Molloy’s Silence

GEORGES BATAILLE

What the author of Molloy is telling us is indifferent gaze, the age-old swarm of
demonstrably the most outrageous of all ordure; at a loss, to be sure, as regards
truths: that there is nothing but inordinate being, and, like us, a derelict as regards
fantasy, that everything is fantastical, doing.
extravagant, unquestionably repellent, but
also that what is repellent is splendid. To put In that reality which is the true depth or
it more precisely, Molloy is repellent residue of being, in those utter vagrants that
splendor incarnate. At the same time there we have often encountered but immediately
is no narrative more necessary nor more given up for lost, there is something so
convincing; Molloy shows us not merely universal, something so intrinsically blurred,
reality, but reality in a pure state: reality at that we can imagine nothing more
its most indigent and inevitable, the anonymous. So much so that the very word
fundamental reality, which is always in front vagrant that I have just used dishonors
of us but which fear always separates us them, though wretch, in spite of possessing
from, which we refuse to see and which we the ostensible advantage of being less
always strive to avoid being engulfed by, precise, would dishonor them equally. What
which is consequently known to us only we see is so very much the basis of being
under the elusive form of anguish. (though the mere phrase basis of being
scarcely begins to circumscribe it) that we
I myself would be Molloy if I took no notice identify it immediately: We cannot give it a
of cold, or hunger, or the numberless name, it is elusive, crucial, slippery, it is
discomforts that oppress a man given over silence.…What we in our impotence call
to nature, to the earth and the rain, to the vagrant or wretch, which in truth is
vast quicksand of the world. Yet even so I unnamable (though even unnamable is a
can testify that he is a figure both you and I word calculated to enmesh us), is no less
have met; in the grip of a timorous craving, dumb than death. We know in advance the
we have met him at street corners, an futility of even trying to speak of this ghost
anonymous figure consisting of the who haunts the streets in broad daylight.
ineluctable beauty of rags, apathy, and an Even if we were to know the precise
circumstances and conditions of his life (?) spite of their stubbornness, their
and wretchedness it would be of little help: concentration. And certainly this wide-eyed
This man—or rather, this being to whom, in confidence, like that of a blind man, when it
employing such a word, we attribute being is applied to the creative convulsions of
(a word he at once epitomizes and, as it language precisely indicates the great gulf
were, exhausts)—and hence language between Beckett and Molière.
itself, suffers from an irremediable
deficiency. No speech we could have with But is there not also some point in regarding
him could be other than ghostly, a specter of this separation, this absence of human
speech. Speech would estrange us, feature, as what links the formless figure of
restoring us to some semblance of Molloy to those of the miser and the
humanity, or to something other than what misanthrope? Only an incontinent flux of
holds us spellbound,1 this wreckage in the language could accomplish the feat of
street: the absence of a human dimension. expressing such an absence (an
incontinence and a flux that are themselves
But there is no reason to suppose it was equivalent to negation and also equivalent
Samuel Beckett’s intention to describe this to the absolute absence of that “discourse”
“basis of being” or this “absence of a human without which the figures of the miser and
dimension,” as I have called them. It seems the misanthrope would lack their finished
to me unlikely that he would see Molloy as form, without which we could not conceive
the epitome of a vagrant (or whatever we them). And reciprocally, it would seem as if
elect to call this aspect of the unnamable), the surrender of the writer, no longer
as Molière, for example, might have seen content to reduce writing to the mere
Harpagon the miser or the misanthrope business of expressing his intentions, ready
Alceste. to respond to its intrinsic possibilities, albeit
