Transcript
Claire Parnet"S" is "Style"
Ah, well, good for us!
Claire ParnetWhat is style? In Dialogues, you say that style is the property precisely of those about whom it is said they have no style. I think that you say this about Balzac, if I recall correctly. So what is style?
Well, that's no small question!
Claire ParnetNo, that's why I asked it so quickly!
Listen, this is what I can say: to understand what style is, one is better off not knowing a thing at all about linguistics. Linguistics has done a lot of harm. Why has it done a lot of harm? Because there is an opposition- Foucault said it well- there is an opposition, and it's even their complementarity, between linguistics and literature. As opposed to what many say, they do not fit each other at all. Because, for linguistics, a language is always a balanced system, therefore it can be made into a science. And the rest, the variations, are placed no longer on the side of language, but on the side of speech. When one writes, we know quite well that language is, in fact, a system, as physicists would say, a system which is by nature far from equilibrium, a system in perpetual imbalance, such that there is no difference in level between language and speech, but language is constituted by all sorts of heterogeneous currents in disequilibrium with one another. So, what is the style of a great author? I think there are two things in a style-you see, I am answering clearly, rapidly and clearly, so I'm ashamed because it's too much of a summary. Style seems to me composed of two things: one submits the language in which one speaks and writes to a certain treatment, not a treatment that's artificial, voluntary, etc., but a treatment that mobilizes everything, the author's will, but also his/her wishes, desires, needs, necessities. One submits language to a syntactical and original treatment, which could be-here we come back to the theme of "Animal"- which could make language stutter, I mean, not stuttering oneself, but making language stutter. Or, and this is not the same thing, to make language stammer. Let's choose some examples from great stylists: Gherasim Luca, a poet, I'd say, generally, he creates stuttering, not his own speech, but he makes language stutter. Péguy. . . it's quite curious because generally for people, Péguy is a certain kind of personality about whom one forgets that above all, like all great artists, he's totally crazy. Never has anyone written like Péguy, and never will anyone write like Péguy. His writing belongs among the great styles of French language; he's one of the great creators of the French language. What did he do? One can't say that his style is a stuttering; he makes the sentence grow from its middle. It's fantastic. Instead of having sentences follow each other, he repeats the same sentence with an addition in the middle of it, which in turn, will engender another addition, etc. He makes the sentence proliferate from its middle, by insertions. That's a great style. So, there is the first aspect: make language undergo a treatment, an incredible treatment. That's why a great stylist isn't someone who conserves syntax, but is a creator of syntax. I never let go of Proust's lovely formula: masterpieces are always written in a kind of foreign language. A stylist creates a foreign language in his/her language. It's true of Céline, it's true of Péguy, it's true of. . . That's what it means to be a great stylist. Then, second, at the same time as this first aspect-specifically, one causes syntax to undergo a deforming, contorting treatment, but a necessary one thatconstitutes something like a foreign language in the language in which one writes- the second point is, through this very process, one then pushes all language all the way to a kind of limit, the border that separates it from music. One produces a kind of music. If one succeeds in these two things, and if there is necessity in doing so, it is a style, that's what the great stylists are. And it's true of all of them at once: burrow a foreign language deep within language, and carry all language to a kind of musical limit. This is what it means to have a style, yes.
Claire ParnetDo you think that you have a style...?
Oh, the treachery!
Claire Parnet...because I see a change from your first books. It's simplified.
The proof of a style is its variability, and generally one goes toward an increasingly sober style. But increasingly sober does not mean less complex. I think of one of the writers I admire greatly in terms of style, Kerouac. At the end of his career, Kerouac's writing was like a Japanese line, really, a pure Japanese line drawing, his style, reaches a sobriety, but that really implies then the creation of a foreign language within the language, all the more. . . Well, yes. . . I also think of Céline, and it's odd when people said to Céline, "Oh, you've introduced spoken language into written language" which was already a stupid statement because in fact, a completely written treatment is required in language, one must create a foreign language within language to obtain through writing the equivalent of the spoken language. So Céline didn't introduce the spoken into language, that's just stupid to say that. But when Céline received a compliment, he knew very well that he was so far away from what he would have wanted. So that would be in his second novel, in Death on the Installment Plan, that he is going to get closer. But when it's published and he is told, "Oh, you've changed," he knows again that he is very, very far from what he wanted, and so what he wanted, he is going to reach with Gulgnol's Band, where language is pushed to such a limit that it is so close to music. It's no longer a treatment of language that creates a foreign language, but an entire language pushed to the musical limit. So, by its very nature, style changes, it has its variation.
