Transcript
Claire Parnet"M" is "Illness" ( maladie). Shortly after completing Difference and Repetition in 1968, you were hospitalized for a very severe case of tuberculosis. You who were saying, regarding Nietzsche and Spinoza, the extent to which great thinkers have a weak state of health, henceforth, from 1968 onward, you were forced to live with illness. Did you know for a while that you had tuberculosis, or did you know that your illness was there for a while?
An illness, yes, I knew that I had some illness for quite a while, but like a lot of people, I had no real desire to find out, and also like most people, I just assumed that obviously it was cancer, and so I wasn't in a big hurry. I didn't know it was tuberculosis, not until I was spitting up blood. I am a child of tuberculosis, but at the moment of my diagnosis, there was no real danger thanks to antibiotics. It was serious, and ten years earlier, or even three years earlier- it was in the beginning-a few years earlier, I might not have survived, whereas in 1968, it was no longer a problem. Moreover, it's an illness without much pain, and so I could say I was very ill, but it's a great privilege, an illness without pain and curable, without suffering, hardly an illness at all, though it is an illness, yes. Before it, my health was not all that great, I became fatigued easily. So is the question whether the illness makes it easier for someone who undertakes- I am not talking about the success of the undertaking- for someone who undertakes, who enjoys an enterprise of thought, who attempts to think. . . I think that a very weakened state of illness favors this. It's not that one is tuned in to one's own life, but for me, thinking does seem like I am tuning into life. Now it's not what's going on inside you, tuning into life. It's something entirely different from thinking about one's own health. But I think a fragile state of health favors this kind of tuning-in. When I was speaking earlier about authors like Lawrence or Spinoza, to some extent they saw something too enormous, so enormous that it overwhelmed them. It's true that one resists thinking if one isn't already in a domain which goes a bit beyond one's strength, that is, that makes one fragile. Indeed, I always had a fragile state of health, and this was confirmed from the moment I was diagnosed with tuberculosis, at which point I acquired all the rights accorded to a fragile state of health. Yes, it's precisely as you stated it.
Claire ParnetBut your relations with doctors and drugs changed from that moment onward: you had to go see doctors, you had to take drugs regularly, and it was a constraint imposed on you, all the more so since you do not like doctors much.
Yes. . . Personally it's not a matter of individuals because I often come across, like everyone, some very charming doctors, delightful, but it's a kind of power, or a way in which they handle power- here, once again, we return to questions previously discussed, as if half of the letters already discussed were encompassed and folded back upon the totality. I find it odious the way doctors manipulate power, and they are odious-as doctors, they are odious. I have a great hatred, not for individual doctors-on the contrary, they can be charming-but I have hatred for medical power and the way doctors use this medical power. There is only one thing that thrilled me-and at the same time, it displeased them- is when it would happen that they used their machines and tests on me. I consider these to be very unpleasant for a patient since you get the impression that these tests are completely useless, except to make the doctors confirm their diagnoses. But if they are talented doctors, they already have their diagnoses, which these cruel tests only serve to confirm. They are playing with these tests in an inadmissible way. So what made me quite happy was, each time I had to be tested under one of their machines- that is, my breath was too weak to register on their machines, or they weren't able to give me. . . a sonogram- well, they couldn't give it to me because I passed under their machine, and to my complete delight, they just got furious with me. At these moments, I think they hate their poor patient, because they could easily accept that their diagnosis might be wrong, but they can't accept that their machine wouldn't work on me. Otherwise, I consider them to be far too uncultivated, or when they attempt to be cultivated, the results are catastrophic. They are very strange people, doctors, but my consolation is that if they earn a lot of money, they don't have time really to spend it, they don't have the time to take advantage of it because they lead a very hard life. So it's true, I do not find doctors very attractive, except for the individual personalities which can be quite exquisite. Yet they really treat people like dogs in their official functions. So it really reveals class struggle because if one is a little bit wealthy, they are a lot more polite, except in surgery. Surgeons are a different case altogether. So, doctors really are a problem, and some kind of reform is needed.
