30.05.2. "I'd preferNo"
Quoted in Today’s Title Entries expression refers to the work of American novelist Herman Melvill (1819-1891) and his stories Bartleby copyist. past of Wall Street of 1853 (as translated by Adam Szostkiewicz) with the addition of essays: Bartleby or Gilles Deleuze’s formula- I'm sorry. Grzegorz Jankowicz and Bartleby, or Giorgio Agamben's randomness - I'm sorry. Sławomir Królak, Publishing home Sic!, Warsaw 2009). Earlier translation of Melvill's text by Krystyna Korwin-Mikke entitled Bartleby can be found in a collection of stories entitled Verona (Members Juliusz Kydryński, Literary Publishing House, Kraków 1980, pp. 23-66).
The “I'd alternatively not” expression defines Bartleby’s figure, the protagonist of this story, and it is besides based on Melvill’s full text. And I remind this song due to the fact that a Polish translation of another fresh just appeared Abdulrazak GurnahBy the sea (for Kaja Gucio, Poznań Publishing home 2024). The cover note announces this fresh as a "shocking communicative of failure and large desires". Bartleby and his “I would alternatively not” are peculiarly crucial for the characters of this novel. They will callback this communicative many times.
Author By the sea born on Zanzibar in 1948, settled in the United Kingdom, presently surviving in Canterbury prof. of Pensions at the University of Kent, winner of the Nobel literary award of 2021. His fresh novel, as it were, addresses issues concerning various dimensions of postcolonial reality and postcolonial trauma. It shows, among another things, the stories of 2 expatriates and the game of cases that connect their biographies. In any case, these stories can be applied to events observed today, including in us, especially in the context of migration problems.
Anyway, heroes By the sea many times, as already mentioned, at crucial moments they mention to Melvill's story, repeating Bartleby's expression “I would alternatively not” (I would like not to). They besides remind from time to time the communicative of Sheherezada and A fairy tale of a 1000 and 1 nightsWhich is besides not meaningless, due to the fact that without stories we don't exist. But all of this in a moment. First, we might request any more information on ourselves. History from Wall Street.
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And so: written in the mediate of the nineteenth century a short communicative about the copy of Bartleby – as evidenced by the above-signed works by Deleuze and Agamben – belongs to the works inactive being reread and commented on in increasingly different contexts. More. Bartleby’s figure has long been associated with countless interpretations. They indicate references to Franz Kafka's work, to A Man Without Properties Robert Miel, to Shakespeare Hamleta Or a hero. Rail Nikolai Gogol. In doing so, mention is made to the Bible and reflection on the creation of the world, erstwhile the act of divine creation is treated as an act of writing. The explanation of Melvill's work is besides rooted in Aristotle's works, Leibniz's theodice, and Nietzsche's philosophy. For free, the communicative of the copy ends with an exclamation mark: “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, human nature!” (in the Corwin-Mikke translation), or, “Oh, Bartleby! About humanity!” (in Szostkiewicz's translation)...
In Melvill's short communicative – just in case – the law firm, which functions as in Victorian times, is shown in it by means of various feathers and ink, applicable in various court cases, documents. The attorney, head of the law firm, first hires 3 employees. At 1 point he receives another – Bartleby. His communicative then relates:
Initially, Bartleby did his occupation 1 by one. It's like he's been feeling a constant hunger for something to prescribe, almost eating my papers. He didn't take a break for digestion. He worked in daylight and night hours, making copies with both sunlight and candlelight. And I'd be delighted if he worked as cheerful as he did urgently. But he wrote silently, without enthusiasm, mechanically.
Of course, it is an integral part of the copyist’s profession to check the word for mistakes. If the firm employs 2 or more copyists, they assist each another in this verification, so that 1 reads a copy aloud, the another follows the text of the first which he holds in his hand. This is simply a very boring, boring and lethargy activity. [...] And I guess on the 3rd day since [Bartleby] I accepted him to work with me, and before there was any request to check the papers written by him, I called upon [him] abruptly due to the fact that I was in a hurry to finish work on a tiny matter. And since I was in a hurry and naturally expected an immediate reaction, I sat my head down over a paper on my desk, with my right hand lowered along my body, and as if nervously extended for the paper I kept in it, so that Bartleby could immediately, upon my appearance, rip the paper out of my hand and get to work without any delay.
With this attitude I sat with erstwhile I called Bartleby, rushing to tell him what I needed him to do – that I wanted him to check the correctness of a tiny paper with me. Imagine how amazed I was, yes, consternated erstwhile Bartleby answered me kindly but firmly: I would alternatively not.
For a while, I was at my desk in absolute silence, trying to mobilize my dazed intellectual powers. It immediately occurred to me that it was my own ears that misled me, or that Bartleby did not realize what I meant. I repeat what I want for, with the most apparent speech possible. But no little clear was the answer, the same as before: I would alternatively not.
