Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics

The Rhetoric of Difficult Fiction: Cortázar's "Blow-Up" Author(s): Seymour Chatman Source: Poetics Today, Vol. 1, No. 4, Narratology II: The Fictional Text and the Reader (Summer, 1980), pp. 23-66 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771886 . Accessed: 05/11/2013 16:44

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This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION Cortaizar's"Blow-Up"

SEYMOUR CHATMAN Rhetoric,Berkeley

"... I who am dead." Thus the narrator of Julio Cortaizar's "Blow-Up," but adds, immediately,"and I'm alive, I'm not tryingto fool anybody."How we understandthe bizarrecontradictions of modernfiction is, I argue,a rhetorical question. Since the world invoked by a fictionis not real, what are we (per)suaded to do? We can do nothingin thatworld, but we can do something withit, namely,accept or reject it. The suasion urged by a fictionaltext is an imaginativeaccommodation of the premises,the (fictional)assertions, the representations,in short,the autonomyof its world.In Madame Bovary,the impliedauthor invites the impliedreader to accept the plausibilitythat a given bourgeoiseliving in a Frenchprovincial town in the nineteenthcentury would feel the feelingsand do the doings ascribedto Emma. To the extentthat we readersare suaded of thatplausibility through our entranceinto and willingness to staybound by thefictional contract, the novel is a rhetoricalsuccess. A text may be suasive in two main ways, accordingto the directionof its reference:whether to the worldor to itself,whether extra- or intratextually.A texturging an audience to takeaction in thereal world (an advertisement,a legal brief,a speechin Congress,a publicencomium), insofar as itsappeal is current,is extratextuallysuasive, though, if well done, ithas intratextualvalues. It reaches out of itself,to get people to take a stand,to change(or to reaffirm)their views about real issues,to act or at least to feeldifferently about them. Of courseit will utilize a textualform to do so, whethera minister'ssolemn enunciationof a carefullyprepared sermon or the excited "improvised"speech of a political candidatewhose rhetoricis preciselyhis claimto have "thrownaway rhetoric" by throwingaway his prepared text. But here the textualform is secondary, transparentor invisible,not itself the focus. Indeed, it should not call attentionto itself.A juryso fullof wonderat the beautyof a lawyer'sdisplay of logic might well forgetor suspectthe object ofhis plea. He wantsto soundlogical only to the extentthat that will help his case. He may do so, forexample, if by a kindof metonymiccontagion he can make his client'sbehavior sound morelogical. On

? PoeticsToday, Vol. 1:4(1980), 23-66

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 24 SEYMOUR CHATMAN the other hand, if evidence is slenderand his witnesspitiable, he will utilizea more purelyemotional appeal. A fictionaltext can onlybe intratextuallyor form-suasive."Form" I meanin a broad sense: not only surfaceproperties like diction,meter, rhyme, but also broaderdiscoursive ones - narrativevoice, point of view, even theselection and arrangementof contentualelements. The essentialform-suasiveness of any text depends on a certainintegrity, a recognizable consistency of intentthroughout. Fictional texts make claims to autonomy,that is, to acceptabilityas single, homogeneous (howevercomplex) thingsin themselves.For all its bizarreness, Emma Bovary'sgruesome death is appropriateand plausible.Suicide by other means would somewhatweaken thenovel's autonomy. Accidental death would considerablyweaken it. Livinghappily ever after would destroy it. Any modernview of the rhetoricof fictionmust resemble an astutereviewer's characterizationof WayneBooth's use of theword: 'Rhetoric'is ProfessorBooth's term for the means by which the writer makes knownhis vision to the reader and persuades him of its validity.' By "vision" is meant not "that whichmight be" but "that whichholds forthe particularworld invoked by thistext," and by "validity,"not scientific or other truth-valuebut simply esthetic coherence or self-consistency. (I would also argue that rhetoric- Plato and Booth to the contrarynotwithstanding - need only entail self-consistency,not consistencywith the traditionof moral norms.But thatis subjectfor another essay.) So rhetoricis both in the text(put thereby the author) and in thereader. We operate on the assumption that any reader has the potential ability or competenceto recognizewhat is needed to interpreta fictionaltext, to graspthe conditions of its plausibilityand autonomy.And an importantpart of that competencederives from knowledge he has acquired and storedover yearsof readingand living,stored (if we followthe ancients) in topoi,or to use a more modern concept, "codes." The topoi,as Eco says, are nothingother than "overcoded, ready-madepaths for inferential walks" thatthe reader is invitedto take. Where a textis highlyinnovative, or otherwisetroublesome, the reader mustexperiment, try to make new patterns,new codes to accommodateit. How to characterizethis ability is a subjectof some interest. The topoior "places," so the metaphorgoes, occupythe mind's space, a space where information,common and technical,is stored.(The metaphorcontinues in thecircuitry of artificial intelligence, with its "memory banks," "storage," etc.) If we accept the metaphor,we can look at these stockpilesthe way structural linguistshave looked at theircounterparts in language.Each languagepresents reservoirsof forms,or paradigms,visualized traditionallyas vertical bins intersectingthe horizontal stringof an actually constructedsentence, the syntagma.From the paradigm of possibilities,the speaker selects one or a fewto actualize a syntacticand semanticelement. Syntax and semanticsassume that

