Wednesday 6 July 2016

...of a Nisardless book

No doubt the most surprising thing in a book without Nisard would be the light. I’m convinced of it: habituated as is to a certain textual obscurity born of the shadow cast by Nisard, the reader would first of all be amazed by all the light. No longer would Désiré Nisard be blocking its source. The reader would next delight in the quality of the silence that precedes and follows every truly meaningful utterance, a silence currently disturbed by Nisard’s endless carping - is he not even now grumbling and fidgeting petulantly in his chair? There is however one sound emanating from him, and one sound only, that our ear would be curious to hear: what manner of reverberation would be produced by the insect-demolishing slap to his cheek? In the book without Nisard, no more gasping for fresh air, no more nostrils pinched shut. To be sure, it’s hard to believe that the sea breeze is still blowing when the grounded sperm whale lies rotting on the shore, the atmosphere choked with the its effluvia; cart off that putrid flesh, however, and the reader will breathe a great deal easier. As will the non-reader too, in the world without Nisard.

[Demolishing Nisard, Chevillard, É]

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