The Seventh Function of Language

by Laurent Binet

  89

  Tatko,

  We have safely arrived in Venice and Philippe is going to compete.

  The city is very lively because they are trying to revive the Carnival. There are people in masks and lots of things to see in the streets. And, contrary to what we were told, Venice does not stink. On the downside, there are armies of Japanese tourists, but that’s no different from Paris.

  Philippe doesn’t seem too worried. You know him—he always has that unshakable optimism that sometimes verges on irresponsibility but, all in all, is a strength.

  I know you don’t understand why your daughter let him take her place, but you must admit that in a situation like this—in other words, with a jury composed exclusively of men—a man will always have a better chance of winning than a woman of equal skill.

  When I was very young, you taught me that a woman was not only a man’s equal, but was even superior to him, and I believed you. I still believe you, but we cannot ignore this sociological reality (I have been afraid of it for some time now) known as male domination.

  It is said that in the whole history of the Logos Club, only four women have ever attained the rank of sophist: Catherine de Medici, Emilie du Châtelet, Marilyn Monroe, and Indira Gandhi (and we can still hope that she will become one again). That is not very many. And none, of course, has ever been the Great Protagoras.

  But if Philippe wins the title, things will change for everyone: for him, as he’ll become one of the most influential men on the planet. For you, benefiting from his secret power, who will no longer have to fear Andropov or the Russians, and will be in a position to change the face of your country. (I would like to be able to say “our” country, but you wanted me to be French, and in that respect at least, my dear Papa, I exceeded your expectations.) And for your only daughter, who will gain another form of power and will reign supreme over French intellectual life.

  Don’t judge Philippe too severely: recklessness is a form of courage and you know what he has agreed to risk. You always taught me to respect the journey from thought to act, even if the person making it treats it as a game. Without a tendency to melancholy, there is no psyche, and I know that Philippe lacks that, which perhaps makes him a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, as Shakespeare says, but that is probably what I like about him.

  All my love, dear Papa,

  Your loving daughter,

  Julenka

  PS: Did you receive the Jean Ferrat album I sent you?

  90

  “Ma si, it is a little approximate, vero.”

  Simon and Bayard have just bumped into Umberto Eco on Piazza San Marco. It really does seem as if everyone has come to Venice. Simon’s paranoia now interprets any apparent coincidence as a sign that his entire life may be nothing but a fictional narrative; this muddles his analytical faculties and prevents him from thinking about the possible and likely reasons for Eco’s presence, here and now.

  On the lagoon, a motley variety of boats maneuver in joyous disorder, to a soundtrack of colliding hulls, cannonades, and the roaring of extras.

  “It’s a reconstruction of the Battle of Lepanto.” Eco has to shout to be heard over the noise of the cannonade and the cheers of the crowd.

  For this second edition since its rebirth the year before, the Carnival is offering, among other colorful spectacles, a historical reconstruction: the Holy League, led by the Venetian fleet, alongside the Invincible Armada and the papal armies, affronting the Turks of Selim II, known as “Selim the Sot,” the son of Suleiman the Magnificent.

  “Ma, you see that large vessel? It’s a replica of the Bucintoro, the ship on board which the doge, every year, on the Feast of the Ascension, would celebrate the sposalizio del mare, the marriage with the sea, by throwing a gold ring into the Adriatic. It was a ceremonial ship not at all intended to go to war. They took it out for official engagements, but it never left the lagoon and it has no business being here, because we are supposed to be in the Gulf of Lepanto on October 7, 1571.”

  Simon is not really listening. He walks toward the dock, fascinated by this ballet of counterfeit galleys and painted skiffs. But when he is about to pass between the two columns that look like the uprights of an invisible door, Eco stops him: “Aspetta!”

  Venetians never pass between the colonne di San Marco; they say it brings bad luck because it was here that the Republic would execute its prisoners before hanging their corpses by the feet.

  At the top of the columns, Simon sees the winged lion of Venice and Saint Theodore flooring a crocodile. He mutters, “I’m not Venetian,” crosses the invisible threshold, and advances to the water’s edge.