– Would you alternatively not? – I repeated like an echo, lifting from the place greatly moved and following large steps through the peace towards him. What's that expected to mean? Are you out of your mind? I want you to aid me read this document, take it from me – I told you and I threw him an arcade.
– I'd alternatively not do that – I heard (Bartleby copyist..., pp. 18-19).
Notice that it was not actually a refusal or opposition, but from then on Bartleby never only copied anything, but besides did nothing else, completely withdrawing from any activity. It continued as if in a stupor, in a state of suspension, as if it wanted to frost the reality, standing motionless by the window looking at the close wall with the remains of green rising over it. The lawyer – the owner of the law firm – had no right to fire him. All attempts to scope an agreement ended with this “I would like not”, sometimes with the addition “but I do not insist”. It was the law firm that had to change its address after these events. In the course of a time-long “traggle” between the lawyer and Bartleby, a alternatively different relation developed, which is analysed in various studies as a father-son relationship. Anyway, it was inactive unclear who this Bartleby, a man with no references, no family, out of nowhere. It proved impossible to find that. Finally, he landed in the Grobowec, i.e. prison, where he besides utilized the expression “I would alternatively not”, refusing even food. He was treated very gently, but the end was clear. 1 day, a lawyer found him in the prison courtyard. That's how he says it:
I saw Bartleby, who was emaciated, strangely crammed under the wall, with his knees shrunk, turned to his side, and his head pressed into cold stones. The slightest signs of movement. I stopped for a while and then I got closer. I leaned over and saw that his eyes were wide open, but too that, he seems profoundly dormant. I touched his hand, and then I was shivering – from arm to foot.
I felt my eyes on me, the caterer was staring at me. - Dinner's ready. Isn't he coming tonight? Or is he surviving without dinner?
– He lives without dinners – I repeated and closed his eyelids.
- Ha, he's asleep, isn't he?
– Together with kings and councillors – I have mumbled (Bartleby copyist..., p. 58).
But the problem remains. It is asked what it truly means “I would alternatively not” and what Bartleby’s figure means at all, and the full test that this hero puts himself, the people he meets on his way, and while readers of this story... But if we took a metaphorical view, the questions would be: who is the copyist, what is his identity, who is the scribe – the author or the non-writer – and again, what does it mean in both cases “I would alternatively not” and what is the meaning of this attitude?
All of this opens up to philosophical and theological speculations, in which the mention to Aristotle speaks, for example, of the creation of the planet from nothing, and of the "ability to be and act" equivalent to the "ability to be and not act". It is crucial to remember that the expressions cited are not synonymous with ‘wanting’, ‘not wanting’ or ‘wanting’, as Agamben emphasizes in the above-mentioned essay. Our proverb "want it to be possible" in specified a context alternatively completely loses meaning...
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How's that for a novel? By the sea Gurnaha? Here the account begins with Saleh Omar, who, under individual else's name, as a exile from Zanzibar – Rajab Shaaban Mahmud – arrived at Gatwick Airport. That's what he says:
I'm a refugee. I'm an asylum seeker. They're not simple words, even if they seem like they're utilized to it. I arrived at Gatwick Airport late afternoon on November 23rd last year. This is simply a acquainted climax in our stories – we leave what we know and come to a unusual place, taking with us modest, chaoticly packed bags and suppressing secret, distorted ambitions (By the sea, p. 12).
Later, we will learn that Saleh, instructed by the seller of the corresponding ticket, during airport checks and asylum efforts, “would alternatively not” admit to speaking English. Not without the peripety, but in the end, everything went well. “People from refugees” then found him an flat by the sea. Already as his resident Saleh in the first passage of the novel, he presents elements of his communicative like this:
It is hard for me to find precisely how things took specified a turn, to say that first it was like this and then different, and now we are here. The moments are slipping out of my hand. Even erstwhile I tell myself them, I hear echoes of what I suppress, something I forget to remember, which in turn makes it so hard for me to talk about, although I do not want it to be. But you can say something, and I feel like taking that account, taking a case of the insignificant dramas that I have witnessed and in which I have participated, and whose endings and beginnings go far distant from me: I don't think this is simply a noble desire. I mean, I don't know any large fact that I would like to convey, I haven't experienced any model experience that would shed light on our realities and times. Though I was alive, I was alive. Everything here is so different, and I have an irresistible feeling that 1 life is over, and now I'm surviving another. So possibly I should say about myself that I erstwhile lived a different life, but now it's over. But I know that it's the erstwhile pulses and pulsates with full wellness behind me and before me. I have time, I'm in the hands of time, so I might as well take work for myself. Sooner or later, we gotta take care of this.
I live in a tiny town by the sea, as I have spent my full life, although I have spent most of it on a warm green ocean, far away. Now I'm leading a half-life alien... (By the sea, p. 8-9).
