Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- ‘C'est justement qu'il n'y a rien!’: Introducing NDiayean Blankness
- 1 Blankness/(Dis)integration: The First Novel Cycle
- 2 Blankness/(Re)generation: The Second Novel Cycle
- 3 Ghouls, Ghosts and Bloodless Abuse: NDiaye's Undead Theatre
- 4 Little Baby Nothing: Framing the Invisible Child
- Conclusion: A Beam of Intense Blankness (Prière pour le bon usage de Marie NDiaye)
- Appendix: Plot Synopses
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
‘C'est justement qu'il n'y a rien!’: Introducing NDiayean Blankness
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- ‘C'est justement qu'il n'y a rien!’: Introducing NDiayean Blankness
- 1 Blankness/(Dis)integration: The First Novel Cycle
- 2 Blankness/(Re)generation: The Second Novel Cycle
- 3 Ghouls, Ghosts and Bloodless Abuse: NDiaye's Undead Theatre
- 4 Little Baby Nothing: Framing the Invisible Child
- Conclusion: A Beam of Intense Blankness (Prière pour le bon usage de Marie NDiaye)
- Appendix: Plot Synopses
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
He turned toward me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication. ‘Nitre?’ he asked, at length. ‘Nitre,’ I replied. ‘How long have you had that cough?’ ‘Ugh! ugh! ugh! – ugh! ugh! ugh! – ugh! ugh! ugh! – ugh! ugh! ugh! – ugh! ugh! ugh!’ My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes. ‘It is nothing,’ he said, at last.
Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’My first encounter with Marie NDiaye's world was traumatic. It was a production of her play Papa doit manger at the national theatre, the Comédie-Française, in 2003, an event which had been receiving a great deal of publicity in France at the time. As the lights came up and the audience began to applaud, the two women sitting next to me asked me if I was going to be all right. It was an embarrassing situation. Juliet Mitchell provides us with a useful working definition of that over-used term ‘trauma’:
A trauma, whether physical or psychical, must create a breach in a protective covering of such severity that it cannot be coped with by the usual mechanisms by which we deal with pain or loss. The severity of the breach is such that even if the incident is expected, the experience cannot be foretold. We cannot thus make use of anxiety as a preparatory signal. The death of a sick relative, the amputation of a diseased limb may be consciously known about in advance, but if they are to be described as traumatic then the foreknowledge was useless. In trauma we are untimely ripped. (Mitchell, 1998: 121)
What could I tell these strangers who were so politely inquiring after my well-being? That the play we'd just seen had ripped me wide open? That a ghost had stuck its tongue in my ear? Couldn't they feel it inside them too? They seemed just fine. All the people clapping furiously around us seemed fine, in fact, uplifted – perhaps – by the humour, novelty and charm of the unprecedented multicultural spectacle they had just enjoyed in the house of Molière. Perhaps they were pretending. After all, wasn't that just what I was doing when I eventually reassured the women that I was perfectly all right?
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- Information
- Marie NDiayeBlankness and Recognition, pp. 1 - 31Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2013