' David Lodge: theback coverof the paperbackversion of Booth, 1961.

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 25 these elementsoccur in well-formedcomplexes. At the vocabularylevel, for example,there are myriadsets of nounswhose interrelation rests on opposition and mutualexclusion: if we introducethe word"object" intoour sentence,we have consciouslyor unconsciouslyruled out alternativeslike "thing,""item," "entity,""do-hickey" and so on. Semiotics findsthe same kind of meaning-patterningbeyond language, in otherforms of culture,and so borrowsthe notionof paradigmaticstores. But what happens ifone findsno code in his mindto accommodatea giventextual demand,or, thougha familiarcode seemsinvoked, he cannotfind terms in itthat make any sense? As when,in Cortaizar'sstory, we read one momentthat the narratoris dead and the nextthat he is alive? Barthestouches upon theproblem when he discusses modernist(scriptible) texts, but he tells us littleor nothing about how thereader actually achieves a degreeof comprehension.His method would seem to be to workfrom and throughcodes we do have and feelsecure about. We have acquired,through our experiencewith narrative structure, the code of "narrator."We know,for instance, that narrators may (though need not) be fullyestablished human beings in theirown right- charactersor authorial surrogates.Another code, thatof common-sense physiology, tells us thathuman beings are eitherdead or alive but not both. Still anothercode, the code of figures,tells us that"dead" can be used metaphorically.Another, the code ofthe fantastic,tells us that the "living-dead"is conceivable,if we suspend certain rulesof nature.And so on. In short,we have potentialmeans for negotiating the text by pickingand choosing among codes thatwe decide mightbe relevant. Enough has been said in recentyears to lay to restthe notionthat reading is a passive activity.The view of the reader actively ransackinghis codes of verisimilitudeto makesense of a textstrongly reaffirms the argument, though in a differentterminology. But why call them "codes"? For one thing,to insist that (for all their familiarity)these stores of interpretantsare conventional- learned, not "natural" or intuitive.We get betterat interpretationas we acquire new codes, and increase the supply of interpretantsin the old codes. For a second, to emphasizetheir covert character. The textneed not,generally does not,cite the code in termsof whichwe may identifythe voice of the narrator.It simply presupposesan acquaintancewith it. And ifthe readerdraws a blank,he must, by hook or crook (as a good handymanor bricolateur)gather, imagine, project "facts" or even inventcodes to meet thecase. Whetherconsciously or not,he mustask himselfsuch questions as "Under whatset of circumstances can I accept a narratorwho is bothalive and dead?" The thirdreason to call themcodes is thatthey are structured,that is, they follownon-random distributions. The importantpoint about treatingone's choicesas coded ratherthan merely as selections froman agglomeratelist is that the notion of code insistson interdependence.Any story then is seen as a messagewhose complexity requires decision-making- that is, decoding - according to a whole varietyof intersectingcodes, manyof whichare not linguisticbut more broadlycultural.