Claire ParnetDo you have to take drugs all the time?
Yes, I like doing that, it doesn't bother me except that they tend to tire me out.
Claire ParnetYou actually enjoy taking medicine?
When there's a lot, in my current state, yes, because there are a lot. My little plle every mornlng Is a real hoot! But I also consider them to be quite useful. I can say that I have always been, even in the domain of psychiatry, I have always been in favor of drugs I have always been in favor of the pharmacy.
Claire ParnetAnd this fatigue that we have spoken about, which is very connected to your illness, and was even there already before the illness, one thinks, in fact, of Blanchot writing about fatigue or friendship. Fatigue plays a great role in your life, that is, sometimes one gets the impression that it's an excuse for avoiding a lot of things that bore you, and that you use fatigue and that fatigue has always been very useful for you.
Well, here is what I think: when one is affected in this way- and here, we're returning to the theme of the power of action, i.e. what it is to realize a little power of action, to do what one can do, use what is in the power of action- it's an awfully complicated notion. For, what strikes you as the lack of the power of action, for example, a fragile health or an illness, it's a question of knowing what use to make of it, so that, through it, one can recuperate a little power of action. So it is certain that illness should be used for something, as everything else. I'm not only talking about this in relation to life for which it should give one some feeling. For me, illness is not an enemy, not something that gives the feeling of death, but rather, something that sharpens the feeling of life, but not at all in the sense of "Oh, how I still want to live, and so once I'm cured, I'll start living." I cannot think of anything more abject in the world than what people call a bon vivant, it's abject. On the contrary, grands vivants are men with very weak health. I return to my question: illness sharpens a kind of vision of life or a sense of life. When I say vision, vision of life, and life, it's in the sense of me saying "to see life," but it's being crisscrossed by [life]. Illness sharpens that, gives a vision of life, life in all its force, in all its beauty. I am quite certain of this. But how can one have secondary benefits from illness? That's quite simple: One has to use it, even in order to be a bit more free. One has to use it, otherwise it's very troublesome. That is, one works too hard, which is something one ought not to do. To work too hard-if it's a question of working and to realize any power of action, then it's worth it. But working too hard socially- I can't understand a doctor working too hard because he has too many patients. So, to realize a benefit from illness is to free oneself from things that one cannot be free from in ordinary life. Personally, I never liked traveling, and I never was able, nor really knew how to travel, although I have great respect for travelers. But the fact that my health was so weakened insured my being able to decline invitations to travel. Or going to bed too late was always difficult for me, so once I had my fragile health, there was no longer any question of going to bed too late. I'm not talking about people closest to me in my life, but from social duties, illness is extraordinarily liberating, it's really good in that way.
Claire ParnetDo you see fatigue as illness?
Fatigue is something else. For me, it means: I've done what I could today. . . I've done what I could today, that's it, the day is over. I see fatigue biologically as the day being done. It's possible that it could last further for other, social reasons, but fatigue is the biological formulation of the day being done. You won't be able to draw anything further from yourself. So, if you take it this way, it's not a bothersome feeling. It's unpleasant if one hasn't done anything, then indeed, it's quite agonizing, but otherwise, it's fine. These are states of fatigue. I have always been sensitive to these flimsy, numb states. This fuzzy fatigue, I like that state. . . I like that state if it comes at the end of something, and it probably has a name in music. I don't know how you would call it. . . A coda, fatigue as coda.
Claire ParnetBefore discussing old age, we might discuss your relationship to food. . .
Ah! Old age. . . Well, ok, food. . .
Claire ParnetBecause you like food that seems to bring you strength and vitality, like marrow and lobster. You have a special relationship to food since you don't like eating.
It's true. For me, eating is the most. . . If I tried to describe the quality of eating for me, it would be boredom. It's the most boring thing in the world. Drinking, well, that was "B," we already did that, but drinking is something extraordinarily interesting, but eating never interested me, it bores me to death. So, given that, eating alone. . . But eating with someone I like, that changes everything, but it does not transform the food, it only helps me stand eating, making it less boring even if I don't talk. But eating alone, well, a lot of people are like that, everybody says that eating alone is boring, and it proves how boring eating is since most people admit that eating alone is an abominable task. Having said this, I certainly have things I enjoy immensely, that are rather special, to see the universal disgust that they inspire. . . But, after all, I can stand it when others eat cheese. . .