confusedly, in the deep currents that flash
I know almost nothing, I must say, of the across the wavelike agitation of words,
intentions of the author of Molloy, and the under the weight of a destiny to which he
little I know of the author does not add up to cannot help but succumb, leads of its own
very much either. Born in Ireland in 1906, he accord to the formless configuration of
was a friend of James Joyce and has to absence. Molloy (or the author) says,
some extent remained his disciple. His
friendships—or his contacts—would seem All I know is what the words know, and the
to have been with those who knew Joyce in dead things, and that makes a handsome
France. Before the war he wrote a novel in little sum, with a beginning, a middle and an
English (Murphy), which he translated into end as in the well-built phrase and the long
French before the outbreak of war. Bilingual, sonata of the dead. And truly it little matters
he seems to have chosen to write in French what I say, this, this or that or any other
since then. One should add, however, that thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very
the manifest influence of Joyce on Beckett rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think
will not serve to account for Beckett, even you are inventing, you think you are
though both authors interest themselves in escaping, and all you do is stammer out
language as possibility, as ruleless game, your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one
creatures of impulse as they seem to be, in
day got by heart and long forgotten, life But this is by definition not true language;
without tears, as it is wept.2 literature may indeed already have
possessed the same properties as silence
This is not the manifesto of a movement, but recoiled from taking that last step which
but rather the expression, among other would be silence indeed. And by the same
things, of someone determined to expose a token Molloy, who is its incarnation, is not
façade, signing the death warrant of a death pure and simple. For a dead thing
literature made of language, preferring a evinces a profound apathy, or an
speech disheveled by the wind and pitted indifference to all possibility, whereas
with holes, but with the kind of authority that Molloy’s apathy recognizes its limitations
a ruin cannot help but have and that no only in death itself. Molloy’s interminable
mere movement can ever possess. wanderings in the forest (which, if only
because he is on crutches, are equivalent to
In this way, without his having willed it or, it a kind of death) differ from death in one
may be, in order that he may will it or, better particular: habit or perseverance in death.
still, so that he may not have to will it, They possess that tenacious negative
literature, no less fatally than death—under quality which at once shapes life and
the aegis of an imperative necessity, each renders it shapeless—much as literature
taking his own route to the summit, even finally is silence in its disavowal of rational
when one is left no choice—leads language but nevertheless remains what it
inexorably to the unsoundable depths of is, literature. The death of Molloy is in the
Molloy. This remorseless advance may life that obsesses him, the life one is unable
seem like the most arbitrary of caprices, but to take one’s leave of. “But did it make such
its gravity gives it the character of a fated a difference after all, as far as the pain was
outcome. Language calcifies that calculated concerned,” says Molloy (agitated though
world which our culture, our activities, our not as yet anguished by the aggravation of
very edifices make manifest in the domain his infirmities):
to which we attach significance, but it does
so at the cost of reducing our culture, whether my leg was free to rest or whether
activities, and habitations to one and the it had to work? I think not. For the suffering
same level. Free of these shackles it need of the leg at rest was constant and
no longer be a matter of empty mansions monotonous. Whereas the leg condemned
left to the gentle mercy of the wind and rain; to the increase of pain inflicted by work
the word is no longer the signifying factor, knew the decrease of pain dispensed by
but rather the crippled form that death, in its work suspended, the space of an instant.
