Hemingway, Pascin and the Dark Girl

Jules Pascin, "Girl with a Doll" (ink/watercolor)

"Look," Pascin said. "if you think I'm in love with canvases, I'll paint you tomorrow in water colors."

"When do we eat?" her sister asked. "And where?"

"Will you eat with us?" the dark girl asked. 

"No. I go to eat with my légitime." That's what they said then. Now they say "my régulière." 

"You have to go?" 

"Have to and want to."

"Go on, then," Pascin said. And don't fall in love with typewriting paper."

"If I do, I will write with a pencil."

"Water colors tomorrow," he said. "All right, my children, I will drink another and then we eat where you wish." 

"Chez Viking," the dark girl said. 

"Me too," her sister urged. 

"All right," Pascin agreed. "Good night, jeune homme. Sleep well."

"You too." 

"They keep me awake," he said. "I never sleep."

"Sleep tonight." 

"After Chez Les Vikings?" He grinned with his hat on the back of his head. He looked more like a Broadway character of the Nineties than the lovely painter that he was, and afterwards, when he had hanged himself, I liked to remember him as he was that night at the Dôme. They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil with a higher grade of manure. (103-4)

—Ernest Hemingway, "With Pascin at the Dôme" from A Moveable Feast (1964)

Metonymy, Taishun

"I know what to do with the play now.I have an idea. I think if everyone--"

So I used to date this girl who's a painter. 

Now, you know what people always say. "Don't get too involved with artists. Finally they are just unbearable" or "The more beautiful their art is the messier they will be"--those are kind of the phrases. But you know what's interesting? In my case, certainly the gap is there--I mean, that supposedly irredeemable gap between art and life--but somehow I just enjoyed it. I really did! I mean, Dog, how I loved to watch her struggle with pieces and pieces of paper torn from her scrapbooks, getting the room all dirty and herself all moody just to get the touch of a stroke right. . . And the point is--despite all this messiness and awkwardness during the process--at the end of the day, it still did not prevent me from admiring her works or being touched by them, y'know? In fact, not only wasn't the charm--this "aura" or "mana" as they call it--diminished in the slightest from her final pieces, but, on the contrary, I've always felt that something more--something magic even--was being added up to them and that, exactly because I was there in almost every aspect of her life, this something belonged to me alone, y'know? It's like, among the seven billion people in this crazy world of ours, I am the only one who actually witnesses her secret mutation from the scruffiest to the purest, from the most quotidian of life to the most earth-shattering of art, y'know?

And finally I remember thinking to myself that, perhaps, that's the point of art, and perhaps that's why we cannot but keep creating it. It's not life itself--it can never be life itself, it always falls short--yet neither is it simply not life. Rather, I'd imagine what matters is this infinitely close yet minutely distant connection we create between art and life, see? It makes you think. It gives you an idea of man's potentiality and transformation. 

It's this very gap between "the chaos of life" and "the beauty of art" that shows us what, as finite human beings, we aspire and are capable of. 

"Foreword by Maestro Mimmo Repetto"

Saul Fletcher, "Untitled #224" (2010)

       Everything I can't stand has a name.

I can't stand old people. Their drool. Their complaints. Their uselessness. 

Even worse when they try to be useful. Their dependency.

Their noises. Numerous, repetitive. Their exasperating anecdotes.   

The centrality of their stories. Their scorn for successive generations. 

But I can't stand the successive generations either. 

I can't stand old people when they start shouting and demand a seat on the bus. 

I can't stand young people. Their arrogance. The way they show off their strength and youth. 

The saga of the heroic invincibility of young people is just pathetic. 

I can't stand the impertinent young people who refuse to give up their seat for an old person on the bus. 

I can't stand hoodlums and hooligans. Their sudden laughter, shameless and useless. 

Their scorn for their fellow man, for anyone who's different. Even more intolerable are respectful, responsible, generous young people. They're all volunteerism and group prayers. Such goo manners, such a smell of death. In their hearts and in their hands. 

I can't stand wilful self-referential children and the obsessive parents, referential only toward their children. I can't stand children who shout and who cry. Silent children make me nervous, so I can't stand them either. I can't stand workers and the unemployed and the mellifluous and reckless ostentatious display of their divine misfortune. 

