On mongrelisme: a difficult manual for desperate times
by Joan Retallack
The Isthmus Project
paradigm press, 1999
First, Thank You, Juliana, for recommending this book. It’s an excellent fun reading for me!
Joan Retallack. We all are familiar with her work through The Poethical Wager already. For her bio, click here
mongrelisme is a chapbook containing, I think, one series of poem (Although there are several titles, many look like a separate title for a poem, I read the whole book as one connected piece.) The section entitled "TROUBALUE" is the central one. The book is written in several languages intermingling--English, French and German (these I can tell) and I think Italian and Spanish. It takes on the central "theme" of a diverse family background. But not only that. There's also reference, in subtle ways, to things rooted in high-learning (this will be illustrated) with recurring reference to Don Quixote in the TROUBALUE section.
The first page works to me like an epigraph:
MONGRELISME
of course I don't like isms but /mais/ isme c'est moi
Then, on the page, we get the list of names that end with "isme" like agonisme, altruisme, anarchisme and on. The last one is liberalisme.
By adding an "e" to "mongrelism," I was prevented from reading the word as an English word. It became French, although I am not sure if the word "mongrelisme" does or does not exist in French. I could also read it as separate words: "mon" (French my) "gre" (doesn't mean anything) "lis" (resonates with English "List" and French conjugated verb Je lis (I read), and me (English me) And in the "caption": isme becomes is me. Hence, c'est mot (French it's me)
The interaction between several languages like this is where I locate my fun fun fun reading.
Let me turn to the concerns (aka form and content) of the book.
The TROUBALUE section begins with this poem:
LISME
Mother's family split in two
One side thought
Don Quixote was a comedy.
The other side thought
Don Quixote was a tragedy.
Anon
This sets up what follows, which is a series of disjuctive prose blocks. In the prose blocks are several passages or stories connected in some sort of ways,
be it mini-narrativo:
"big grid of first names at the urban community college las conexciones incorrectas puedan danar el control full of Sigmunds Flauberts Elvis's Aristotles Socrates Raphaels Carmens Illabellas Juanas minus all the great referents Borises Carloses Marias..."
or sound:
"AMICA LECTOR NEXT TIME READ ACTIVE LY MAKE margynal notes on all revolutions of I like clocks radios clock-radios socks smocks flocks docks & but not stocks I am a complex realist thought another page like this will inevitably hit the fan in the fact..."
The content of the poem speaks to and illustrates the experience of multilingualism, which doesn't refer solely to the fact that a lot of different languages are being used, but also to the cultural interactions--agreement or conflicts--that are embedded within it. This becomes apparent and authentic to me because the medium through which the stories are being told is an illustrative (as opposed to narrative) one.
Of course, I think Joan Retallack doesn't expect all her readers to know all the language in the book (I wonder if she herself does speak all of these languages?) In fact, the absence of meaning from phrases in this book doesn't worry me as reader at all. Its context makes it very ok not to know everything and really be ok with it. The don't-know-the-language part of it actually adds tremendously to musicality of the work. It feels great just to hear the music.
(Reading the VIRTUE section, I arrived at the idea of a performance. It presents an "interspersing" translation of a central text in four language We could gather people with different language skills (here we need English, French, German, (I think) Italian; some could speak more than one among these), have them all read the text together, skipping parts they don't know. I think the presence/absence of voices would be very cool to experience. Does anyone wanna try this? )
I would definitely re-read this in greater depth. And maybe then I could come up with smarter response. But as for now, I really really like the book. It's fun and important.
by Joan Retallack
The Isthmus Project
paradigm press, 1999
First, Thank You, Juliana, for recommending this book. It’s an excellent fun reading for me!
Joan Retallack. We all are familiar with her work through The Poethical Wager already. For her bio, click here
mongrelisme is a chapbook containing, I think, one series of poem (Although there are several titles, many look like a separate title for a poem, I read the whole book as one connected piece.) The section entitled "TROUBALUE" is the central one. The book is written in several languages intermingling--English, French and German (these I can tell) and I think Italian and Spanish. It takes on the central "theme" of a diverse family background. But not only that. There's also reference, in subtle ways, to things rooted in high-learning (this will be illustrated) with recurring reference to Don Quixote in the TROUBALUE section.
The first page works to me like an epigraph:
MONGRELISME
of course I don't like isms but /mais/ isme c'est moi
Then, on the page, we get the list of names that end with "isme" like agonisme, altruisme, anarchisme and on. The last one is liberalisme.
By adding an "e" to "mongrelism," I was prevented from reading the word as an English word. It became French, although I am not sure if the word "mongrelisme" does or does not exist in French. I could also read it as separate words: "mon" (French my) "gre" (doesn't mean anything) "lis" (resonates with English "List" and French conjugated verb Je lis (I read), and me (English me) And in the "caption": isme becomes is me. Hence, c'est mot (French it's me)
The interaction between several languages like this is where I locate my fun fun fun reading.
Let me turn to the concerns (aka form and content) of the book.
The TROUBALUE section begins with this poem:
LISME
Mother's family split in two
One side thought
Don Quixote was a comedy.
The other side thought
Don Quixote was a tragedy.
Anon
This sets up what follows, which is a series of disjuctive prose blocks. In the prose blocks are several passages or stories connected in some sort of ways,
be it mini-narrativo:
"big grid of first names at the urban community college las conexciones incorrectas puedan danar el control full of Sigmunds Flauberts Elvis's Aristotles Socrates Raphaels Carmens Illabellas Juanas minus all the great referents Borises Carloses Marias..."
or sound:
"AMICA LECTOR NEXT TIME READ ACTIVE LY MAKE margynal notes on all revolutions of I like clocks radios clock-radios socks smocks flocks docks & but not stocks I am a complex realist thought another page like this will inevitably hit the fan in the fact..."
The content of the poem speaks to and illustrates the experience of multilingualism, which doesn't refer solely to the fact that a lot of different languages are being used, but also to the cultural interactions--agreement or conflicts--that are embedded within it. This becomes apparent and authentic to me because the medium through which the stories are being told is an illustrative (as opposed to narrative) one.
Of course, I think Joan Retallack doesn't expect all her readers to know all the language in the book (I wonder if she herself does speak all of these languages?) In fact, the absence of meaning from phrases in this book doesn't worry me as reader at all. Its context makes it very ok not to know everything and really be ok with it. The don't-know-the-language part of it actually adds tremendously to musicality of the work. It feels great just to hear the music.
(Reading the VIRTUE section, I arrived at the idea of a performance. It presents an "interspersing" translation of a central text in four language We could gather people with different language skills (here we need English, French, German, (I think) Italian; some could speak more than one among these), have them all read the text together, skipping parts they don't know. I think the presence/absence of voices would be very cool to experience. Does anyone wanna try this? )
I would definitely re-read this in greater depth. And maybe then I could come up with smarter response. But as for now, I really really like the book. It's fun and important.
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