The what

Do the quadruple and diminishing reiterations of the "NOW!" on p.45 indicate an insecurity on the part of the text itself? The complex displacements involved in the arrival of "Inspector Elque" suggest that there is something to hide. The "Inspector" is an authoritative, yet duplicitous reader, his policing authority (or author-ity) containing implications of an equally authoritative repression. His name is tropologically overdetermined and cryptic, homophonically suggesting the antlered, herbivorous beast but also, reassuringly, if metonymically, returning us to the world of popular detective fiction. It is significant that this apparently authoritative and "proper" name means, in Spanish, "the what", hence balancing its specificity on the brink of an aporia.

[Naff + apOria + (the) What]

"That was naff." (Ed.) And "now" this.

Ahem

Please note spelling of underlined word on previous page but one...

Are you a deconstructionist?

¿Are you a deconstructionist?

Just answer the following question –

"Are you now – or have you ever been – a deconstructionist?"

(a) Yes [score 0]

(b) No [score 1 – but still too binary]

(c) Don't know [score 2 – for uncertainty and refusal to answer the question]

(d) Maybe [score 2 – for evasiveness]

(e) No. Yes. Well, it's not a question that simple, because it's a project – a way of life, in fact... [score 5 – You are one (and a deconstructionist) – commiserations – go straight to the asylum and do not collect a doctorate from the Collège de France]

(f) It's not a question of being one or not – but somewhere in between [score 0: you're Paddy Ashdown]

(g) My name is Michael Caine [score 0: you're Marti Caine]

Tribute

I should like to complain about the lack of representation of ME in this book – so these few pages are a tribute to me, by me, and for me.

"I like it" (unattributed)

"The author is dead" – 'A deconstructionist'

"I killed him" – Althusser¹

"No, I did" – Another deconstructionist

"Where's the fish?"

"Who is the 5 o'clock hero?"

"Who wrote Schubert's 8th symphony?"

"Where is the 'black stuff'?"

"Why is there nothing on TV on Saturday evenings?"

"Why does Liz always laught at Wibble?"

Answers to these fundamental question on a postcard please.

¹ Althusser was a woman and his wife was a Marxist. Would you trust this fish?

Talk of text

I wasn't crazy before I read
A text by old Jacques Derrid(a)
And I'm obsessive – it isn't nice
You said that ranting was my only vice
I used to think I was sensible
It makes the truth even more incomprehensible
But now it isn't true – now everything is new
And all I've learned has overturned
I beg of you
Don't talk about intention
Just talk of text to me.

(not very good – sorry)

Now

{a roadsign that warns of SIGN} NOW that's what I call self-referential...

... unless you know [?] better.

{musical notes} NOW that's what I call music.

{an elk's head in profile} NOW that's what I call a feeble attempt at drawing an elk.

{an egg} NOW that's what I call an egg – or is it a drawing of an egg?

{the SIGN sign again} "I CAN'T BELIEVE it's a sign"!

"I can't believe it's a book –
that's why they locked me up!"

The plot plotter

Arthur burst upon the scene, declaiming thus:

"Indeed a plot we shall have. We have not come so far to give up now. We shall persevere and when the appropriate time comes, then a plot will emerge – all the conditions are place for the emergence of a plot, but it's far too early to predict when it will emerge."

But at this point the hermeneutical mafia entered, and mercilessly forced him to eat his words – after he had been compelled to deconstruct them. A painful process indeed, but the wicked queen of the hermeneuticists cackled manically as she supervised the operation.

"Don't move" exclaimed Inspector Elque, "or the moose gets it."

"What?" asked the deconstructionist dinosaur.

"Not you," said Elque. "You're extinct – so there."