whenever I want." People make fun of them because they don't understand what drinkers mean. I have some very clear memories of this, I think everyone who drank understands this. When you drink, what you want to reach is the last drink. Literally, drinking means doing everything in order to reach the final drink. That's what is interesting.
Claire ParnetAt the limit?
Well, what the limit is, is very complicated, let me tell you. . . In other words, an alcoholic is someone who never ceases to stop drinking, I mean, who never stops having arrived at the last drink. So what does that mean? It's like the expression by [Charles] Péguy that is so beautiful, "It's not the final water lily that repeats the first, it's the first water lily that repeats all the others and the final one." The first drink, it repeats the last one, it's the last one that counts. So what does that mean, the last drink, for an alcoholic? He gets up in the morning, if he's a morning alcoholic- there are all the kinds that you might want -if he's a morning alcoholic, he is entirely pointed toward the moment when he will reach the last drink. It's not the first, the second, the third that interests him... It's a lot more. . . He's clever, full of guile, an alcoholic. . . The last glass means this: he evaluates. . . there is an evaluation. He evaluates what he can hold, without collapsing. . . he evaluates. . . It varies considerably with each person. So he evaluates the last drink, and all the others are going to be his way of passing, of reaching the last glass. And what does "the last" mean? That means that he cannot stand to drink one more glass that particular day. It's the last one that will allow him to begin drinking the next day. . . because if he goes all the way to the last drink, on the contrary, that goes beyond his capacity, it's the last in his power. If he goes beyond the last one in his power in order to reach the last one beyond his power, then he collapses, then he's screwed, he has to go to the hospital, or he has to change his habits, he has to change assemblages. So that when he says, "the last drink," it's not the last one, it's the next-to-last one. He is searching for the next-to-last one. In other words, there is a term to say the next-to-last, it's penultimate. . . He does not seek the last drink, he seeks the penultimate one.
Claire ParnetNever the ultimate. . .
Not the ultimate, because the ultimate would place him outside his arrangement. The penultimate is the last one. . . before beginning again the next day. So I can say that the alcoholic is someone who says, and who never stops saying- You hear it in the cafés, those groups of alcoholics are so joyful, one never gets tired of listening to them- So the alcoholic is someone who never stops saying, "OK, it's the last one," and the last one varies from one person to another, but the last one is the next-to-last one.
Claire ParnetAnd he's also the one who says, "I'm stopping tomorrow."
"Stopping tomorrow"? No, he never says "I'm stopping tomorrow." He says, "I'm stopping today, to be able to start over again tomorrow."
Claire ParnetAnd since drinking means not stopping. . . means stopping drinking constantly, then how does one stop drinking completely, because you stopped drinking completely. . .?
It's too dangerous, if one goes too quickly. Michaux has said everything on that topic. In my opinion, drug problems and alcohol problems are not that separate. Michaux said everything on that topic. . . A moment comes when it is too dangerous. Here again, there is this ridge. . . when I was talking about this ridge between language and silence, or language and animality. This ridge is a thin division. One can very well drink or take drugs. . . One can always do whatever one wants if it doesn't prevent you from working. If it's a stimulus. . . It's even normal to offer something of one's body as a sacrifice. There is a whole sacrificial attitude in these activities, drinking, taking drugs, one offers one's body as a sacrifice. . . Why? No doubt because there is something entirely too strong that one could not stand without alcohol. It's not a question of being able to stand alcohol. . . That's perhaps what one believes, what one needs to believe, what one believes oneself to see, to feel, to think, with the result that one has the need in order to stand it, in order to master it, one needs assistance, from alcohol, drugs, etc. So the question of limits, it's quite simple. . . Drinking, taking drugs, these are almost supposed to make possible something that is too strong, even if one has to pay for it afterwards, that's well known. But it's connected to working, working. And it's obvious that when everything is reversed and drinking prevents one from working, when taking a drug becomes a way of not working, that's the absolute danger, it no longer has any interest. And at the same time, it's more and more obvious that although we used to think drinking was necessary, that taking drugs was necessary, they are not necessary. . . Perhaps one has to have gone through that experience to realize that everything one thought one did thanks to drugs or thanks to alcohol, one could do without them. You see, I admire a lot the way that Michaux considers all this. . . He stops all this, and I see the advantage because I stopped drinking for reasons related to breathing, for health reasons. It is obvious that one has to stop or do without it. The only tiny justification possible would be if they did help one to work, even if one has to pay for it physically afterwards. But the more one continues, the more one realizes that it doesn't help one's work.
Claire ParnetMichaux must have drunk quite a lot and taken a lot of drugs in order to get to the point of doing without in such a state as he did. . . And on the other hand, you said that when you drink, it must not prevent you from working, but that you perceive something that drinking helps you to support, and this "something" is not life. . . so that raises the question about the writers you prefer. . .
Yes, it is life. . .
Claire ParnetIt is life?
It's something too strong in life. It's not necessarily something that is terrifying, just something that is too strong, it's something too powerful in life. Some people believe a bit idiotically that drinking puts you on the level of this too-powerful-something. If you take the whole lineage of the Americans, the great American writers. . .
Claire ParnetFrom Fitzgerald to Lowry. . .
Fitzgerald, the one I admire the most is Thomas Wolfe. . . all that is a series of alcoholics, at the same time, that's what allows them. . . no doubt, helps them to perceive this something- too-huge. . .
Claire ParnetYes, but it's also because they themselves had perceived something powerful in life that not everyone could perceive, they felt something powerful in life. . .
That's right, obviously. . . It's not alcohol that is going to make you feel. . .
Claire Parnet. . . the power of life for them that they alone could perceive.
I completely agree . . . I completely agree . . .
Claire Parnet. . . and the same for Lowry. . .
I completely agree . . . Certainly. . . They created their works, and what alcohol was for them, well, they took a risk, they took a chance on it because they thought, right or wrong, that alcohol would help them with it. I had the feeling that alcohol helped me create concepts. . . It's strange. . . philosophical concepts, yes, that it helped me, and then it wasn't helping me any more, it was getting dangerous for me, I no longer wanted to work. At that point, you just have to give it up, that's all. . .
Claire ParnetThat's more like an American tradition, because we don't know of many French writers who have this penchant for alcohol, and still it's kind of hard to. . . There is something that belongs to their writing. . .
Well, yes, yes, but French writers, it's not the same vision of writing. . . I don't know. . . If I have been influenced so much by the Americans, it's because of this question of vision. They are "seers". . . If one believes that philosophy, writing, is a question, in a very modest fashion, a question of "seeing" something. . . seeing something that others don't see, then it's not exactly the French conception of literature. Although there are a lot of alcoholics in France. . .
Claire ParnetBut the alcoholics in France, they stop writing, at least we don't know of any. . . But we don't know of any philosophers either who devote. . .
Verlaine lived on a street right nearby here, rue Nollet. . .
Claire ParnetAh yes, with the exception of Rimbaud and Verlaine. . .
It moves me. When I take the street and I think that it undoubtedly must have been the route that Verlaine took to go to a café to drink his absinthe. . . Apparently he lived in a pitiful apartment. . .
Claire ParnetWell yes, poets and alcohol. . .
. . . One of France's greatest poets who used to shuffle down that street. . . It's marvelous. . . Yes, yes. . .
Claire ParnetAt the Bar des Amis. . .
No doubt!
Claire ParnetYes, among poets, we know that there were more alcoholics . . . Ok, well, we have finished with alcohol. . .
Yep, we've finished "B". My, we're speeding along. . .