Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

the file about the dinner with Dr. Wagner. Belbo knewDr. Wagner before my departure, and may well have been in contactwith him after I started working at Garamond, which was when, infact, I got to know him myself. So the dinner could have beenbefore or after the evening I have in mind. If it was before, thenI understand Belbo's embarrassment, his solemndesperation.

Dr. Wagner¡Xan Austrianwho for years had been practicing in Paris (hence the pronunciation"Vagnere" for those who wanted to boast of their familiarity withhim)¡Xhad been coming to Milan regularly for about ten years, atthe invitation of two revolutionary groups of the post-'68 period.They fought over him, and of course each group gave a radicallydifferent interpretation of his thought. How and why this famousman allowed himself to be sponsored by extremists, I neverunderstood. Wagner's theories had no political color, so to speak,and, had he wanted, he could easily have been invited by theuniversities, the clinics, the academies. I believe he accepted theinvitations because he was basically an epicurean and requiredregal expense accounts. The private hosts could raise more moneythan the institutions, and for Dr. Wagner this meant first-classtickets, luxury hotels, plus fees in keeping with his therapistrates, for the lectures and seminars.

Why the two groups foundideological inspiration in Wagner's theories was another story. Butin those days Wagner's brand of psychoanalysis seemed sufficientlydeconstructive, diagonal, li-bidinal, and non-Cartesian to providesome theoretical justification for revolutionaryactivity.

It proved difficult toget the workers to swallow it, so at a certain point the two groupshad to choose between the workers and Wagner. They chose Wagner.Which gave rise to the theory that the new revolutionaryprotagonist was not the proletarian but the deviate.

"Instead of deviatingthe proletariat, they would do better to proletarianize thedeviates, which would be more economical, considering Dr. Wagner'sprices," Belbo said to me one day.

The Wagnerian revolutionwas the most expensive in history.

Garamond, subsidized bya university psychology department, had published a translation ofWagner's minor essays¡Xvery technical, nearly impossible to find,and therefore in great demand among the faithful. Wagner had cometo Milan for a publicity launch, and that was when his acquaintancewith Belbo began.

FILENAME: DoktorWagner

The diabolical DoktorWagner Twenty-sixth installment

Who, on that graymorning of

During the discussion Iraised an objection. The satanic old man must have been irritated,but he didn't let it show. On the contrary, he replied as if hewanted to seduce me.

Like Charlus withJupien, bee and flower. A genius can't bear not being loved; hemust immediately seduce the dissenter, make the dissenter love him.He succeeded. I loved him.

But he must not haveforgiven me, because that evening of the divorce he dealt me amortal blow. Unconsciously, instinctively, not thinking, he seducedme, and unconsciously, he punished me. Though it cost himdeontologically, he psychoanalyzed me free. The unconscious biteseven its handlers.

Story of the Marquis deLantenac in Quatre-vingt-treiie. The ship of the Vendeeiens issailing through a storm off the Breton coast. Suddenly a cannonslips its moorings, and as the ship pitches and rolls it begins amad race from rail to rail, an immense beast smashing larboard andstarboard. A cannoneer (alas, the very one whose negligence hadleft the cannon improperly secured) seizes a chain and withunparalleled courage flings himself at the monster, which nearlycrushes him, but he stops it, bolts it fast, leads it back to itsstall, saving the ship, the crew, the mission. With sublimeliturgy, the fearsome Lantenac musters all the men on deck, praisesthe cannoneer's heroism, takes an impressive medal from around hisown neck and puts it on the man, embraces him, and the crew makesthe welkin ring with its hurrahs.

Then stern Lantenac,reminding the honored sailor that he was responsible for the dangerin the first place, orders him to be shot.

Splendid, just Lantenac,man of virtue, above corruption. And this is what Dr. Wagner didfor me: he honored me with his friendship, and executed me with thetruth.

and executed me,revealing to me what I desired

revealing to me that thething that I desired, I feared.

Begin the story in abar. The need to fall in love.

Some things you can feelcoming. You don't fall in love because you fall in love; you fallin love because of the need, desperate, to fall in love. When youfeel that need, you have to watch your step: like having drunk aphilter, the kind that makes you fall in love with the first thingyou meet. It could be a duck-billed platypus.

Because at that time Ifelt the need. I had just given up drinking. Relationship betweenthe liver and the heart. A new love is a good reason for going backto drink. Somebody to go to a bar with. Feel good with.

The bar is brief,furtive. It allows you a long, sweet expectation through the day,then you go and hide in the shadows among the leather chairs; atsix in the evening there's nobody there, the sordid clientele comeslater, with the piano man. Choose a louche American bar empty inthe late afternoon. The waiter comes only if you call him threetimes, and he has the next martini ready.

It has to be a martini.Not whiskey, a martini. The liquid is clear. You raise your glassand you see her over the olive. The difference between looking atyour beloved through a dry martini straight up, where the glass issmall, thin, and looking at her through a martini on the rocks,through thick- glass, and her face broken by the transparent cubismof the ice. The effect is doubled if you each press your glass toyour forehead, feeling the chill, and lean close until the glassestouch. Forehead to forehead with two glasses in between. You can'tdo that with martini glasses.

The brief hour of thebar. Afterward, trembling, you await another day. Free of theblackmail of certainty.

He who falls in love inbars doesn't need a woman all his own. He can always find one onloan.

His role. He allowed hergreat freedom, he was always traveling. His suspect generosity: Icould telephone even at midnight. He was there, you weren't. Hesaid you were out. Actually, while I have you on the line, do youhave any idea where she is? The only moments of jealousy. Butstill, in that way I was taking Cecilia from the sax player. Tolove, or