  And he sees. Not the slightly kitsch “son et lumière” show and the boats disguised as warships with their actors in their Sunday best. But the collision of armies: the six galleasses rising from the sea like floating fortresses, destroying everything around them; the two hundred galleys divided between the left wing, yellow banner, commanded by the Venetian provveditore-generale Agostino Barbarigo, who is shot in the eye with an arrow and dies at the start of the battle; the right wing, green banner, led by the timorous Genovese Gian Andrea Doria, transfixed by the agile maneuvers of the elusive Euldj Ali (Ali the convert, Ali the one-eyed, Ali the renegade, a Calabrian by birth who became the Bey of Algiers); in the center, blue banner, the high commander, Don John of Austria, for Spain, with Colonna, commander of the pope’s galleys, and seventy-five-year-old Sebastiano Venier, severe of face and white of beard, future doge of Venice, to whom John no longer says a word, at whom he never even glances since the incident with the Spanish captain. In the rearguard, in case things go badly, is the Marquis of Santa Cruz, white banner. Facing them, the Turkish fleet, commanded by Sufi Ali Pasha, kapudan pasha, with his janissaries and his corsairs.

  And on board the galley La Marchesa, sick with fever, midshipman Miguel de Cervantes, who has been ordered to remain lying down in the hold but who wants to fight and begs his captain, because what will people say of him if he doesn’t take part in the greatest naval battle of all time?

  So the captain agrees, and when the galleys ram into each other and collide, when the men fire their arquebuses at point-blank range and start to board the enemy ship, he fights like a dog, and in the fury of the sea and in the storm of war he chops up Turks like tuna but is shot in the chest and in the left hand. He continues to fight. Soon there will be no doubt that the Christians have won their victory—the head of the kapudan pasha is mounted on top of the mast on the admiral’s ship—but Miguel de Cervantes, the brave midshipman under the orders of his captain, Diego of Urbino, has lost the use of his left hand in the battle, or maybe the surgeons did a bad job.

  Either way, from now on he will be known as the “one-armed man of Lepanto,” and some will mock his handicap. Incensed and wounded in body and soul, he will make this clarification in his preface to the second volume of Don Quixote: “As if the loss of my hand had been brought about in some tavern, and not on the grandest occasion the past or present has seen, or the future can hope to see.”

  Amid the crowd of tourists and masks, Simon, too, feels feverish, and when he feels a tap on his shoulder, he half expects to see the doge, Alvise Mocenigo, burst into view along with the Council of Ten, who are out in force, and the three state inquisitors, to celebrate this dazzling victory of the Venetian lion and Christianity, but it is simply Umberto Eco, who smiles pleasantly and says to him: “There are some who went off in search of unicorns, but found only rhinoceroses.”

  91

  Bayard lines up outside La Fenice, the Venetian opera house, and when his turn comes and his name is found on the list, he feels that universal relief of getting past an official barrier (something he’d forgotten in his line of work), but the guard asks him in what capacity he is invited and Bayard explains that he is accompanying Simon Herzog, one of the competitors. But the guard insists: “In qualità di che?” And Bayard doesn’t know how to respond, so he says: “Uh, coac
h?”

  The guard lets him in and he takes his place in a gold-painted theater box furnished with crimson chairs.

  On the stage, a young woman confronts an old man over a quotation from Macbeth: “Let every man be master of his time.” The two opponents speak English and Bayard does not use the headphones providing simultaneous translation that are available to the audience, but he has the impression that the young woman is getting the upper hand. (“Time is on my side,” she says graciously. And she will indeed be declared the victor.)

  The room is full. People have come from all over Europe to attend the great qualifying tournament: tribunes are challenged by duelists of lower ranks, the vast majority peripateticians, but also some dialecticians and even a few orators ready to risk three fingers in a single match to be granted the right to witness the meeting.

  Everyone knows that the Great Protagoras has been challenged and that only tribunes, accompanied by a person of their choice, will be invited to the match (along with the sophists, naturally, who comprise the jury). The duel will take place tomorrow in a secret venue that will be communicated only to authorized persons at the end of tonight’s tournament. Officially, no one knows the identity of the challenger, but there are several rumors in circulation.

