Saturday, December 17, 2005
(1:37 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Housesitting for Marx
To follow up on my post At Marx's House, last night I read a paragraph in Nancy in which he contrasted what is the case chez Marx and what is the case pour nous -- I looked it up in the dictionary, and it said that pour in that case meant something like "as for us," apparently emphasizing the contrast (I immediately thought of the Bible verse where Joshua says, "As for me and my house...," but in the two French translations I can easily find online, they do not use pour in that verse -- of course, this whole exercise is of limited usefulness given the existence of a third language in this particular transaction). So all this to say: Richard G, perhaps the French really do use pour like we use "for" to refer to something like "in an author's work." Perhaps someone better educated than me can help us out in this regard.I was thinking of extending this "at Marx's house" metaphor to the phenomenon of the "introduction." Those of us who have housesat or babysat are familiar with the rapid-fire series of disembodied "tips" that the homeowners usually rattle off just before leaving -- "Oh, and the cat is really evil so just leave him alone;" "The toilet is kind of tricky so make sure to hold down the handle;" etc., etc. I personally always hate these kinds of things, just like I would hate the advice from older students in orientation sessions in school -- always pronounced from on high, always incomprehensible outside of the situation. It occurs to me that the "introduction" to a book, especially when written by someone other than the author, is similarly incomprehensible, making sense only in retrospect, once one has hung out in Marx's house for a while. It's just like the housesitting situation, except in this case the rapid-fire advice is, "Oh, and make sure to watch out for Hegel's influence on Marx," or something like that. The process of hearing the incomprehensible advice may be annoying, and in the course of the experience itself, the advice will either make sense or not -- and yet wouldn't it be inhospitable to give no advice at all?