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This decoding,this decision-making, is facilitatedby a maneuveringamong the codes, and especiallythe use of one code to help determineanother. In thecase of theCortazar story, it is withinthe area oflinguistic semantics that I can decode the expression"blow-up," thatis, decide thatthe sense intendedby the textis "photographicenlargement" and not,say, "explosion." But thedeeper sense of "code" allowsme to go beyondthis mere lexical selection to choicesin impinging semioticareas. For example,the speaker sometimes refers to himselfas "I" and sometimesas "he." The languagecode alone cannotclarify this oscillation. But anothercode, thatof narrativestructure, and especiallyits subcode of narrative voice, allows me to thinkof certainpossibilities among whichto choose. For example,one is to considerthe oscillation as a challengeto thenormal rule, and thus to signal a metacodicquestioning of the whole artificeof story-telling,of highlightingstory-telling asan artifice,as a tacitassertion that its conventions are in factconventions and mustbe consciouslyregistered as such. At any rate,by raisingto a consciouslevel the processof decoding, that is of code negotiation,I thinkwe can demystifysome importantaspects of the reading and interpretiveprocess. Roland Barthes has analyzed certain codes in conventional,or as he calls them,"readerly" (lisible) narratives by Balzac and Poe as opposed to moreproblematic modernist or "writerly"texts - "writerly" in the sense that the texts are open-ended, admit of wider-ranging interpretations.Compared to "parsimoniouslyplural" lisible texts,scriptible texts are supposed to be infinitelyplural, to consist of a virtual"galaxy of signifiers."One purpose of thisstudy is to raise the questionof the utilityand viabilityof such notions. The codes informingnarratives are of two basic sorts,corresponding to a widely-heldcontemporary theory of narrativestructure. The theoryis dualist, presuming that narrativesdivide into two major planes, the formal, or "discourse" plane (afterFrench discours), and the contentual,or "story"plane (afterFrench histoire). That a narrativeis recountedby a first-personnarrator, or in interiormonologue, is a questionof discourse; that it is about a seaman,or that everybodylives happilyever afteris one of story.Generally, one need not explicatea story'sdiscourse to interpretit. But one does notget beyondthe first sentence or two of "Blow-Up" to realize that it raises (in so many words) questions about how its discourseshall go, thatis, how its storyshall be told. Narrativediscourse is as highlycoded as is story,and in problematictexts the determinationof its codes can be crucial to the achievementof even modest interpretations.2 What followsis not an explicationof "Blow-Up" but rathersome moments fromthe history of myencounter with it, explained or rationalizedby the theory of topiccodes. It is notan exact recordof mythinking: I have forgottenor never became consciousof my actual mentalactivity. So thisis onlythe traceof my own reading,following my own associationalpaths. It makes no claimsto the "truth" (whatever that means) about "Blow-Up." The real world of