  Flicking through his Michelin guide, Bayard discovers that La Fenice is a theater that has regularly been burned down and rebuilt since its opening. Hence, presumably, that name: Phoenix.

  On the stage, a brilliant Russian stupidly loses a finger over a mistake in quotation: a Mark Twain phrase is attributed to Malraux, allowing his opponent, a wily Spaniard, to turn the tables on him. The audience goes “ooohh” at the moment of the tchack.

  The door opens behind Bayard, making him jump. “Well, well, my dear superintendent. You look like you just saw Stendhal in person!” It’s Sollers, with his cigarette holder, come to pay a visit to his box. “Interesting event, isn’t it? The cream of Venetian society and, my word, everyone of any culture in Europe. There are even a few Americans, I’ve been told. I wonder if Hemingway was ever part of the Logos Club. He wrote a book that took place in Venice, you know? The story of an old colonel who masturbates a young woman in a gondola with his wounded hand. Not bad at all. You know Verdi created La Traviata here? But also Ernani, based on Victor Hugo’s play…” Sollers stares out at the stage, where a sturdy little Italian is battling a pipe-smoking Englishman, and he adds dreamily: “Hernani amputated of its H.” Then he withdraws, clicking his heels like an Austro-Hungarian officer, with a slight bow, and goes back to his own box, which Bayard tries to spot, in order to see if Kristeva is there.

  Onstage, a presenter in a dinner jacket announces the next duel, “Signore, Signori…,” and Bayard puts on his headphones: “Duelists from every land … he comes to us from Paris … his victories speak for themselves … no friendly matches … four digital duels … four victories, all unanimous … enough for him to have made a name for himself … I ask you to welcome … the Decoder of Vincennes.”

  Simon makes his entrance, dressed in a well-tailored Cerruti suit.

  Along with the rest of the spectators, Bayard applauds nervously.

  Simon smiles and waves to the audience, all his senses alert, while the subject is drawn.

  “Classico e Barocco.” The Classical and the Baroque: an art history subject? Why not, since we’re in Venice?

  Instantly, ideas rush through Simon’s head, but it is too early to sort through them. First he must concentrate on something else. During the handshake with his adversary, he keeps his hand in his for a few seconds and reads the following about the man who faces him:

  • a southern Italian, to judge by his bronzed complexion;

  • small in height, so a drive to dominate;

  • energetic handshake: a man of contact;

  • paunchy: eats lots of meals with sauces;

  • looks at the crowd, not at his opponent: a politician’s reflex;

  • not very well dressed for an Italian: a slightly worn and mismatched suit, the hems of his trouser legs a little too short, and yet his black shoes are polished: a cheapskate or a demagogue;

  • a luxury watch on his wrist, a recent model, so not an heirloom, obviously too expensive for his standing: strong probability of passive corruption (which confirms the Mezzogiorno hypothesis);

  • a wedding ring, plus a signet ring: a wife and a mistress who gave him the signet ring, which he probably wore before his marriage (otherwise he’d have to justify its appearance to his wife, whereas this way he could claim it was a family heirloom), so a long-term mistress, whom he didn’t want to marry but couldn’t resolve to leave.

  Naturally, all these deductions are merely suppositions, and Simon cannot be sure that each one is correct. Simon thinks: “This isn’t a Sherlock Holmes story.” But when the clues point to a collection of converging presumptions, Simon decides to trust them.

  His conclusion is that he is facing a politician, probably a Christian Democrat, a Napoli or Cagliari supporter, a man without strong convictions, a skilled social climber, but someone who is loath to make decisions.

  So he decides at the start of the game to try something to destabilize him: he makes a show of giving up his right to go first, always granted to the lower-ranked player, and generously offers to leave the initiative to his honorable opponent, which in concrete terms means that he is leaving him to choose which of the two terms of the subject he wants to defend. After all, in tennis, one can choose to receive rather than serve.

