READER ☆ La Soirée avec monsieur Teste ✓ Paul Valéry
The famous opening line of Monsieur Teste Stupidity is not my strong suit is typical of Monsieur Teste and of Valery as well Although not autobiographical in any usual sense the book is profoundly person Lately I've been thinking a lot about bullshit More specifically I've been thinking about the assumptions that underpin any bullshit imputing judgment For instance it seems to me that judgments of the form x is bullshit necessarily presuppose that the judging party has an adeuate understanding of the x's semantic content or alleged lack thereof And if the judging party further determines that the x in uestion happens to be truth apt ie has a truth value of either true or false then the charge of bullshit also reuires a firm belief that the conditions upon which the bullshit would be true do not in fact obtainThe potential dubiety of these two assumptions can be problematic enough in the truth centered disciplines of science philosophy and mathematics Just look at how many times thinkers like Derrida have had to parry charges of charlatanism But what about literature When you read a poem or a short story or a novel how can you ever satisfy that first step And what about a work like Monsieur Teste which seems to be a novel masuerading as a philosophical treatise—or a philosophical treatise masuerading as a novel—or a novel masuerading as a philosophical treatise masuerading as a novelSuffice to say I have absolutely no clue what to make of this opaue and puzzling work Superficially it purports to comprise a study of a mind detached from sensibility whatever the hell that means; and while the book made me feel as if I was on the cusp of something profound the critical moment of enlightenment never materialized Did I simply lack the faculties to comprehend Valéry's genius Did I miss the point of the book Or is Monsieur Teste little than a steaming pile of bullshitAnd importantly did translator Jackson Mathews find himself struggling with these very uncertainties
Paul Valéry ✓ La Soirée avec monsieur Teste TEXT
La Soirée avec monsieur TesteOf a mind detached from sensibility; on the other he is an ordinary fictional character seen from many viewpoints This volume also includes 'The Snapshots of Monsieur Teste excerpts from Valery's Noteboo perfect i wil reread reread reread