Which isn't divine. Just a lack of determination. 

How can you put up with all those who are dedicated t the struggle, the revindication of claims, the facile political speech, and the sweat under the armpits? No, it's impossible to put up with them. 

I can't stand executives. There's no reason even to explain why. I can't stand the petite bourgeoisie, closed up in the shell of their shitty world. Their lives are guided by fear. The fear of everything won't fit into that tiny shell. And they're snobs, without even knowing the meaning of the word. 

I can't stand boyfriends, because they get in the way.

I can't stand girlfriends, because they intervene. 

I can't stand people who are broad-minded, tolerant, and unbiased. 

Always correct. Always perfect. Always impeccable. 

Everything's allowed, except murder. 

You criticize them, and they thank you for your criticism. You scorn them and they cheerfully express their appreciation. In other words, they're always tripping you up.    

Because they boycott viciousness. 

So, they're intolerable. 

They ask you: "How are you?" and they actually want to know. A shock. But deep down, under the disinterested interest, somewhere, there's a stab in the back lurking. 

But I also can't stand those who never put you in a quandary. Always obedient and reassuring. Loyal and duplicitous.

I can't stand pool players, nicknames, the indecisive, non-smokers, smog and fresh air, traveling salesmen, pizza by the slice, pat phrases, chocolate crunch cones, bonfires, stockbrokers, flowered wallpaper, fair-trade products, disorder, environmentalists, the sense of civility, cats, mice, soft drinks, unexpected doorbells, long phone calls, people who say that drinking a glass of wine every day is good for you, people who pretend to forget your name, people who say that they're professionals to defend themselves, former classmates who meet you thirty years late and call you by your last name, old people who never miss an opportunity to remind you that they fought in the Resistance, grownup children at loose ends who have nothing to do so they decide to open an art gallery, former Communists who go crazy over Brazilian music, airheads who say "how intriguing," fashion hounds who say "that's hot" and related terms, the sugar-sweet ones who say things like "cute," "lovely," and "stupendous," ecumenical types who call everyone "sweetheart," certain beauties who tell you they "adore" you, the lucky ones who can play an instrument by ear, the supposedly distracted types who just don't listen when you speak, the superior types who judge, feminists, commuters, artificial sweeteners, fashion designers, film directors, car radios, make dancers, politicians, ski boots, adolescents, undersecretaries for this or that, rhymes, aging rock singers with skin-tight jeans, stuck-up over-serious writers, relatives, flowers, blondes, bows, mantelpieces, intellectuals, sidewalk artists, jellyfish, magicians, VIPs, rapists, child molesters, anyone who works in a circus, cultural impresarios, social workers, amusements, animal lovers, ties, fake laughter, provincials, hydrofoils, all collectors of anything, especially watch collectors, all hobbies, doctors, patients, jazz, advertising, builders, mothers, people who watch basketball, all actors, all actresses, video art, amusement parks, experimentalists of any kind, soups, contemporary painting, elderly craftsmen in their workshops, amateur guitarists, statues in the main square, people who kiss hands, beauty farms, good-looking philosophers, over-chlorinated swimming pools, algae, thieves, anorexics, vacations, love letters, priests and altar boys, suppositories, ethnic music, fake revolutionaries, bivalves, pandas, acne, percussionists, showers with shower curtains, birthmarks, calluses, knickknacks, moles, vegetarians, view painters, cosmetics, opera singers, Parisians, high-neck pullovers, music in restaurants, parties, meetings, houses with views, Englishisms, neologisms, momma's boys, chips off the old block, wealthy heirs, other people's children in general, museums, town mayors, commissioners, protesters, poetry, people who run delicatessens, jewellers, car alarms, thin chains made of yellow gold, leaders, followers, prostitutes, people who are too short or too tall, funerals, body hair, cell phones, bureaucracy, art installations, automobiles of all engine sizes, keychains, singer-songwriters, the Japanese, high officials, racists and the tolerant, the blind, formica, copper, brass, bamboo, chefs on television, crowds, suntan creams, lobbyists, slang, stains, kept women, cornucopias, stammerers, stutterers, youthful old people and elderly young people, snobs, the radical chic, plastic surgery, ring highways and bypasses, plants and trees, loafers, sectarians, television personalities, aristocrats, cords that get tangled, showgirls, comedians, golfers, science fiction, veterinarians, fashion models, political refugees, the obtuse, blinding white beaches, made-up religions and their followers, factory reject floor tiles, the stubborn, professional critics, couples where he's a lot younger than she is and vice-versa, people who are mature, everyone with a hat, everyone with sunglasses, tanning lamps, forest fires, bracelets, nepotists and protégés, people in the armed forces, dissolute tennis players, sectarians and fans and supporters, perfume that was purchased from a tobacconist, weddings, jokes, first commons, freemasons, Mass, people who whistle, people who burst into song, burps and belches, junkies, Lions Clubs, cokeheads, Rotary Clubs, sexual tourism, tourism, people who detest tourism and say that they're "travelers," people who speak "from experience," people who have no experience but want to have their say all the same, people who know how the world works, elementary-school teachers, people who are obsessed with meetings, people who are obsessed in general, nurses who wear clogs, but why do they have to wear clogs? 