indirect way, must inevitably take. But I am human, I fancy, and my progress
suffered, from this state of affairs, and from
Only indirectly, however. Death itself must the slow and painful progress it had always
be the last silence, irreducible to imitations; been, whatever may have been said to the
and a literature congruent with silence can contrary, was changed, saving your
only be an atoll of incongruous words. presence, to a veritable calvary, with no limit
Wherever it arrogates to itself the same to its stations and no hope of crucifixion,
meaning or the same direction as death, though I say it myself, and no Simon, and
this silence cannot be more than parody. reduced me to frequent halts. Yes, my
progress reduced me to stopping more and
more often, it was the only way to progress, Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate.…
to stop. And though it is no part of my
tottering intentions to treat here in full, as Dante’s line would make an apt epigraph for
they deserve, these brief moments of the this quite remarkable book, whose
immemorial expiation, I shall nevertheless uninterrupted (indeed unparagraphed)
deal with them briefly, out of the goodness exclamation explores with persistent irony
of my heart, so that-my story, so clear till the extremities of indifference and
now, may not end in darkness, the darkness wretchedness. Isolated passages offer only
of these towering forests, these giant a faint and empty notion of this outrageous
fronds, where I hobble, listen, fall, rise, journey, a journey that, paradoxically, the
listen and hobble on, wondering sometimes, narration organizes as if it were a huge epic,
need I say, if I shall ever see again the wrecked and at the same time sustained by
hated light, at least unloved, stretched its irresistible, inhuman impetus (it is hard
palely between the last boles, and my indeed to take Molloy at his word when he
mother, to settle with her, and if I would not says, “by human chance,” since, at the low
do better, at least just as well, to hang point of his unhappiness, he monstrously
myself from a bough, with a liane. For indulges an incongruity, obscenity, and
frankly light meant nothing to me now, and moral indifference that all mankind, in
my mother could scarcely be waiting for me anguish, and ill by very virtue of its scruples,
still, after so long. And my leg, my legs. But rejects). Abandon all hope…but only in a
the thought of suicide had little hold on me, I sense, for rather than actually quoting these
don’t know why, I thought I did, but now I mournful words, the violence of Beckett’s
see I don’t.… (pages 78–79) irony imposes them upon us. Consider the
moment when, having been molested and
It goes without saying that so faithful an brutalized by the police, Molloy records
attachment to life cannot possibly strike one precisely the point at which they cease to be
as reasonable. In fact, it is not even a applicable:
matter of saying that death itself is the
rationale for this probity. This would only While still putting my best foot foremost [he
make sense if death—or existence in death says in his naïveté] I gave myself up to that
(or, for that matter, death in golden moment, as if I had been someone
existence)—could have a meaning, else. It was the hour of rest, the forenoon’s
whereas the only meaning death can have toil ended, the afternoon’s to come. The
reposes in the fact that, in its way, its lack of wisest perhaps, lying in the squares or
meaning is itself a meaning, a parody of sitting on their doorsteps, were savouring its
meaning perhaps but, ultimately, a quite languid ending, forgetful of recent cares,
finite meaning, which the world of indifferent to those at hand…Was there one
significance obscures. The same blind goal among them to put himself in my place, to
also informs Molloy, which is sustained feel how removed I was then from him I
throughout by so much inexhaustible verve seemed to be, and in that remove what
that one reads it no less impatiently than strain, as of hawsers about to snap? It’s
one would the typical novel of disturbing possible. Yes, I was straining towards those
vicissitudes. spurious deeps, their lying promise of
gravity and peace, from all my old poisons I inclined to submit to them, I don’t know why.
struggled towards them, safely bound. For they never led me anywhere, but tore
Under the blue sky, under the watchful me from places where, if all was not well, all
gaze. Forgetful of my mother, set free from was no worse than anywhere else, and then
the act, merged in this alien hour, saying, went silent, leaving me stranded. So I knew
Respite, respite. (page 21) my imperatives well, and yet I submitted to
them. It had become a habit. It is true they
This might advantageously have been left nearly all bore on the same question, that of
implicit. I don’t say the book would have my relations with my mother, and on the
been the better for it, but one or two importance of bringing as soon as possible
passionate phrases strike one as out of some light to bear on these and even on the
place. The reader might have been satisfied kind of light that should be brought to bear
with less; its very subtlety seems designed and the most effective means of doing so.
