6
" all that a world could be, no matter what,
is, somewhere, in some way.
fullness of possibles, consistency.
no matter which talking head, mine
for example, adjacent to my body
and
why not
against my face, the angel's, the black shadow face itself,
but all the seats are taken, all the worlds
unavailable
to you. "
― Jacques Roubaud , Plurality of Worlds of Lewis
7
" firstly, what "really" attracted me to Indo-European, as well as to English, Polish, and Russian philology, wasn't the seductive variety of linguistic forms, or the infinitely picturesque accidents that fill the histories of words and dialects, but rather the fact that these obey lays that can be rigorously described, and that these laws, such as Grimm's Law in Germanic philology, or the principles of Slavic palatalization, which lie behind all those wonderful alveolar fricatives in Russia and the Auvergne, promised to submit the irresistible and etrnal movement of languages no longer to mere chance, but to something that closely resembled calculation;
- and that, secondly, and consequently, the noblest aspect of linguistics (and if I had been familiar with Trouetzkoy's phonology and with Jakobson, this conclusion would have been even more obvious) was its power of deduction -- but that there remained something even nobler, which was the terrain of pure deduction, in other words, mathematics. And that it is why I absolutely had to become a mathematician. "
― Jacques Roubaud
12
" La rue Rossini coude et la soucoupe est verte
Où gît déchiré le ticket de mon café
Crème. Le ciel de juin gribouille est en reflet
Détrempé dan la vitre d'une chambre ouverte
Au-dessus du magasin d'antiquités. Certes
L'air état doux, le matin calme, je pourrais
Lire, penser, rêver ; je préfère en parfait
Sans-gêne écouter mes voisins, l'oreille traître.
La bele fille brune a dit, levant ses bras
Bruns, nus, aux creux fournis de touffes à promesses
"Mais je suis un humain, je ne suis pas un chat !"
Son interlocuteur en semble assez perplexe
(Les conversations ont textes et sous-textes) :
"Tu derais dire "chatte"." Elle ne répond pas. "
― Jacques Roubaud , The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart
13
" Te voici Sujette à la Mort
Etale ton Bien sur le Sol
Poches, lettres, photos, paroles,
Te voici Sujet en ta Mort.
Te voici Corps perdant tout Corps
Perdant tes lèvres, tes paroles,
Chevelure noire du sol
Au bord d'une Mort sans rebord.
Ici le présent retenu
Que tu ne tiendras pas, que tu
Laisses continuer sa cible.
Là ma mémoire sans projet
Sans impossibles, sans possibles,
Dont ta Mort est l'autre Sujet. "
― Jacques Roubaud , The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart
