Saturday, September 23, 2006

"Unutterable and nameless..."

Ironic, perhaps, that I should quote Nietzsche but still publicise myself on the world-wide web: "Unutterable and nameless is that which torments and delights my soul and is also the hunger of my belly...be too exalted for the familiarity of names: and if you have to speak of it, do not be ashamed to stammer". And a variation on the theme by Rose: "If I knew who or what I were, I would not write; I write out of those moments of anguish which are nameless". Ironic, perhaps, too, that I should spend years struggling against academia and eventually reject it because "we do not have enough command of each other's language for the exchange to be fruitful", yet return to the very discipline against which I had struggled for so long. And yet, perhaps, not so ironic at all for I was neither in nor out of academia for me to have joined it initially only to have either escaped or re-joined it later: I did not return to it for I was already there, only I didn't call it academia then and I don't have a name for it now.

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