I can't stand the timid, the overtalkative, the fake mysterious, the awkward, the awkward, the airheads, the whimsically inspired, the charmingly affected, the crazy ones, the geniuses, the heroes, the self-confident, the silent, the valourous, the pensive, the conceited, the rude, the conscientious, the unpredictable, the comprehensive, the attentive ones, the humble, the experts, the passionate, the bombastic, the eternally astonished, the equitable, the futile, the enigmatic, the wisecrackers, the cynical, the fearful, the arrogant, the quarrelsome, the proud, the phlegmatic, the con artists, the too precious by half, the vigorous, the tragic, the listless, the insecure, the dubious, the disenchanted, the awestruck, the winners, the miserly, the meek, the slovenly, the saccharine, the plaintive, the grumbles, the capricious, the spoiled, the noisy ones, the unctuous, the brusque, and everyone who interacts socially with relative facility. 

I can't stand nostalgia, normalcy, cruelty, hyperactivity, bulimia, courtesy, melancholy, poignancy, intelligence and stupidity, haughtiness, resignation, shame, arrogance, amiability, two-facedness, cavalier attitudes, athleticism, goodheartedness, religious convictions, ostentatiousness, curiosity and indifference, reenactments, reality, guilt, minimalism, the sober and the excessive, the generic, falsehood, responsibility, carelessness, excitement, wisdom, determination, self-complacency, irresponsibility, correctness, aridity, seriousness and frivolity, pomposity, necessariness, human misery, compassion, gloom, predictability, recklessness, captiousness, rapidity, obscurity, negligence, slowness, mediety, velocity, ineluctability, exhibitionism, enthusiasm, slovenliness, virtuosity, amateurishness, professionalism, decisiveness, self-sufficiency, autonomy, dependency, elegance, and happiness. 

I can't stand anything or anyone. 

Not even myself. Especially not myself. 

There's only one thing I can stand.

Nuance. 

--Paolo Sorrentino, "Foreword by Maestro Mimmo Repetto" in Everybody's Right (2011) 

Quotes from “Habitus as Topic and Tool: Reflections on Becoming a Prizefighter.”

"The Mike Tyson of sociology"!