2 For mytheory of narrativediscourse in itsmost complete form, see Chatman,1978.

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interpretationis "partitionedoff," as Gilles Deleuze puts it: each of us sees thingsunder differentsigns, in termsof differentcategories. But interestingas those differencesare, the process by whichone reachesan interpretationis no less interesting.That is the subject of thisessay: not theinterpretation but the struggleto interpretexperienced by one mind. A descriptionof thatprocess seems to me worththe risk of revealingmy own interpretive inadequacies. Here is a reconstructionof what occurred,or, to be perfectlyaccurate, must have occurred,given the limits of myown literarycompetence. The focusis noton the interpretationbut on the code-selectionand -implementatonprocess that I thinkI used. Barthes' studyof the readingprocess in S/Z presumesthat no readingis ever the first:"We must... accept one last freedom:that of reading the textas ifit had alreadybeen read" (1974: 15). However trueor usefulthat maybe forBarthes' theoretical purposes, it gives small consolation to thereader strugglingto make a modicumof sense ofa difficulttext. How can he writeabout such a textwith Barthes' grand pluralist flair knowing that in facthe has notyet understoodit in any satisfyingway, thatthough he can repeatwhat it says,he cannot say what it meant, that is, meant in any satisfyingsense? Barthes' freedomof ddja-lu,surely, comes only to the reader in controlof at least one plain-senseinterpretation. But what is one to do if one has not acquired that control?What does he do untilhe acquires it? I foundthat when I startedmy notes forthis essay I had read "Blow-Up" severaltimes, yet could not in good conscience say that I understoodit - under any reasonable definitionof "understand."To feelBarthes' freedom at mystage of incomprehensionwould be idle and self-deluding.Therefore my account in no waycompares to Barthes' elegantanalysis of "Sarrasine." His is triumphantlyafter the fact; it is an account of thetext. Mine is humblyduring the fact, afloat, often barely afloat, amid heavy seas of deciphering.Mine is preciselythe record of mistakes,of falseleads, of a sometimesfurious hunt for the quarry of plain sense. Plain sense: there,I confess it. A notoriouslyAnglo-Saxon, not a Gallic notion.But, somehow, one essential to me at some level too deep to plumbor to question.I mustsimply respect my need fora coherence,however sketchy, and followits promptings. Afterwards, perhaps,I can enjoy thespace-ship ride among Barthes' galaxy of signifiers. For themoment simple coherence is myimperative. Does thismean thatI reject the notionof the "open" or plurisignificational text,one open to severalor even a multitudeof interpretations? Not at all. What I am sayingis thatI cannot accept a textas plurisignificationaluntil I make at least one satisfyingsense of it. I muststart with at leastone beforeI can entertain pluralisms.Plurisignification, further, would seem to mean that the different interpretationsare of comparable value, are equally rich or fruitful,that I presentone preciselybecause it comprehendsaspects not comprehendedby another. If I refuse to give up an interpretationof Don Quixotewhich also highlightsits mockery of the medieval romance, it is because the single interpretationof Don Quixote as picaresque adventure neglects precious featuresof satire. Conversely, to be dominatedby the satiric interpretation alone neglects precious featuresof the picaresque. But somehow the plain-sense

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picaresque view of Don Quixotecomes firstand providesa secure base upon whichthe ironic reading may float. One moreobservation: the concept of "openness," I think,needs theoretical exploration.One considerationis domain.Some texts,surely, are open in a local sense but not in a global sense. In LordJim, at thelocal level,the constitution of Jim's characteris open. We cannot be easy about any absolute or ultimate view of Jim's precise mixtureof cowardice and heroism because Marlow himselfcannot finallydecide, and he is our necessaryvademecum into the mentalas intothe geographical hinterlands of Conrad's novel.But no one would seriouslyargue, I think,that the text is open in a globalsense thatpermits us, for instance,to interpretJim as a figmentof Marlow's imagination. Whatever we say about "openness," it is clear that certain interpretationsare simply incompatible.To anticipate,one cannot,I think,entertain at the same timea supernaturalistinterpretation of "Blow-Up" inwhich the hero literally enters an enlarged photographand a naturalistone in whichhe hallucinatesthat he is doing so. I do not thinkthat the cause of hermeneuticsis well servedby such a viewof textual"openness." As I struggledwith the story, I triedto do so consciouslyin termsof thenotion of codes, to name thecode thatI had drawnupon as soon as I was satisfiedby an interpretation.In the heat of reading,however, I could not inquireclosely into the logic of namingthem or limitingthem to a certainnumber. Barthes has proclaimedfive codes in S/Z (and a slightlylarger number in his laterstudy of Poe's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valeman"), but he does not tell us how he hitupon thosefive, whether we are to assumethat they apply only to histext or to any narrativetext whatsoever, and, if the latter,what the basis is forhis belief thatthey exhaust the universe of possiblecodes. My own approachis empirical, usingthe codes as a way intothe text, not as a wayof accountingfor it. I. "BLOW-UP".3THE DISCOURSE It is not alwaysnecessary to considera story'sdiscourse to interpretit. But the firstfive paragraphsof "Blow-Up" explicitlyraise questions about how its discourseshall go, thatis, how thestory is to be told.Further, the recurring flights of clouds and birds (mostlyin parentheses)are couched in the presenttense, unlike otherstory events. Since theirtime reference is the same as thatof the discourse,I mustdecide whetherthey occur prior to or contemporarywith the momentof narrativetelling. ("Blow-up" is printedin theAppendix.) What does "Blow-Up" mean? Is the code military? Engineering? Photographic?The answerseems to clarifyin thereference in paragraphtwo to a "Contax 1.1.2," which I recognize as a veryexpensive professionalcamera, whose smallformat requires the "blowing-up" or enlargingof prints. I am set for furtherphotographic allusions, including metaphoric ones. (For themeaning of theSpanish title,see below, III.) At the veryoutset, two questionsarise about the discourse: 1) Whydoes the a Julio Cortfizar(1967). Paul Blackburn,the translator,was a close friendand apparently collaboratorof Cortkzar'sbut thereare some problemsin thetranslation.

