of Katherine’s defection. When The Frozen Torrent appeared on the Long List, and Consequences did not, she had broken contact with him. Was it envy or disappointment? Was she ill, or was she dead? She ignored as many messages as he dared to send. He hoped feverishly that the equation of literary success and erotic failure was reversible, and that she would take him back if his novel didn’t make the Short List, but a quieter, saner voice told him that he would just end up with both kinds of failures at once.
In the end he was driven to ring Didier for news.
‘This imbecile she used to live with,’ Didier explained, ‘sent a cookbook to the judges instead of her novel.’
‘What?’ said Sam, who thought he must have misheard.
‘No, no, it gets better,’ said Didier. ‘They put the cookbook on the Long List. This is no joke. We are entering the Dark Ages, my friend, but this time there will be lots of neon, and screen savers, and street lighting. This is the Dark Ages with light pollution: with the pollution of the Enlightenment! The pigs are wandering among the temple ruins; women are being raped on the steps of the forgotten Senate; there are only two or three monks who can still read in the whole of Europe; all of that, naturally, but this time it’s going to be on TV! This time it’s going to be famous! It’s going to give interviews: “It’s not so easy being the Dark Ages, there are many problems: I think I need some therapy, et cetera.” You get the picture? Only Lacan can do justice to this over-illuminated Dark Age, because only he has the obscurity to survive!’
‘Did you say, “used to live”?’ asked Sam tenaciously. ‘Do you mean Alan Oaks doesn’t live with her any more?’
‘Evidently, she has thrown him out,’ Didier confirmed.
‘So, are you still seeing her?’
‘She doesn’t want to see anybody,’ said Didier, ‘but we are old friends, and so she allows me to bring her some food, some wine: the bare necessities.’
‘I see,’ said Sam.
‘She knows she is living at the end of civilization,’ said Didier, ‘because I am the one who told her!’ He burst out laughing. ‘Everybody thinks they understand the joke of reality TV, but the real joke is that there is no other reality! There can be no civilization because we are living in the desert of the Real. All our experience has been mediated by a system whose tyranny is precisely that no one controls it. Its tyranny is the absence of the tyrant! We have made a catastrophic progress since Bentham’s Panoptic prison: we no longer need the supervision of The Other, we are prisoners of our own gaze! When we think we are having an original thought, we are in fact remembering an episode from the soap opera of global capitalism. Our most private fantasies have already been marketed…’
‘Yes, well, never mind the end of civilization,’ Sam interrupted him, ‘what about the end of my relationship with Katherine?’
‘That is a personal matter,’ said Didier. ‘Ask me about the nature of the human condition, or the limits of language, but you and Katherine, this fragile human relationship, it’s too complex.’ Didier allowed himself a little giggle at the idea that there was a subject too complex for his critical capacities. ‘But what is love, really?’ he went on. ‘When we speak of the game we call “love”, what…’
Sam said goodbye hastily, before hearing Didier’s views on this important topic. He needed to take in all this news. He was delighted that Katherine was no longer living with Alan, but annoyed that Didier was still sleeping with her. On the other hand, she couldn’t be expected to put up with his preposterous theorizing for much longer. Sam realized that he would have to keep in touch with Didier in order to choose the right time to re-submit his application to Katherine. If she went off with some entirely new lover, his access to her would become even more tenuous.
He got up from his
In the end he was driven to ring Didier for news.
‘This imbecile she used to live with,’ Didier explained, ‘sent a cookbook to the judges instead of her novel.’
‘What?’ said Sam, who thought he must have misheard.
‘No, no, it gets better,’ said Didier. ‘They put the cookbook on the Long List. This is no joke. We are entering the Dark Ages, my friend, but this time there will be lots of neon, and screen savers, and street lighting. This is the Dark Ages with light pollution: with the pollution of the Enlightenment! The pigs are wandering among the temple ruins; women are being raped on the steps of the forgotten Senate; there are only two or three monks who can still read in the whole of Europe; all of that, naturally, but this time it’s going to be on TV! This time it’s going to be famous! It’s going to give interviews: “It’s not so easy being the Dark Ages, there are many problems: I think I need some therapy, et cetera.” You get the picture? Only Lacan can do justice to this over-illuminated Dark Age, because only he has the obscurity to survive!’
‘Did you say, “used to live”?’ asked Sam tenaciously. ‘Do you mean Alan Oaks doesn’t live with her any more?’
‘Evidently, she has thrown him out,’ Didier confirmed.
‘So, are you still seeing her?’
‘She doesn’t want to see anybody,’ said Didier, ‘but we are old friends, and so she allows me to bring her some food, some wine: the bare necessities.’
‘I see,’ said Sam.
‘She knows she is living at the end of civilization,’ said Didier, ‘because I am the one who told her!’ He burst out laughing. ‘Everybody thinks they understand the joke of reality TV, but the real joke is that there is no other reality! There can be no civilization because we are living in the desert of the Real. All our experience has been mediated by a system whose tyranny is precisely that no one controls it. Its tyranny is the absence of the tyrant! We have made a catastrophic progress since Bentham’s Panoptic prison: we no longer need the supervision of The Other, we are prisoners of our own gaze! When we think we are having an original thought, we are in fact remembering an episode from the soap opera of global capitalism. Our most private fantasies have already been marketed…’
‘Yes, well, never mind the end of civilization,’ Sam interrupted him, ‘what about the end of my relationship with Katherine?’
‘That is a personal matter,’ said Didier. ‘Ask me about the nature of the human condition, or the limits of language, but you and Katherine, this fragile human relationship, it’s too complex.’ Didier allowed himself a little giggle at the idea that there was a subject too complex for his critical capacities. ‘But what is love, really?’ he went on. ‘When we speak of the game we call “love”, what…’
Sam said goodbye hastily, before hearing Didier’s views on this important topic. He needed to take in all this news. He was delighted that Katherine was no longer living with Alan, but annoyed that Didier was still sleeping with her. On the other hand, she couldn’t be expected to put up with his preposterous theorizing for much longer. Sam realized that he would have to keep in touch with Didier in order to choose the right time to re-submit his application to Katherine. If she went off with some entirely new lover, his access to her would become even more tenuous.
He got up from his
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