—"While I was carrying out my investigations on boxing and on the ghetto, I was in permanent contact with Pierre Bourdieu, who encouraged and guided me. Upon learning that I had signed up to learn how to box at the Woodlawn Boys Club, he had written me a note that said essentially, “Stick it out, you will learn more about the ghetto in this gym than you can from all the surveys in the world.” (Later on, as I got deeper into my immersion, he got a bit scared and tried to get me to pull back. When I signed up to fight in the Chicago Golden Gloves, he first threatened to disown me as he feared that I would get hurt, before realizing that there was no need to panick: I was well prepared for this trial by fire.) Bourdieu came to Chicago several times, visited the gym, and met DeeDee [Wacquant's boxing coach] and my boxer friends (I introduced him to them as “the Mike Tyson of sociology"). During one of these visits, we hatched the project of a book that would explicate the theoretical core of his work, aimed at the Anglo-American readership, since it was on this front that there were the strongest distortions and obstacles to a fertile grasp of his models. We devoted three years to writing this book across the Atlantic (by fax, phone, letters and meetings every few months), entitled An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992), in which we disentangle the nexus of habitus, capital, and field. During those years, I led a sort of Dr.-Jekyll-and-Mr.-Hyde existence, boxing by day and writing social theory by night. In the afternoon, I would go to the gym, train, hang out with my buddies, and “conversate” on end with our coach DeeDee before driving him home at closing time. And, later that evening, after having typed my fieldnotes, I would switch to the book manuscript with Bourdieu. It was in turns intoxicating, invigorating, and exhausting. But the daytime sessions as a student of pugilism offered both a respite from theoretical cogitation and powerful stimuli for thinking through the abstract issues tackled in the book in very mundane empirical terms. The sociology of the ghetto (which I had extended to encompass a comparison with the postindustrial transformation of the French urban periphery), the carnal ethnography of the skilled body, and theoretical work with Bourdieu: all of these strands were elaborated together and at the same time, and they are all woven together" (86-7).

—"The idea that guided me here was to push the logic of participant observation to the point where it becomes inverted and turns into observant participation. In the Anglo- American tradition, when anthropology students first go into the field, they are cautioned, “Don’t go native.” In the French tradition, radical immersion is admissible—think of Jeanne Favret-Saada’s ([1978] 1980) Deadly Words—but only on condition that it be coupled with a subjectivist epistemology which gets us lost in the inner depths of the anthropologist-subject. My position on the contrary, is to say, “go native” but “go native armed,” that is, equipped with your theoretical and methodological tools, with the full store of problematics inherited from your discipline, with your capacity for reflexivity and analysis, and guided by a constant effort, once you have passed the ordeal of initiation, to objectivize this experience and construct the object, instead of allowing yourself to be naively embraced and constructed by it. Go ahead, go native, but come back a sociologist! In my case, the concept of habitus served both as a bridge to enter into the factory of pugilistic know-how and methodically parse the texture of the work(ing) world of the pugilist, and as a shield against the lure of the subjectivist rollover of social analysis into narcissistic story telling" (87-8).

—"Apprenticeship is here the means of acquiring a practical mastery, a visceral knowledge of the universe under scrutiny, a way of elucidating the praxeology of the agents under examination . . . it relies on the most intimate experience, that of the desiring and suffering body, to grasp in vivo the collective manufacturing of the schemata of pugilistic perception, appreciation, and action that are shared, to varying degrees, by all boxers, whatever their origins, their trajectory, and their standing in the sporting hierarchy (Wacquant 2005a)" (88).

—Loïc Wacquant, “Habitus as Topic and Tool: Reflections on Becoming a Prizefighter.”

Because We Are Also What We Have Lost

Bray, Ireland. 10/8/2014.

I.

"A luciano: porque también somos lo que hemos perdido."

—Alejandro González Iñárritu, Amores Perros (2000)

II.

« Il [le fond] est là, qui nous fixe, pourtant sans yeux. L'individu s'en distingue, mais lui, ne s'en distingue pas, continuant d'épouser ce qui divorce avec lui. Il est l'indéterminé, mais en tant qu'il continue d'embrasser la détermination, comme la terre au soulier. Or les animaux sont en quelque sorte prémunis contre ce fond, par leurs formes explicites. Il n'en est pas de même pour le Je et le Moi, minés par les champs d'individuation qui les travaillent, sans défense contre une montée du fond qui leur tend son miroir difforme ou déformant, et où toutes les formes maintenant pensées se dissolvent. La bêtise n'est pas le fond ni l'individu, mais bien ce rapport où l'individuation fait monter le fond sans pouvoir lui donner forme (il monte à travers le Je, pénétrant au plus profond dans la possibilité de la pensée, constituant le non-reconnu de toute récognition).» (197-8)

—Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répétition (1968)

III.