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narratorconsciously refer to the processof story-telling(code of discourse:the beginning;choice of pronoun for the narrator)?Why does he have so much difficultygetting going? 2) Who is he (code of discourse: narrator-identity)? What is his situationin thediscourse - location,physical and mentalcondition, and so on - and how does he relate to the story'sprotagonist? Is he the protagonist(the "Roberto Michel" of paragraphsix), or is he someone else? Who is thenarratee, that is, to whomis thenarrator speaking? The second question, I feel,can only be answeredby the whole narrative.I mustawait theend beforehazarding a guess.The firstquestion, however, seems more immediatelynegotiable. Why is he engagedin the grammaticalstruggles (whichpronoun to use, and whichtense)? Whyshould he introducesolecisms? The code that firstsuggests itself to me is that of sophisticatedmodernist, "self-conscious"fiction. One such code (I thinkof Robbe-Grillet)would deny the possibilityof anycoherent reading: contradictions and paradoxes,that code tellsme, are introducedprecisely to make impossiblethe kind of piecingout of meanings that the search throughthe codes and confirmationsby context enables. (But thatcode seems itselfdelusory: pure incoherenceis impossible, because it is the natureof texts,in the act of presentingthemselves as such,to utilizecodes, even if theseare self-contradictory.The readersimply accepts an overriding code of self-contradiction.)Not all self-conscioustexts are self-negating:for example, in JohnBarth's "Lost in theFunhouse," the narrator advances clichedprescriptions about narrativevoice, point of view,plot, and so on, apparentlyto question whetherthe whole apparatusdoes not preventan authorfrom getting to the truthhe wishesto express.But Cortfizar'snarrator seems genuinelyconfused and torn,or so subsequent statements,I think, suggest.And herewe have a firstprinciple of interpretation, namely, to seek out redundancy.For instance,it seems as ifhe wishesthe typewriter to tellthe story (paragraphtwo), to formwith him some kindof mechanical collaboration, along withthat other machine, the camera (code of technology:the machine; code of psychology:human autonomy). Perhaps he feelsinept as a storyteller.Perhaps he is self-effacing.Perhaps indolent(the "bock" he wantsto drink).Perhaps perfectionist("...that would be perfection").Any answeris premature.The entire narrative,both discourse and story,may be needed to explain his discomfiture.Perhaps, ultimately,I shall have to recognizesome overriding code, either psychological(should I conclude that the narrator'ssituation is unique) or philosophical(should I concludethat it is universal). Otherquestions immediately arise. Who is theblond? Is she a character(code of story:character)? Why all the fussabout theclouds (code of story:setting)? Why does the narratorfeel obligedto tell the story(paragraph two)? Some ostensibleanswers seem to be offered:"It's of such burningimportance to the world" since "One of us all has to write";then, contradictorily, "I don'tknow"; finally,"To relievemyself of the ticklingin mystomach." Which is it? Or is the real reason none of these?Who are the"we" ofparagraph two, and whyare they compromised?Who are the"they" of paragraphfive that will "replace" him?In whatsense is thenarrator dead and yetalive? Why does this"death," whateverit

