What Is A Mazeppist? (Part Three)
In a post-9/11, post-Saidian world, the Mazeppist re-invents the "American Existentialist" as a border-crossing figure. As Mailer wrote in The White Negro, "to be an existentialist, one must be able to feel oneself--one must know one's desires, one's rages, one's anguish, one must be aware of the character of one's frustration and know what would satisfy it. The over-civilized man can be an existentialist only if it is chic, and deserts it quickly for the next chic. To be a real existentialist (Sartre admittedly to the contrary) one must be religious, one must have one's sense of the "purpose"--whatever the purpose may be--but a life which is directed by one's faith in the necessity of action is a life committed to the notion that the substratum of existence is the search, the end meaningful but mysterious; it is impossible to live such a life unless one's emotions provide their profound conviction."
posted by Sidi Hamid Benengeli | 12:42 PM
3 Comments:
Well, this is an interesting manner in which to conduct a discourse. It strikes me as very similar to the way in which I worked (along with my fellow actors) in the Theater Lab.
As you may recall from our numerous discussions, the Lab “wrote” the performance pieces that it produced through improvisation around a set theme or structure. The actors would get into character and then improvise scenes which would then be linked together into a completed play. Once the various scenes were completed and polished into an integral play, the play would be repeated, as would any play, night after night. No further improvisation would take place.
The similarity that I perceive between your “Mazeppist” work and the theater work that I engaged in so many years ago is this:
Prior to the improvisational work and throughout it, as an actor I would develop a character that had certain attributes. A certain emotional, moral, religious, intellectual, physical, etc, etc. presence, The character, when confronted with a particular situation, would react in accordance with those attributes. And so, the drama would progress to a climax and then a conclusion.
It seems to me that this method of work is part of the “Mazeppa” project. You are engaged in creating a character, which will then address ideas and events and will discourse from a particular emotional/intellectual/moral/artistic point of view.
Bravo.
This method has a long and distinguished history. I have always felt that Plato’s work owed its richness to this methodology. And, as I have pointed out before, the poetry of both Whitman and Bukowski arises out of the fictional characters that they had created. The voice of the “character poet” as he casts his glance on Live Oaks Growing or Lilacs in Dooryards is the same voice applied to different subjects. I would throw in some Chinaski, but this seems like a family blog, what with the picture of you with your kids.
Peace.
Either that or I suffer from an undiagnosed multiple personality disorder...But, in fact, the use of personae has, as you pointed out, an ancient pedigree. If I were pushed to name my strong precursor for this aspect of my project, I would have to say that it was that master of the pseudonym, Soren Kierkegaard. I stumbled onto S.K. when I was a junior in high school, wandering through the stacks of the library. S.K. was my first intellectual love--much to the consternation of friends and family who thought that a 16 year old should not be reading books with such titles as "Sickness Unto Death," "The Concept of Dread," "Fear and Trembling" and "Attack Against 'Christendom'." If I had started to wear black jeans and black turtle-necks, to chain-smoke, to listen to jazz records all night, it might have made sense. But I think that (at the time) I seemed quite normal in other respects. So it just didn't fit. I tried to explain that Kierkegaard was not only immensely learned, but FUNNY, terribly funny in a dry and often tragi-comic way, deeply ironic--but they just couldn't seem to get past the titles. Their concern made me second guess myself, and I put S.K. aside for many years--though I would return to him sporadically. Engraved on the inside of my wedding band is the second half of a title of one of S.K.'s finest meditations: "to will one thing." Engraved on the inside of my wife's wedding band is the first half of the title: "Purity of heart." We flipped a coin to see who would get which half. Obviously, the coin knew me only too well.
My question for the Grappion is: when will he begin to fill out his own character? Is there a blog in your future?
The coin knew you too well? Was it fair to ask the coin? Was it helpful?
Is it fair to ask a work of literature its opinion on a subject? The I Ching or book of changes literally demands it of the reader. In fact, I have found that it makes more sense to read it in response to questions posed to it rather than to read it straight through.
But, would it be fair to ask War and Peace what it thought of Iraq? Would it be possible? I think that it is not only possible but helpful in understanding the work. These works are alive, after all. Kafka continues to invent his precursors.
When will I fill out my character? As soon as I find a minute to take a ****. As you know, I am recently (maybe not that recently) bereft of my comely associate. It's way busier here than you can imagine. I must figure something out.
Peace
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