Spurious - Lars Iyer [10]
It all finishes here, W. says, pointing at his body and then pointing at mine. Especially here, says W., pointing his finger at my belly.
My obesity always impresses him, W. says. My greed. The way I eat, the amount I eat. He’d call me a carnal man, W. says, but that sounds too grand.—‘You’re just full of greed’. He wonders what would I be like if I didn’t go to the gym?, It’s all channelled into my enormous thighs, W. says. They’re grotesque.—‘You’re out of proportion!’ And my great fat arms, W. says.
For his part, W. takes no exercise. He hasn’t felt well for many years—eleven or twelve, he’s not sure how many. There was a time when he’d go for great walks on the moor, he remembers. He had a walking friend, of course. You can’t go walking on your own, that would just lead to enormous melancholy, he says. In fact, that’s what I always say, isn’t it: that going out walking on my own would lead to enormous melancholy?
W. is no stranger to melancholy, he says. He’s essentially agoraphobic. He’s only really happy holed up in his room, working. He’d prefer never to leave his house, says W. Or indeed his study. He’d like to become a recluse like Howard Hughes, he says, with jars of toenails and bottles of urine. It’s only the love of a good woman which saves him from that.
Now and again, he thinks he should walk to work, or cycle. But it’s too far, and all uphill. It would only depress him, W. says. In the end, he’s not cut out for exercise. He’ll lead a short life, says W., as will I. A short, unfulfilled life, which will come to nothing.—‘What’s it all been for?’, W. asks. ‘Nothing!’, he says. ‘Not a thing!’
How much time do we have left?—‘Not long’, W. says. ‘We’re not the sort who live long lives. Look at us!’ He hasn’t felt himself for twenty years, says W., and I’ve long since run to a fat and bleary-eyed alcoholism. But I am more of a whiner than he is, W. says. There’s always something wrong with me, isn’t there? One day it’s a nosebleed, the next nausea, the next some indeterminate fever … And my stomach, whatever is wrong with my stomach?
W. never used to believe me about my stomach. He thought I was a hypochondriac. But once he saw my face turn green—green!—he understood. You looked appalling, he said. Everyone was horrified, everyone at the table. And then, for a terrible morning when he was visiting me, W. himself was taken ill.—‘It’s my stomach! My God!’, he cried. He decided it was my lifestyle. All that drinking! All that eating! One night, he saw me pass out from gluttony. I ate like a maniac, he said, plate after plate. And then my head fell back … he was worried, but then he heard me snoring.
‘How can you live like this?’, said W. exasperated beyond belief. ‘How?’ I’ve always maintained that this is my five year hole. Everyone should be allowed one of those. Deleuze had one, didn’t he? A five year hole, that’s what he called it, in which he wrote nothing?—‘But Deleuze was working’, says W., ‘and you don’t do any work, do you? What happened to you? How did you get like this? Why don’t you read anymore? Why don’t you write?’
W. finds the collapse of his protégé quite fascinating.—‘When did it all start going wrong? When did you first become aware of it?’ There’s something spectacular about my decline, W. decides. Something Faustian.—‘What kind of bargain did you make with the devil back then? How did you appear so intelligent?’ And then: ‘Well, he’s carried your soul off now, hasn’t he?’
Then, in a spirit of diagnosis: ‘Describe your work day to me. What do you do?’ I tell him I get up very early.—‘How early?’ Never later than six thirty, I tell him.—‘I get up at five!’, W. says, ‘Earlier sometimes!’—Then I do two hours of work, I tell him.—‘What kind of work? What does it involve?’ I read …—‘What kind of reading? In the original language? Primary, rather than secondary?