We will proceed to deal, as in Fairy tales of a 1000 and 1 nights, with different stories. Saleh's version will be confronted at any point with the communicative of his homeboy, Latif, who for many years and after many “adventures”, among another things after being in the GDR, settled in London and is simply a prof. of literature at the University of London. It will besides turn out that the heroes know each another from the past, although the age differs essentially. More. They share a history, and Saleh utilized Father Latif's metric on his exile journey. Nothing's as simple as it sounds. Tales of past events, as the participants of 1 of the fresh talks will record, “we always get out of hand, change shape, wriggle and effort to escape”(By the sea, p. 185). Anyway, both Saleh and Latif know Melvill's communicative and talk about it. After all, each of them rewrites, someway re-creates or tries to make his life again, under fresh conditions. So he is in a sense a copyist, though he would alternatively not.
In the background of Saleh and Latif's past – let us add – the communicative of the planet from which they come pulsates. The planet they reached...
For centuries fearless merchants and sailors, most barbarians and undoubtedly mediocre people, made an yearly journey to this long of coast on the east side of the continent, which so long ago bent to accept the winds I must. They brought with them their goods, their God and their way of looking at the world, their stories, songs and prayers, as well as just a flash of science, which was the jewel of their efforts. They besides brought their governments and greed, fantasies, lies, and hatred, abandoned any of their people for life, and took with them what they could acquire, trade or plunder, including people whom they bought or kidnapped and sold for work and degradation on their own lands. After all this period, the people of this coast already knew who they were, but they knew adequate to stick to what distinguished them from the others they despised, both among themselves and among the distant offspring of the human race in the depths of the continent.
Then the Portuguese sailed around the land, unexpectedly and with disastrous consequences emerged from this unknown and impenetrable sea, and then sea cannons ended medieval geography. They sowed spiritual havoc on islands, ports, and cities, enjoying their own cruelty to the looted people. Then the Ottomans came, removed the Portuguese invaders and took power in the name of the actual God, bringing Indian money with them, followed by the British, Germany, France, and anyone with adequate resources (By the sea, pp. 27-28).
They change, as you can see, costumes, different territories, but it's like forever the same thing. Europe, of course, has its own behind its ears...
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Here it might be worth to point out, on the margins, that we will be witnessing violent migration and cultural collisions, as it seems, increasingly in the close future. For example, you can read about this in a fresh Polish translation of a book Gai Vince A 100 nomads. How people's journeys will change the world(in Polish, Andrzej Wojtasik, Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznyj, Warszawa 2024). The author reports on climate change and its consequences. Constatations are beautiful shocking.
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Returning to Gurnah's novel, note that Saleh Bartleby's copyist Rachel Howard, a exile girl who he yet loved like a daughter, was besides interested. Her explanation of this story, however, differed powerfully from that previously indicated. Saleh simply states that Rachel had
some doubts as to whether [telling this] is indeed so outstanding. In her opinion, besides much depression and resignation there, and the symbolism – walls, tombs, pyramids and uncommon grass increasing on the shaded prison courtyard – seemed oppressive to her. besides much self-pity for her taste, all that 19th-century melodrama. possibly she was afraid that I saw myself as Bartleby, individual with a mysterious and hard history, who was trying to atone for his silence.
I overtook her with a question about whether she recognized something in him or whether something in him aroused her interest. Didn't Bartleby have something acquainted about him, something desirable, something heroic?
Not at all," she said. – It brought me to head a dangerous person, a man capable of petty, continuous atrocities towards himself and others, weaker, hurtful. [...] “He looks like individual who is consumed with self-pity, enjoying his own failure.”By the sea, p. 282-283).
During his conversation with Rachel Saleh, he stated: “I never thought of Bartleby this way, although he was indeed cruel to himself, it is true” (By the sea, p. 282).
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And possibly that's adequate to get to the last point today. Entries, traditionally devoted education. As you can see from above, the explanation is determined by the context in which the text is read or collided. It is due to the fact that who reads, when, what is his life experience and reading experience, and above all what analytical categories he has, from what position he evaluates the thing – psychological, sociological, philosophical, theological, literary – and so on, and so on. Depending on this, the meaning which the reader discovers in the reading text or what meaning it gives the text. A small different means the same story, the same events and the same literary figure for Saleh, a small different for Latif, and another for Rachel, not to mention, with all due respect, for example, reading Agamben or Deleuze...
Context is like air. We don't be without him. However, the concept of the contexts of reading has been completely distorted in various imposed school activities, especially in the subjects of examination tasks. It is not about demonstrating the autonomy of discovering and justifying the meaning given to any text in a collision with another texts of culture, so it is about pointing out and analyzing a crucial context that determines interpretation, about real knowing of anything. It's all about checking your reading content. And it is necessarily from their list – in the overwhelming majority representing, as prof. Michał Głowiński erstwhile called it, “magazine of literature” – and sanctioned by the signature of a politically placed minister. It's like there's no another context for reading. It's like it doesn't number to be ready to run another interpretive contexts. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a better strategy of disincentive to literature. It is worth remembering Bartleby’s formula: “I would alternatively not” ...