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is, make him less compromised?Why does he so frequentlycontradict himself? He is both dead and alive. He claims to be undistractedbut the clouds keep distractinghim. He beginswith this period, but it turns into the last one back,and ends by being the one at thebeginning. In paragraphtwo he musttell the story, but in paragraphthree he wonderswhy he musttell it. He says that nobody knowswhat he's seeing (including,presumably, himself), yet adds immediately in parenthesesthat it's the clouds thathe is seeing.These are infractionsof the code of ordinarynarrative logic and consistency.Why do theyoccur? When shall we findout thathe's not tryingto foolanybody about claimingto be dead? How can it be thathe, thenarrator, is of a groupwho don't know 1) who is tellingthe story,2) whatactually occurred, 3) whathe is seeingnow (paragraph four)? What is the somethingother than clouds thatwill start coming (paragraph five)? How could tellingthe storybe an answerto thequestions raised in paragraphsthree throughfive? I do not arguethat these questions are "logical" in some scientific sense. It is just thatI have been instructedby theliterary tradition to ask them. Culture,not nature,demands that they be answered. The sentencesof paragraphone, I feel,are morethan verbal spaghetti. "You" forinstance is juxtaposedto "the blond." That mightmake her the narratee, but evidence is not conclusive. A narrativecode of plot-discovery(Barthes' hermeneuticcode) suggeststhat I keep myeyes open forher identification.(It comes in paragraphten.) If "you," thenarratee, is not theblond, who is he/she? Is it possible that"you" is notthe narratee?(How would thatwork?) Is he the "reader" or anotherperson in thenarrative? "... you theblond woman was the clouds" is narrativelyopaque as well as grammaticallyill-formed, but I keep itin mind(it turnsout in retrospectto be a keystatement in thestory). If the variousviolations of the languagecode are notcitations of a modernist ironiccode, whichcode do theyelicit? I guessat some code ofpsychology, of the emotions,perhaps frustration, uncertainty, anxiety, the need to relieveoneself of tensions.This choice seems confirmedby "What the hell." In context,the vacillatingamong nouns and pronounsin particularsuggests uncertainties about identitythat the narratormight feel (code of psychologyor psychopathology). That would worktogether with the self-effacement implicit in thefantasy of the typewriterwriting the story by itself:perhaps it is an attemptto escape fromthe responsibilityof selfhood or autonomy.Engaging the code of psychology,I speculate that he uses his camera as a means of puttinghimself at one remove fromreality. And ifso, why?Because it's too painful? About the "dead" narratorI feel on reallyunfamiliar ground. I dredge up frommemory the filmSunset Boulevard, in whichthe voice-overof the hero (WilliamHolden), a youngman kept by an agingmovie star (Gloria Swanson), narratesand commentson events. Yet in the finalscene he is dead, floating face-downin the swimmingpool. (The filmRashomon plays with a similar notion.)But theparallel is useless,because "Blow-Up" announcesthe narrator's peculiarcondition at thevery outset, and thengoes on todispute the assertion by sayingthat he is in factalive. If I relatethe dead/alive narrator to his problems with pronoun-establishmentand the like, my sense is reinforcedthat he is

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 31 reluctantto tell the storyfor psychological reasons. (Redundancy is clearlya crucial principlein interpretation.)I attribute"distraction" to him by the psychologicalcode. I notetoo thatbeing dead and seeingclouds are syntactically equated by the code of grammar(apposition): "me who am dead...I who see only the clouds." Even thoughI cannotyet figure out why,I feel emboldened to trya hypothesis:except in supernaturalnarratives (and intuitively,for the moment,this does not feel like one), you cannotbe literallydead and gone and stilltell a story.Even in theSunset Boulevard situation, the narrator is dead but remains some kind of ghostlynarrative voice: he has simplygotten us the message frombeyond. But in "Blow-Up" everythingelse suggeststhat the narratoris alive. So I am mostattracted to a code of figurativespeech, of poetic figures:he feels as if he were dead. But thatin turngives rise to1anumber of possibilities.Dead how? Emotionally exhausted? Numbed by experience? Will-less?Grief-stricken? And howdoes thatfit together with the remark that he has the "dumb luck" to know that machineslike typewriters(for all their precision and perfection)can only be operated by human hands? Does that implysome kindof wishthat he could giveup theburden of beingalive? I must await more clues. The clouds mustwait, especiallysince I have opted for a figurativeinterpretation of "dead" ("clouds" thus cannot be a referenceto "heaven" as a citationof a religiouscode). Nor do death or clouds seem to be easilyinterpretable as some ecstaticinvocation of the Romantic code (a subcode of the ideology or world-viewcode). The narrator'stension undercutsany nubilousfelicity, whether by accidentor design. In thethird paragraph, his ambivalence seems to continue,despite his decision "to put aside all decorumand tell it" (as if"telling" were innocent of narrative art). I get the distinctfeeling in thisparagraph that he is tryingto delay or even avoid tellingthe story,but is forcinghimself to do so, thatthe functionof the "tickle" is to make lightof thetask (code of figures,code ofpsychology: defense mechanism).In paragraph six, there is a citationof the narrativecode of conventionalstory-telling, where the protagonist is straightforwardlynamed and identified,exposition is offeredin the past perfect(in Spanish,the imperfect), and so on - all thatseems to be a responseto thisdesire to simplytellit. But I do learn,explicitly, that the storymust be told because something"weird" (raro) has happened,and thecode of narrativepretexts (as in the Turnof the Screw and a thousandghost stories) hints that weird happenings will form the climax of the story.The imperative"Always tellit..." in thiscontext seems to be enjoining himselfrather than the narratee (hence belongs to the code of narrator's psychologymore than to thatof "philosophizingand generalizing"). But thefirst actual attemptat tellingdoes not beginuntil paragraph four. The sentenceneeds a bettertranslation than the one published:"Let's walkdown the staircaseof thishouse untilSunday, November 7"... bajemospor la escalera de esta casa hasta el domingosiete de noviembre...).The hortatorysubjunctive (bajemos) seemsstrange (code of thesubstance of the discourse, i.e., theSpanish language). Does it again signal the narrator'snervousness about his task? He seems almost to ask the narrateeto accompanyhim. Why? Does he doubt his