to bolster up the intrinsic debility of Yes, these imperatives were quite explicit
literature, which can only conquer those and even detailed until, having set me in
forces that threaten to defeat it by actions of motion at last, they began to falter, then
brutal simplicity, and then only with difficulty. went silent, leaving me there like a fool who
The passage is in some respects a failure, neither knows where he is going nor why he
though it is the key passage in the book, a is going there. (pages 86–87)
creative tension of this magnitude never
failing to dissipate gloom. All hope, certainly, In the end such an expiation, to which
all rational designs, are here mired in Molloy is condemned, enjoins him to leave
indifference. But it almost goes without the forest at once. And though Molloy only
saying that, at this moment, within the ever dreams of losing the thread, the thread
confines of the present, there was nothing imposes itself upon him with such
that would have served, nothing that could overwhelming force that nothing in his
have served. Nothing, not even a feeling of customary hebetude can make him
tolerable inferiority, not even a limb linking disobedient to it. Unable any longer to walk,
Molloy to the expiation of his he proceeds to crawl like a slug:
crimes—nothing, in short, that would not
have demeaned him and humiliated him to Flat on my belly, using my crutches like
some degree. The book proceeds calmly, grapnels, I plunged them ahead of me into
obtusely, on the point of silence: the undergrowth, and when I felt they had a
hold, I pulled myself forward, with an effort
But perhaps I was mistaken, perhaps I of the wrists. For my wrists were still quite
would have been better advised to stay in strong, fortunately, in spite of my
the forest, perhaps I could have stayed decrepitude, though all swollen and racked
there, without remorse, without the painful by a kind of chronic arthritis probably. That
impression of committing a fault, almost a then briefly is how I went about it. The
sin. For I have greatly sinned, at all times, advantage of this mode of locomotion
greatly sinned against my prompters. And if compared to others, I mean those I have
I cannot decently be proud of this I see no tried, is this, that when you want to rest you
reason either to be sorry. But imperatives stop and rest, without further ado. For
are a little different, and I have always been standing there is no rest, nor sitting either.
And there are men who move about sitting,
and even kneeling, hauling themselves to As I suggested, we have no right to
right and left, forward and backward, with suppose that the writer began with an
the help of hooks. But he who moves in this articulated plan. The kind of nativity I have
way, crawling on his belly, like a reptile, no cast for Molloy is not a matter of careful
sooner comes to rest than he begins to rest, composition but rather the only one that
and even the very movement is a kind of would be appropriate to the elusive reality I
rest, compared to other movements, I mean have been attempting to sketch: a reality of
those that have worn me out. And in this mythical dimensions— monstrous, a
way I moved onward in the forest, slowly, product of the sleep of reason. Two
but with a certain regularity, and I covered analogical truths (death and the absence of
my fifteen paces, day in, day out, without humanity) can take shape in us only under
killing myself. And I even crawled on my the aspect of myth, which is the living
back, plunging my crutches blindly behind specter of death. So much absence of
me into the thickets, and with the black reality cannot be conveyed in the clear
boughs for sky to my closing eyes. I was on distinctions of normal discourse, but there
my way to mother. And from time to time I can be no doubt that death and inhumanity,
said, Mother, to encourage me I suppose. I both equally lacking in being, are not a
kept losing my hat, the lace had broken long matter of indifference in the life we lead,
ago, until in a fit of temper I banged it down since they are its limit cases, its backcloth
on my skull with such violence that I couldn’t and its ultimate reality. Death is not merely a
get it off again. And if I had met any lady hidden door at which anguish awaits us; the
friends I would have been powerless to void in which even wretchedness must
salute them correctly. (pages 89–90) come to grief, while it absorbs us totally and
discomposes us, is nothing other than that
But suppose that this extravagant death which, as the object of our anxiety,
grotesquerie is of no account, these bears the positive index of the whole of
massive phantasmagorias wearying, and humanity. In the same way this grotesque
leave us utterly indifferent. figure balanced miserably on his crutches
represents the truth of our malady, a malady
It’s quite possible to react like that at first. that follows us no less faithfully than our
But one’s objections to the absolute shadow; it is our very dread of such a figure
absence of what ordinarily constitutes that conditions our human gestures, our
interest are overruled by the passion and well-groomed attitudes, and our
power with which the author convinces us to crystal-clear phrases. By the same token
the contrary. The frantic momentum of this figure is in some sense the horizon into
collapse that animates this book, the very which the human show must ultimately fade,
antagonism the reader feels for the author, if only to shroud itself: oblivion,
is such that not for a moment is the reader powerlessness.… It is not so much a matter
left free to withdraw into indifference. Could of misfortune yielding feebly to
this momentum have been achieved without wretchedness; Beckett is concerned with
a powerful motive, and an equally that indifference in which man forgets his
overwhelming conviction, informing its own name, forgets he is man even, being
inception? perfectly indifferent to his most repugnant
misery. “Yes, there were times when I forgot the quest for Molloy, like Moran in the
not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to second part of the book. Moran (clearly in
be” (page 49): This is how the mind, or some respects a patent fiction), a man of
absence of mind, in Molloy is laid bare. And regular habits but with the whims of a
there is unquestionably some self-indulgent widower, is something of a
sleight-of-hand here. Molloy, or rather the desperate character; he is the protagonist of
author, writes : and what he writes about is a second part in which, Molloy having
his intention of writing in such a way as to disappeared, he is sent out to look for him.