我到魔鬼湖畔的時候
美麗還沒醒來
美麗還沒醒來，是
最美麗的時候
夢恣意遊移在視線內外
霧包裝的顏色還沒打開......
我輕輕把腳步聲栽進土裡
迅速忘掉它的所在。而
所有被忘了的事
將在我記得的部份盛開

羅智成，<清晨>（1989）

後設詮釋，或，為什麼我們要唸文學？

http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/paper/812659

       前一陣子（其實好一陣子了. . . 但我也相信這新聞大約還是會以各種面貌不斷重新出現的）因為一則「英文系沒前途？17系所改名、停招」的新聞，非常經典的一道問題「我們為什麼要唸文學？這到底有什麼用？」又重新再被提起。面對這千古大哉問，自己的（Facebook）朋友及許多文學院同學們也相當有默契地一致回答了ㄧ個同樣經典（近乎制式化）的辯護：文學讓我們更瞭解人（人性、他人、以至於人生）―而這是一種最根本且至關緊要的無用之用。某種程度來說，我自己並不反對這樣的回答。但針對這點我其實一直想替質疑者再提出的問題是：但究竟文學這種讓我們更瞭解人的功能是如何可能的？畢竟，所謂文學，說穿了終究不也就是印刷出來的白紙黑字、銀/螢幕上的投射影像、或舞台框架內的肢體互動―簡單來講，只是再現（representation）或後結構意義下的編成（text）―而它們終究不是真實的、有血有肉的人和人生吧？且有讀過 Madame Bovary 的人就會知道，小說讓我們擁抱的很有可能不是真實人生，而是最終導向自我毀滅的幻想; 曾接觸過一些意識形態批判（先假設我們接受這些批判的有效性的話）的各位也必然警覺，書本或論述正是意識形態運作、遮蔽社會上根本矛盾的主要場域（比如太多太多的西方文學經典作品都形塑和加深了Said 所謂「東方主義」的建構; 又或者 propaganda 在這個意義下也可以被視作是一種文學的極端）; 而有唸過拉岡精神分析的也會理解到，語言在根本上就是暴力的（Kojève: “The word is the murder of the thing.”），是把我們去勢而無法直接觸及「真實」（the Real）的根本原因。那麼，究竟是在什麼樣的意義下我們還是可以很有自信的說：即使有這層 textuality，這不可跨越的鴻溝的阻擋，文學終究能幫助我們更瞭解自己以至於我們所身處的世界呢？

事實上我的看法是：恰恰正是因為此 textuality 的存在文學才得以讓我們瞭解人―因為真實人生事實上就是 "stranger than fiction"！或者，用 Žižek 的話來說，電影（或文學）真正所求的並非逼真―並非是要觀眾在虛構 /再現的影像中看到真實人生―而是反過來讓他們體會到自己真實生活中既存的虛構面向：那層也許我們一般意識不到（不像在紙本或投影幕上那樣明顯）但卻依然無所不在 textuality。舉例來說，新聞故事、廣告影像、建築空間、政治人物的話語、甚至法律條文不也都是某種需要被詮釋的文本和虛構？從這個角度來看，文學中被詮釋文本與現實世界間的textuality非但不是阻礙我們瞭解自己與世界的鴻溝，反倒它讓我們更敏感―它使我們在對日常生活中無所不在的文本進行詮釋前有了許多預先演練的機會。講得更直接一點，只要人們還有使用符號或語言（並且使用語言的同時還不停地在說謊！）的一天，那麼獨立、自主、且外在於我們自身的各式文本及其 textualities 就必然存在―而正是此「現實的虛構」與「文學的虛構」間的對應關係使文學終究具有其無可取代的價值。然而從這樣的角度看來，事實上念文學之所以能讓我們更瞭解人的原因或許就並不如我們一般所理解的那樣，在於我們對文學作品的詮釋內容本身（從中習得某個角色的人生觀、掌握到小說的旨趣因而變得更世故聰明 etc.）; 相對地，我認為文學真正重要的時刻反而只發生在我們詮釋文本的運動過程本身、在乎上述文學與現實之虛構幾近疊合的那一個瞬間：唯有在我們拚命詮釋（失敗）的同時猛然撞上文本與現實間不可跨越的高牆而終於肯認跨越此 textuality 的不可能性―也就是說，唯有在感覺到痛―之後，我們才得以回過頭來反省自己平時在真實世界面對種種同樣不可知的其他 textualities的態度與方式。簡單來說，藉由詮釋文學的不可能達到詮釋世界的可能，一種我稱為「後設詮釋」（meta-interpretation）的效果。