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 32 SEYMOUR CHATMAN abilityto tella storyproperly (code of narrativediscourse and code ofemotions: self-doubt)?But mightthere also be some apprehensionabout goingdown that staircase again, that is, going back over those events (code of psychology: manifestsigns of latentconflicts)'? " ... untilSunday, November 7" continuesthe hortatoryinvitation, the narratortrying to lead the narrateeback withhim to thatparticular date (odd because hasta as a temporalpreposition usually means "up to an event in the future").Perhaps a narrative-enliveningcode is cited whose functionis to contemporizethe past. (See the discussionof "now," in paragraphseven, below.) But thatdoes not explain whythe narrativeneeds contemporization.Nor my vague sense that the livelinessof the expression seems hollow,unconvincing, like a man tryingto be gayerthan he reallyfeels. The parenthetical"(because we werephotographers, I'm a photographer)"may simplybe a lingeringon of the pronominalindecision of paragraphone. It may also (or alternatively)recall the desire for company inferable from the hortatory subjunctiveof paragraphtwo. More informationseems necessary"... nobody reallyknows who it is tellingit, if I am I or whatactually occurred or what I'm seeing (clouds, and once in a whilea pigeon)..." Here I clearlyneed a code of textualcoherence. For "I," thegrammatical discourse subject, must know who is tellingit - by thedefinition of "first-personnarrator." Who indeed is tellingit? Is "I" really"I"? What actuallyoccurred? What is "I" seeing? Is the truthonly "I's" truth?- these questions tie up with that of the "dead narrator."A psychologicalcode suggestsitself: a person so confusedby an experience,so wroughtup byit could well questionthe evidence of hissenses, then his identity and perceptualpowers. The psychologicalcode could underminethe discourse code. But at this point, I'm only conjecturing;another code entirelymay be involved. Equally interestingis the immediatejuxtaposition of "...nobody really knows... what I'm seeing" and "(clouds, and once in a while a pigeon ... )." The code of punctuationtells us thatparentheses may be used in narrativediscourse to give the narrator'sanswer to a rhetoricalquestion: perhaps,"nobody else knowswhat I'm seeing,dear reader,but I'll clue youin: it was clouds and birds." But ifthat's true, why the confidentiality? And ifit's not true,what is the functionof the parenthesesand thepiece of textthey contain? The question proves importantbecause, as we shall see in the finalparagraph, the clouds seem to replace everythingelse in the narrator'sperceptual field. In any case, however I construe the parentheticalclouds, they must signify somethingof overridingimportance, not onlybecause of thefrequency of their occurrencebut also because of thecrucialness of thesites in the textwhere they intervene.They are like a sore tooth that the narrator'stongue can't help touching.In viewof thepsychological problems that have alreadyarisen, I am a littleskeptical about takingthe referenceto "my truth,the truthonly formy stomach" as an invocationof some code of relativistphilosophizing. It seems morelike an additionalconcession or apologyon thenarrator's part for the right to get startedon his story.But whyagain, does he need to apologize? In paragraphfive, the strange logic proceeds apace. Though he hasn'tbegun the storyat all, the narratortells us we are alreadyin the middleof it. Then a