Claire ParnetYes, you don't like cheese. . .
. . . and for someone who hates cheese, I am one of the rare people to be tolerant, that is, not to get up and leave, or throw the person out eating cheese. The taste for cheese is a little like a kind of cannibalism, a total horror. If someone asked me what my favorite meal would be, what would give me incredible pleasure. It's true that I always come back to three things because they are three things that I always found sublime, but that are properly disgusting: tongue, brains, and marrow. I imagine. . . These are all quite nourishing. So eating all that. . . But there are a few restaurants in Paris, I found out that serve marrow, and after, I can eat nothing else. They prepare these little marrow squares, really quite fascinating. . . Brains, then tongue... But if I tried to situate this in relation to things we've already discussed, it's a kind of trinity because one might say- all this is a bit too anecdotal- one might say that brains are God, that it's the father; that marrow is the son: it's linked to vertebrates that are little crabs. So God is the brains, the little vertebrate crabs are the son, so the marrow is the son, Jesus, and the tongue is the Holy Spirit, which is the very force of the tongue [language]. Or, that could also go, but here I don'tknow... It's the braln thatls the concept, marrow is affect, and tongue, the percept. You really musn't ask me why, I see that these trinities are very ... So, that's what would make a fantastic meal for me. . .
Claire ParnetAnd old age?
Has it ever happened that I have had all three together? Maybe on a birthday with friends, they might make me a meal like. . ., eh? a party, a party. . .
Claire ParnetYou can't be eating these three things at the same time since you are speaking to us about your old age. . .
Yes, that would be a bit much.
Claire Parnet. . . Every day. . .
Ah, old age. . . Yes? There is someone who has spoken about old age very well, it's Raymond Devos. Of course, one can always say something else, he said it the best. . . For me, I find old age to be a splendid age, Of course, there are a lot of difficulties, one is overcome by a certain slowness, you're slow. But the worst is when someone says to you, "No, you're not as old as all that," because he doesn't understand what the complaint is. I complain, I say, "Oh, I'm old," that is, I invoke the powers of action of old age. These are powers of action, but then somebody tries to cheer me up by saying, "No, you're not so old." So, then I could smack him with my cane, I don't know what I'd do because it's not a question of saying, when I'm in my old age complaint, it's not a question of saying, "No, you're not all that old." On the contrary, it would be better to say: "Yes, in fact you're right!". . . But it's pure joy. Where does that joy come from, except for this bit of slowness? What's awful in old age-really, it's nothing to joke about- what's awful is pain and misery, but they are not old age. I mean, what makes old age pathetic, something sad, is these poor old people who do not have enough money to live, nor this minimum of health, not even this very weak health that I am talking about, and who suffer greatly. That's what is abominable, but it's not old age, it's not an illness at all. Old age is great with enough money and a little bit of health remaining, And why is it great? Because first, it's only in old age. . . First, one has reached it. It counts for something, just the fact of having reached it, after all, in a world that includes wars and filthy viruses, one has crossed through all that, viruses, wars, filth. . . One made it [to old age]. And it's an age where the only point is being. No longer of being this or being that, but being. . . The old person is someone who just is, period, that's it. One can always say, "oh, he's grumpy, oh, he's in a bad mood," but quite simply, he just is. He has earned the right to be, period. For an elderly person can still say, "I have plans," but it's true and not true, not true in the way that someone who is thirty has plans. I do hope to complete the two books that I really am commltted to, one on literature, another on philosophy, but that does not change the fact that I'm free of all plans. When one is old, one is no longer touchy. . . One is no longer thin-skinned, one no longer has any fundamental disappointments, one tends to be a lot more disinterested, and one really likes people for themselves. For me, it seems that it hones, for example, my perception of things that I wouldn't have seen before, elegant things, to which I would never be sensitive. I see better because I look at someone else for him/herself almost as if it were a question of carrying away an image, a percept, to extract a percept from the person. All that makes of old age. . . And days pass by with such a speed, divided by fatigue periods. But fatigue is not an illness, but something