舉例來說，在我們的真實世界裡，人與人之間，人與動物之間，心與物之間，藍與綠之間、男與女之間，瘋癲與理性之間，東方與西方之間，或任何分裂的二元對立之間不也都存在著這樣如文本/現實間的 textuality 一樣巨大而無法完全被跨越或掌握的高牆嗎？以人與人間的相處為例，他人（他者）不也像是一個作者（其外表、話語、行為舉止、及種種外顯出來讓這個世界接收的符碼也恰似ㄧ部小說文本），而我們所讀出來、所理解到的不也往往都不是作者/他者原本要訴說的本意？從這個角度看來，所謂文學理論與批評最終或許都是要藉由思考上述文學與現實間的詮釋切點讓我們重新回過頭來反思自己在現實世界對各種他者詮釋的種種盲點甚或是暴力。以Roland Barthes 有名的「作者已死」來說， 從表面上看來，其所鼓吹的 “readerly” 式閱讀（非關作者的本意，而是讀者由文本符號對意義的自行創造）的確站在傳統的 “writerly” 式閱讀（一種對正確、唯一、或作者本身詮釋的追求）的對立面，也因此似乎總意味著對他者主體性及任何意義的消解（「作者已死，其本意也並不重要」等等）。然而更進一步來說，這告訴我們的其實也絕不是可以就視他人為草芥並隨意扭曲其意願或話語，因為我們不能忽略的是 Barthes 所提出的這兩種閱讀法事實上並非一種平行的二元對立，而是一垂直的、近乎具有時間縱深的承接。換句話說， Barthes所反對的並不是追求意義本身―其真正希望提倡的也並非是要用任何隨意的 readerly 詮釋對抗、甚至消解掉一切 writerly 解讀的意義―而是（如我們先前所見的）當符號與語言之本質所造就的外在於我們自身的 textuality高牆本就已使得任何天真的writerly式閱讀（真正瞭解他人、對先驗超然意義的追求 etc.）不可能的同時， 我們作為讀者究竟該如何超越、溢出此詮釋框架而有自行創造各種新的與文本及他者溝通的可能。換句話說，所謂 readerly閱讀所內包的其實正是 writerly閱讀本身的不可能性，而正是在這個意義與前提之下作者才已死亡。也因此只有在碰撞此「作者之死」（詮釋作者的不可能性）、藉由透過文本的 textuality反射回我們真實生活本身 textualities的辯證關係，我們才有可能超越各式被預先劃定的疆界、定義、立場、與意識形態，而「愛」或「友情」―這些變形、這些力的延伸、這些漫出身體輪廓所預先定義的人終極孤獨之存有的狀態―才成為可能。

從這個角度再反思回來，我想要特別指出的一點是：文學或許還是不能只是自己讀著好玩就好。當然我的意思並不是說我們完全不能這麼做，只是這樣子讀的文學可能還是比較像打電玩或唱歌一樣，只是種消遣罷了。如果真的希望能更瞭解自己和這個世界，真的想要無愧於我們口中這文學最重要的使命與功能，我們大約還是非得拚命地用力詮釋不可。只有不斷嘗試、不斷失敗、不斷嘗試、再不斷失敗（Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”）後，我們才可能撞到那面比天還要高的，叫做 textuality的牆。撞著了牆，感覺到痛，我們也才終於有經歷「後設詮釋」並真切地反思自己與世界的可能。而如果，如同村上春樹所說，所謂文學的本質無非一用虛構形式表達、轉化到另一虛構時空的真相，那麼此真相的「真實」（aletheia [disclosure]）之所以可能的原因事實上也恰好來自（後設）詮釋在文學與現實平行的兩層虛構間所劃出一絲絲夾縫：那雙重否定所帶來的可能性，那讓人們― Heidegger的 Da-sein [being-(the)-there ; être-le-là] ―得以對自身及世界進行其存有（論）本身（ontological）無止盡詮釋的 Da (there) 。

