Sunday, October 15, 2006

Cirque line

Ellis Sharp discusses Bernhard's page-long story Piccadilly Circus:
A circus is, in one sense, a place of entertainment; in another, it is an open space where a number of streets converge. Both senses might be thought relevant to this story as a space in which various lines of narrative meet. But as a space it is circular and self-contained: it leads nowhere but back to its beginning. However, I resist the notion of art as self-contained.
And of course he's right to resist. Even the best work of literature is not independent. It's just very, very lonely.

1 comment:

  1. Uncharacteristically, you fill in a space - that which yawns between the last word of my penultimate paragraph ('beginning') and the first word of the final paragraph ('However'). A void, which is not necessarily a bridge.

    Is it not possible that the grain of the voice in my final paragraph (formal, perhaps even faintly deranged) is a little different to what precedes it - almost, one might hesitantly suggest, a voice imitation?

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