else, not death, nor. . . Again, it's just the signal of day's end. Of course, there are agonies in old age, but one has to ward them off, and it's easy to ward them off, a little like with werewolves or vampires- besides, I like that [image]- one mustn't be alone at night when it starts getting cold because one is too slow to survive. So one has to avoid some things. . . And what's marvelous is that people release you, society lets you go. Being released by society is so wonderful, not that society really had me in its grip, but someone who isn't my age, or who isn't retired, cannot suspect how much joy one can feel being released by society. Obviously, when I hear the elderly complaining, these are old people who don't want to be old or not as old as they are. They can't stand being retired, and I don't know why. . . They could just read a novel since they might discover something. I do not believe in retired people who cannot find something to do. -well, except maybe in some cases in Japan- who cannot find something to do. It's marvelous, I mean. . . People let go of you. . . We can simply give ourself a shake and all the parasites we had on our back our whole life fall off, and what's left around us? Nothing but the people you love and who can stand you and who love you, perhaps. The rest have let go of you. And what's really tough is when something catches hold of you again. I can't stand . . . I no longer. . . I only know society now through my life in retirement. I see myself as being completely unknown to society. So what's catastrophic is when someone who thinks I still belong to society asks me for an interview. This [A to Z filming] is different since what we're doing belongs entirely to my dream of old age. But when someone seeks an interview, a conversation, I would like to ask, are you nuts? Didn't you hear that I am old and society has let go of me? But I think people confuse two things: one shouldn't talk about the elderly, but about misery and suffering, for when one is old, miserable, and suffering, there is no word to describe it. But otherwise, a pure elderly person who is nothing other than elderly, that's being.
Claire ParnetWith you being ill, tired, and old, distinguishing the three things, it's sometimes difficult for people around you, who are less elderly, less ill, less tired, than you. . . your children, your wife.
For the children, the children, there's not much of a problem. There could have been if they were younger, but now since they're big enough to live on their own, and I'm not a burden for them, I don't think I create a huge problem, except perhaps in terms of affection, like them saying, "oh, he really looks too tired." But still, I don't think there's any acute problem for the children. As for Fanny, I don't think it's a problem either, although it could be, I don't know. It's quite difficult to guess what someone that one loves might have done in another life. I guess that Fanny would have liked to travel more, yes, ok. . . She surely hasn't traveled like she might have wanted to. But what other things did she discover that she wouldn't have discovered if she had traveled? She, and you too, have a strong literary background, so she was able to find splendid things through reading novels, and that largely equals traveling. Certainly there are problems, but I would say that they are beyond my understanding.
Claire ParnetTo finish up, your projects. . . Like you undertake the one, your next book, on literature or What is Philosophy?. . . What do you find enjoyable in undertaking these as an old man because earlier you said, you might not finish them, but there is something amusing in that?
Ah, that's something quite marvelous, you know, there is a whole evolution, and when one is old, one has a certain idea of what one hopes to do that becomes increasingly pure, I mean, that becomes more and more purified. I conceive of the famous lines of Japanese sketch artists, such pure lines, and there is nothing, nothing but little lines. That's how I conceive of an old man's project, something that would be so pure, so nothing, and at the same time, it would be everything, it would be so marvelous. I mean reaching such sobriety can only come late in life. For example, What is Philosophy?, my research on it: first, it's quite enjoyable at my age to search for what philosophy is? to feel like I know the answer, and that I'm the only one to know, so if I got hit by a bus, no one else could know what philosophy is. All of this, for me, is very enjoyable. I could have created a book on what phllosophy Is thlrty years ago, I know that it would have been a very, very different book from the way I conceive it now, where I'd like to arrive at a kind of sobriety such that... whether I succeed or not- I know that it's now that I have to conceive of this, that before I couldn't have done it, but now I see myself able to do it, in any case, that won't resemble...