shrug off any responsibility for what he has As if the prostrated figure of the first part
written. Never mind that he should tell us, “I had not sufficiently epitomized the silence of
have always behaved like a pig.” There is this world, the futile quest for him on the
not a single human taboo that has not here part of Moran reads like a conditioned
been engulfed by an indifference that would response to the necessity of giving up that
like to be definitive but cannot be; and how measureless universe of absence in which
could one be other than indifferent when Molloy is perfectly irrecoverable as a
doomed to so imperfect an indifference? If presence. But by going in quest of an
the author reneges upon his decision to inaccessible Molloy, Moran—gradually
behave “like a pig” and foregrounds his stripped bare, and more and more infirm—is
mendacity by ending his book little by little and in his turn reduced to the
same grotesque mode of locomotion as
Then I went back into the house and wrote, Molloy in the forest.
It is midnight. The rain is beating on the
windows. It was not midnight. It was not This is the way in which literature cannot
raining. (page 176) help but corrode existence and the world,
reducing to nothing (though this nothing is
it is because this is not Molloy—Molloy in all awful) the strategies whereby we proceed
truth commits himself to nothing because he confidently from one outcome to another
writes nothing. and from one achievement to another. It
does not exhaust the possibilities of
An author who writes like this, gnawed by literature. And certainly Beckett’s
indifference to what he is writing, might employment of a language more expressive
easily pass for a buffoon were it not for the than utilitarian opens up, on the contrary, a
fact that the reader is himself embroiled in domain of delight, bravado, and irrational
comparable buffooneries, every bit as audacity. But the two domains—of terror
casuistical, even when they originate in the and pleasure—are more contiguous with
innocence of ingenuousness. The naked one another than we might have supposed.
truth of our human comedy is not so readily Would the consolations of poetry be
accomplished. Indeed, before it can occur, comprehensible to one who shunned terror,
we must not only renounce all our and could authentic despair be in any way
affectations but completely obliterate them different from that “golden moment” which
and, as a direct consequence, know Molloy experiences in the arms of the law?
nothing, like the impotent cretin Molloy: “not
knowing what I was going to do, until it was Translated by John Pilling
done.” We can only undertake for ourselves
Notes later I began to write a novel in which a man
who met him in the country killed him,
1 I remember having had a long talk with a perhaps primarily in the hope of acquiring
tramp when I was very young. It occupied the same animality as his victim.)
most of a night I spent waiting for a train in a
small railway junction. He, of course, was On another occasion, driving through a
not waiting for a train; he had simply sought forest with friends, we came upon a man by
the shelter of the waiting room, and towards the side of the road, stretched out on the
morning he left me to prepare his coffee grass in broad daylight, drenched by a
over his campfire. He was not exactly the downpour. He was not asleep; he may have
figure I am speaking of, being quite a been ill; he did not reply to our questions.
chatterer, more so than even me. He We indicated our willingness to take him to
seemed satisfied with his lot and, as an old a hospital, but so far as I recall he made no
man, took pleasure in expressing his reply whatsoever or, if he did take the
satisfaction to the boy of fifteen or twenty I trouble to respond, it was by way of a
then was. I listened in astonishment. Yet the massive snarl of repudiation.
memory I have of him, together with the
incredible dread it still provokes, never fails 2 Samuel Beckett, Molloy, in Three Novels
to inspire in me the silence of a brute beast. by Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove Press,
(Meeting him so distressed me that a little 1965), 31–32. References in the text are to
this edition.