  His opponent is absolutely not obliged to accept. But Simon’s gamble is as follows: the Italian will not want his refusal to be taken the wrong way; he will not want people to see in it a sort of contempt, ill grace, rigidity, or, worst of all, fear.

  The Italian must be a player, not a spoilsport. He cannot begin by refusing to pick up the gauntlet, even if the gauntlet that has been thrown down looks more like a baited hook. He accepts.

  Based on that, Simon has no doubt about which position he will choose to defend. In Venice, any politician will praise the Baroque.

  So that when the Italian begins to remind his audience of the origin of the word Barocco (which, in the form barroco, refers to an irregular pearl in Portuguese), Simon believes himself at least one step ahead.

  To start with, the Italian is rather scholarly, rather sluggish, because Simon has unsettled him by handing him the initiative and also, perhaps, because he is not a specialist in art history. But he has not reached the rank of tribune by chance. Gradually, he pulls himself together and grows in confidence.

  The Baroque is that aesthetic trend that sees the world as a theater and life as a dream, an illusion, a mirror of bright colors and broken lines. Circe and the Peacock: metamorphoses, ostentation. The Baroque prefers curves to straight lines. The Baroque likes asymmetry, trompe-l’oeil, extravagance.

  Simon has put his headphones on, but he hears the Italian cite Montaigne in French in the line: “I do not paint its being, I paint its passage.”

  The Baroque is elusive, it moves from country to country, from century to century, the sixteenth in Italy, the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, the first half of the seventeenth century in France, Scarron, Saint-Amant, second half of the seventeenth century, return to Italy, Bavaria, eighteenth century, Prague, St. Petersburg, South America, Rococo … There is no unity to the Baroque, no essence of fixed things, no permanence. The Baroque is movement. Bernini, Borromini. Tiepolo, Monteverdi.

  The Italian lists generalities in good taste.

  Then, suddenly, by who knows what mechanism, what path, what detour in the human mind, he finds his guiding principle, the one he can ride like a surfer on a wave of rhetoric and paradox: “Il Barocco è la Peste.”

  The Baroque is the Plague.

  The quintessence of the Baroque is to be found here, in Venice. In the bulbs of the San Marco basilica, in the arabesques of the façades, in the grotesque palaces that reach out toward the lagoon, and, of course, in th
e Carnival.

  And why? The Italian knows his local history. From 1348 to 1632, the plague comes and goes and comes again, tirelessly delivering its message: Vanitas vanitatum. In 1462, 1485, the plague strikes and ravages the Republic. In 1506, omnia vanita, it returns. In 1576, it takes Titian. Life is a carnival. The doctors have masks with long white beaks.

  The history of Venice is essentially a long dialogue with the plague.

  The Serenissima’s response was Veronese (Christ Arresting the Plague), Tintoretto (St. Roch Curing the Plague), and, at the point of the Dogana, Baldassare Longhena’s church without a façade: the Salute, of which the German art critic Wittkower would say: “an absolute triumph in terms of sculptural form, baroque monumentality, and the richness of the light within it.”

  In the audience, Sollers takes notes.

  Octagonal, no façade, filled with emptiness.

  The strange stone wheels of the Salute are like rolls of foam petrified by the Medusa. The perpetual movement is a response to the vanity of the world.

  The Baroque is the Plague, and therefore it is Venice.

  Pretty good, thinks Simon.

  Swept along by his own momentum, the Italian goes on: what is the Classique? Where have we ever seen the “Classical”? Is Versailles Classical? The Classical is always postponed. We always name something as Classical after the event. People talk about it, but no one has ever seen it.

  They wanted to transpose the political absolutism of Louis XIV’s reign into an aesthetic current based on order, unity, harmony, in opposition to the period of instability of the Fronde, which had preceded it.

  Simon thinks that, all things considered, this southern peasant with his too-short trousers knows quite a bit about history, art, and art history.

  He hears the simultaneous translation in his headphones: “But there are no classical authors … in the present … The label classical … is just a sort of medal … awarded by school textbooks.”

  The Italian concludes: The Baroque is here. The Classical does not exist.