Vertigo and Perambulators
I’ve had three words on my mind all day. The recall of obscure vocabulary words is a coping mechanism that helps me through long hours at work. I even quiz some of my coworkers on their lingual talents. Here are the three words: ersatz, somnambulism, and perambulator. The only reason I thought of perambulator was because I was querrying Britt about somnambulism. The only difference between the two words is the prefix (which you knew, of course).
Here is something more interesting than my bizarre coping mechanism. Perhaps you’ve noticed that I have come under the charm of a certain Czech genius. If you want to know the whole truth the fact is that I have become a raging Kundera apologist. Unabashed at that. The following words are from my latest textual obsession, the unmatched volume, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. To be honest, I have not gotten this excited/stimulated/intrigued/obsessed with a modern author since, well, I guess this is a first. Pynchon was close with The Crying of Lot 49, but the philosopher’s bones in my body get far more out of Kundera. Enough. Here’s the text:
Anyone whose goal is “something higher” must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? Then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? No, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified we defend ourselves.
Jul 24th 2005
It’s not that Kundera’s description of vertigo is strikingly new and genius; rather it is the fact that he transposes vertigo into a spiritual metaphor that captures me with this passage.
Thought I’d add that; I was having my readers yawning “so what” as they typed in the URL of the next site. Of course, maybe noting has changed, but my text feels more justified.
Jul 24th 2005
I missed a word:
I was having visions of my readers…
Jul 24th 2005
What an awesome blog you have. I loved your post on rings.
Jul 24th 2005
Thank you Lillee, very much. I hope you will continue to be encouraged and challenged by the words on this blog.
Jul 25th 2005
I like what I’ve seen of Kundera…which is, in fact, the few paragraphs you’ve posted here.
I’ve been scanning Half.com, looking for a good used copy of Unbearable Lightness.
I guess that means your post was a success.
Jul 26th 2005
You have a very interesting life
Jul 28th 2005
Everybody knows that a peramulator is something you make coffee in.
Aug 9th 2005
But is it “emptiness”?
Admittedly, I feel a bit breathless reading this quote, but I somehow want to resist it . . .
The set up of the quote seems as if the speaker wants to warn off lofty expectations, yet . . . if we fall into emptiness what is to fear? Is the emptiness that from which we climb? Speaking in binary terms, does fullfillment hang above? How is emptiness embodied in a voice?
Aha! That’s it–the phrase “voice of emptiness below us which tempts us and lures us” feels too wrought and a bit hollow . . . is a mermaid down there tempting with a siren’s song??
however, “the desire to fall” is quite haunting.
Haunting indeed Tim. thx.
Aug 9th 2005
Your questions are provacative, Squirrley, but I must change the direction of your discourse, redirect the ideas, if you will.
>if we fall into emptiness what is to fear?<
Nothing. Emptiness is the sum of all fears.
>(binarily)…does fulfillment hang above?<
Fulfillment, I think is very close to the opposite of emptiness; but the truth of the matter is that emptiness oft times masquerades itself as fulfillment. A dirty lie–pure and utter kitsch–is the sort of fulfillment that has at its core nothing at all.
>How is emptiness embodied in a voice?<
It is not and cannot be embodied in any way. How does one signify absense? ø? The inherrent instability of absence as a symbol is due to its unembodied nature (aww, the power of language to discuss nothing). If we shifted to a Post-Structuralist metaview (logically impossible, to be sure:) we would find that all voices are actually empty, and that asking whether anything can be embodied in a voice is ridiculous empty play.
To be sure, perhaps the phraseology is “wrought,” but I think the idea is magnificent. Emptiness…which tempts is merely a positive way of communicating the desire to deny substance, to deny meaning and identity.
PS. I leave for my honeymoon tomorrow. Scan the archives, leave a note…