The similarities between Joyce’s and Gadda’s writing are not confined to the surface of their linguistic and formal experimentalism, but also involve epistemological issues concerning the relation between subject and world. As much as meaning in Joyce can be defined as “relational” (Levin), in Gadda subjectivity becomes dispersed into a similar relational web: the I, which Gadda in “La cognizione del dolore” defines as the “the most lurid of all the pronouns”, does not exist in an absolute and fixed form, but rather establishes with external reality perpetually different chemical reactions, which cause transformations not only in the self, but also in the reality itself. For Gadda “to know is to insert something into reality, and thus to deform reality”, and in this sense Gadda’s writing, similar to Joyce’s work, stimulates re-discussion of the possibility for the subject to experience and represent an “objective” world. What Joyce defines in “Oxen of the Sun” as the “downward tending lutulent reality” is thus portrayed by both authors as a muddle of relations which stimulates both re-discussion of the relation between subject and object, and redefinition of the relation between subject and language. Thanks also to the two authors’ shared philosophical background, which includes their similar interest for Vico and Leibniz, both Joyce and Gadda perceive language as a stratified phenomenon in which different stages of the history of literature and different registers converge, thus giving rise to that “glossolalie” (Deleuze) which amplifies the pluridiscursivity inherent in words. In this sense, Gadda’s intent to “stretch, contract, metastasize” language reflects an emphasis on the sediments active in words which draws him close to Joyce for their common process of transformation of their native languages into malleable instruments of communication which portray an ever-moving reality.
'To know is to deform reality': the epistemology of a transforming and transformable reality in Joyce and Gadda
PRUDENTE, Teresa
2009-01-01
Abstract
The similarities between Joyce’s and Gadda’s writing are not confined to the surface of their linguistic and formal experimentalism, but also involve epistemological issues concerning the relation between subject and world. As much as meaning in Joyce can be defined as “relational” (Levin), in Gadda subjectivity becomes dispersed into a similar relational web: the I, which Gadda in “La cognizione del dolore” defines as the “the most lurid of all the pronouns”, does not exist in an absolute and fixed form, but rather establishes with external reality perpetually different chemical reactions, which cause transformations not only in the self, but also in the reality itself. For Gadda “to know is to insert something into reality, and thus to deform reality”, and in this sense Gadda’s writing, similar to Joyce’s work, stimulates re-discussion of the possibility for the subject to experience and represent an “objective” world. What Joyce defines in “Oxen of the Sun” as the “downward tending lutulent reality” is thus portrayed by both authors as a muddle of relations which stimulates both re-discussion of the relation between subject and object, and redefinition of the relation between subject and language. Thanks also to the two authors’ shared philosophical background, which includes their similar interest for Vico and Leibniz, both Joyce and Gadda perceive language as a stratified phenomenon in which different stages of the history of literature and different registers converge, thus giving rise to that “glossolalie” (Deleuze) which amplifies the pluridiscursivity inherent in words. In this sense, Gadda’s intent to “stretch, contract, metastasize” language reflects an emphasis on the sediments active in words which draws him close to Joyce for their common process of transformation of their native languages into malleable instruments of communication which portray an ever-moving reality.
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