當然，最後我們還是必須回到那個最初的（也是這個時代普遍最關心）的問題：講了這麼多，那麼唸文學究竟是有什麼用呢―如果它能告訴我們的終究只是瞭解他人和世界的不可能的話？在這裡我必須很誠實地說：的確，幾乎沒甚麼用（哈哈. . .）。但我再強調一次，是「幾乎」沒有什麼用。而唯一的差別，那唯一可能的有用之處便在於：至少透過唸文學你確定知道你的不知道，至少多出來的可能便是這不可能性本身：一種不可能的可能性，或可能的不可能性―而我相信正是藉由這個承認或理解我們可以活得更好。因為某種程度來說，此不可能性不就像死亡一樣嗎？無論如何人終將不免一死，我們無論如何是超越不了它的，這是一個不可能性：但這也並不代表我們就不用活了！事實上，正是藉由透過對無處、無所、無時不在的死亡的承認甚至悅納，我們才能誠實地面對自己的每一部份，我們才（弔軌地）更有生的意志來擁抱這個世界。所以相似地，正是因為詮釋文學的艱難讓我們切身體悟到自己的無知，我們也才更能重新開始用反思的方式試著瞭解他人及我們自身所身處的世界。最後，如果如同Montaigne所說： “That to philosophise is to learn how to die” （“Philosopher, c'est apprendre à mourir”），那麼我想在此文我試圖劃出的文學與現實間的詮釋切點似乎同時也是一哲學與文學在遠方交會的起點：

“ ‘To philosophise is to learn how to die,’ while to read literature is to learn how to live―and ultimately learning how to die is learning how to live.”

《建習生，Preview》

（不好意思，針對這部片還是有些不中聽的話想講。然而我的意思絕不是要抹煞整個劇組的努力或創意; 事實上，願意好好地訴說一個故事就是任何真正的溝通和改變的開始—單就這一點來說我絕對是給予肯定的。但之所以要寫出這些批評一方面是希望能指出在我們主流論述中存在已久，但卻實在鮮少被觸及的關於「建中」此ㄧ概念的盲點（我也相信透過這樣觀點的轉變能夠多少帶來更全面的、對於整個教育體系傳統式批判的反省），二來，這些話也多少算是說給自己聽的罷—就當作是高中時代無知的自己的一種自我批判這樣子。）

《建習生，Preview》 整部短片的主旨其實很明確：一方面它在內容上訴諸了許多（所謂）建中生共有回憶的地景事物（爬牆、黑糖冰、林乾. . .），同時它也是一部由一群建中校友所製作的片子：從這個角度來看，也許我們可以把它視作是創作者一個很私人的、情感上對自己建中回憶的致敬; 然而在另一方面，整部片似乎也不單單只是對回憶的懷念與追想這麼簡單—我們同時也不難發現在敘事的表面底下其實隱涵著一層對所謂僵化的教育體制及升學考試制度（或是說支撐著它的意識形態）的批判。一方面，我們有以世勛爸爸作為代表的主流意識形態對建中的刻板想像（升學率高、進去準備考醫科或電機系、未來找得到穩定工作. . .等）; 在另一方面，我們則有那些我們必須親身去經歷、去「建習」才能感受到的建中內部真正的價值：其自由的學風、豐富的社團文化、及多才多藝同學。然而也就是在這裡我想提出我的疑問：以上所述三個（所謂）建中的特色真的需要我們先去親身體驗才能領悟得到嗎？我的意思是，難道在進建中之前我們真的完全對這些說法毫無耳聞，而選擇進建中也都純粹只是因為接受了「爸媽的諄諄教誨」而決定好了要當醫生、工程師、或律師？