Claire ParnetWith Péguy, one often thinks of Steve Reich with the repetitive aspect of the music.
Yes, except that Péguy is a much greater stylist than Reich.
Claire ParnetYou haven't responded to my 'treachery." Do you think that you have a style?
I would like to, but what do you want me to say? I would like to, but I have the feeling. . . If one says that already to be a stylist, one must live the problem of style, then I can answer more modestly: the problem of style, for me, I live it, yes. I don't tell myself while writing, "the problem of style, I'll deal with it afterward." I am aware I will not obtain the movement of concepts that I want if the writing does not pass through style,
Claire ParnetAnd the necessity of composition?
I am ready to rewrite the same page ten times.
Claire ParnetSo, style is like a necessity of composition in what you write? That is, composition enters into it in a very primordial way?
Yes, there, I think you are completely correct. But you are saying something else there. Is the composition of a book already a matter of style? In this, I think: yes, entirely. The composition of a book cannot be decided beforehand, but at the same time as the book is written. I see that in what I have written, if I dare invoke these examples, there are two books that seem to be composed. I always attached great importance to the composition itself. I think, for example, of a book called Loglc of Sense, which is composed in a series, it's truly a kind of serial composition for me. And then in A Thousand Plateaus, it's a composition in plateaus, plateaus constituted by things. . . But I see these as nearly two musical compositions. Composition is a fundamental element of style.
Claire ParnetAnd in your mode of expression, to pick up a statement you made earlier: today are you now closer to what you wanted than twenty years ago, or is it something else entirely?
At this moment in what I am doing, I feel that I'm getting closer. . . in what I have not yet completed, I have a feeling of getting closer, that I am grasping something that I was looking for and haven't yet found.
Claire ParnetStyle is not only literary, you are sensitive to it in all domains. For example, you live with the elegant Fanny [Deleuze], your friend Jean-Pierre is also quite elegant, and you seem very sensitive to this elegance.
Well, they're ahead of me there. I'd like to be elegant, but I know quite well that I am not. For me, elegance is something. . . Even in perceiving it, I mean, there is already an elegance that consists in perceiving what elegance is. Otherwise, there are people who miss it entirely and what they call elegance is not at all elegant. So a certain grasp of what elegance is belongs to elegance. That impresses me greatly. This is a domain like anything else, that one has to learn about, one has to be somewhat gifted, you have to learn it. . . Why did you ask me that?
Claire ParnetFor style, that is in all domains.
Ah, well, yes, but this aspect is not really part of great art. What one might need to. . . yes, no, I don't know. . . It's just that. . . I get the impression that it doesn't only depend on elegance. . . Which is something that I admire a lot, but. . . What's important in the world is that all these things emit signs. I mean non-elegance, vulgarity also emits signs, that's more what I find important: the emissions of signs. So, this is why I have always liked and still like Proust so much, for the society life, the social relations- these are fantastic emissions of signs. What we call a blunder is a non-comprehension in a sign, signs that people don't understand. Society life as a milieu of the proliferation of empty signs, absolutely empty, these signs have no interest at all. But it's also the speed and the nature of their emission. This connects back to animal worlds because animal worlds also are fantastic emissions of signs. Animals and socialites are the masters of signs.
Claire ParnetAlthough you don't go out much, you have always preferred going out in society to convivial gatherings.
Of course, because for me, in society, people don't argue, that sort of vulgarity is not part of that milieu, and conversation moves absolutely into lightness, that is, an extraordinarily rapid evocation, speeds of conversations. Again, these are very interesting emissions of signs.