正好相反。我認為我們大部份的人在進建中前不僅對這一類的說法（「建中社團多到你無法想像」、「會讀書又會玩」、「在建中自由得跟在大學一樣. . .」）清楚得很，我們甚至早在不知情的情況下已經先相信了它們。講得更精確一點，所謂「會玩又會念書的建中生」根本早已經是上了檯面的主流論述的一部份（難道這不是很多人的家長一直在告訴他們的嗎：「只要上了建中隨便你怎麼玩都可以」？）—而這也正是Lacan所謂「傳移」（transference）現象的開始。以電影«Another Country»中 Guy（Rupert Everett）對Judd（Colin Firth）所講的經典台詞作為例子："You are not a Communist because you understand Marx, you understand Marx because you are a Communist!"。同樣的道理，在主流論述的召喚（interpellation）之下，其實並不是因為我們自己加入了社團之後才切身感覺到建中的自由; 相對地，是因為我們已經先被預設去接受了這樣子「會玩又會讀書」定義下「完美的」建中生模型所以才加入社團以證成這個假設。所以如果說建中的高升學率是其用來吸引考生家長的官方說法（或說是其作為一升學體系之下既得利益者的事實），那麼其所謂的自由學風、社團活動等等特色就是潛藏於這主流論述底下用來「召喚」學生本身的意識形態—兩者其實是攜手並進的。

到了這裡大家也許會覺得這樣的關係牽得有些許牽強。那麼讓我們再進一步回想一下自己在高中時代（如果有的話）社團生活的實際情況：真實的情況真的如同我們想像般那樣無拘無束而自由嗎？以我自己在讀高中時的情況為例：難道我們不是不但沒得到自由，反而在熱音社或熱舞社等社團得到了學長學弟（或學姊學妹）制這樣的威權體制？難道堪稱最熱門的、吸引了無數想學吉他少男的吉他社不是在升高二的門檻以一個考試活生生地剝奪了整個社團裏多數人想繼續學吉他的權利？我們究竟怎麼樣解釋這樣子幻想與實際情況的差異？

以Lacan的精神分析術語來講的話，即使我們的社會現實（reality）根本上就是一個象徵的建構，但在各式符號的替換的最後終究會有一個來自「真實」（the Real）的創傷之核（traumatic kernal）是拒絕這整個社會與文明的象徵化（symbolisation）之粉飾太平的過程的—而這也正是種種主流論述及象徵建構之所以出現矛盾、病徵等的緣故。回到我們社團文化的例子來看：難道不是因為整個社團文化及體制事實上正好與其看似在對抗著的「除了升學，其餘免談」之無上律令在深層結構裏攜手同行，所以我們才在理當是最自由的社團中得到最極致的威權體制的展現—這種「被壓抑之物的回歸」（return of the repressed）的結果？要認清楚這樣的邏輯，我們只需要再回想一下以前文士豪主任有多喜歡誇耀建中的自由學風以及社團文化、或者高一新生訓練時社團博覽會為什麼緊接著就在官方宣傳的集會之後、以及整個高一當學弟，高二當幹部、高三退役準備考試的社團潛規矩最終是如何緊緊地配合著整個升學體制的，那麼我想答案應該就已經很明顯了。事實上，只有在看清楚這一層建中社團文化與其升學體制間的共謀關係後，我們才有辦法發現透過«建習生»這一類只強調「追尋自我」與「主流價值」之間表面的辯證關係的作品最終肯認的依然是整個僵硬的、沒有溝通餘地的升學考試體制：簡單來說，為了「自由地」追逐自己的夢想，大家還是必須努力唸書、努力考試（即使他的夢想分明是拍電影！）; 而想找到自己嗎？那就快進建中吧，沒別的選擇了. . .

Albert Memmi在Decolonization and the Decolonized一書中曾經提到所謂dolorism的概念：「一種把自身的傷痛誇張化然後歸咎責任到他人身上的自然傾向」（19）。對他來說，dolorism也是被殖民者無法真正解除殖民宰制很重要的一個原因。同樣地，假使我們總是只將整個僵硬死板的升學體制之建構歸咎到一個「他者」（家人、師長、補習班體制. . .）身上，而（或有意或無意地）避免面對自己在整個深層結構中可能扮演的共謀角色，那麼我想那些我們幻想已久的自由與多元價值將是永遠遙不可及的。從這個角度來看，如果有一天我們能夠拍出另一部關於一個一直幻想著盛傳的建中自由學風和社團文化的學生，但等到真正進去後才被裏頭的威權體制（熱音社的學長學弟制，舉例來說）以及同學間無所不在的異性戀性別意識霸權（聯誼之必要、爽報之必要、交女朋友之必要. . .）給壓得喘不過氣來，我相信這會是更貼近問題核心的。