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seriesof odd if-clausesstarts a sentencedestined to remainincomplete, which of course adds to my sense of his agitation."If they replace me..." (Si me sustituyen...). Who are "they"? I can only speculate. The narrator is apprehensiveabout his task; giventhe hypothesis of his inexperiencein writing stories,are "they" some kindof culturalauthorities (code of Latinculture, code of Catholicism),those who know how a storyhas to be written,as theyknow everythingelse? Or are the "they" moresinister still, and ifso, sinisterin what way? "If, so soon [perhapsalready so soon intomy task] I don't knowwhat to say" and "If the clouds stop comingand somethingelse starts":I sense a hint about theclouds. Theyseem to be keepingthe narrator "going" insome way,for by thecode of grammar,apposition suggests that "replace me" and "something else (presumablysomething undesirable, even dangerous)starts coming" are allied. Thus, the flowof clouds may symbolizethe preservationof whatever stabilitythe narratornow possesses. Yet whatcould be less intrinsicallystable thanclouds (code ofscience, code of Romance)?But nowit occurs to me to delay considerationof the clouds until the very end, when I can tally all their appearances and reviewthem systematically, the betterto reach a conclusion about theirmeaning. I feelat thispoint that the question of how to completethe sentences re-echoes, throughthe metaphor of the grammaticalcode, the narrator'suncertainty about how to tell thestory. No wonderhe needs to warn himselfthat he never will get startedif he doesn't stop all the hemmingand hawing. Somethingreally is holding him back, and the code of psychology suggestsit is some deep apprehension.About all thisdifficulty in gettingstarted, this discoursiveobsessing, I draw certain tentativeconclusions, or at least become alerted to certainpossibilities: that the narrator'sproblem is no mere modernistpose, that it eithersays somethingpersonally about him (code of psychology)or somethingabout the natureof the world,at least as he sees it (code of philosophy).In any case, the code of textualcoherence persuades me thatthe difficulty ingetting started is relatedto theexperiences in thestory which he is about to recount.

II. "BLOW-UP": THE STORY: EXPOSITION The story proper seems to begin in paragraphsix, in an "objective" way. Accordingto a traditionalnarrative code, whichI have no troublenegotiating (the narratornow reallyseems to want the narrateeto join him), the hero is formallynamed and identified;the exact moment in story-time is fixed(narrative discoursecode: time,dates), includingwhat he had done beforethe story began (code of grammar:past perfectfor exposition). And so is the exact story-space (code of geography:Paris: lile de la Cite). I recognizeanother citation of the discoursive code of contemporization,one of whose key devices is the "epic preterite,"that is, the preteritewith present adverbs ("Right now... I was able to sit"), along withnear ratherthan fardeixis ("a wind like this" insteadof "that"). Stillanother traditional narrative code citationis thatof thenarrator as generalizingobserver ("it's rarethat there's wind in Paris"). And anotheris the narrator'sbeing privy to themind of characters("I figuredthat," "Michel knew

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 34 SEYMOUR CHATMAN that").These traditionalcitations plus the stabilization of tenses reassures me for a moment,lulls me intoassuming that this may turn out to be a "regular"story afterall. My complacency,of course,is to be rudelyshaken. For suddenly"him" becomes "me": I alreadysuspected (from the reference to "amateur photographer,""Sunday, November7," etc.) that"Michel" and "I," thenarrator, might be thesame person.The pronominalshifts between "I" and "he" (and "Roberto Michel") make some criticsfeel that thereare two narrators,Michel and anotherstanding ironically behind him. Of coursethere is available such a code of multipleor embeddednarration. But certainhints seem to mitigateagainst it here.For one thing,the first paragraph's explicit expression by the narratorof his difficultyin choosinga pronounfor the narrator.We are confrontedfrom the very outset by an expression of ambivalence. And ambivalence seems to me a betterexplanation for the shiftingthan double narratorhood.The code of firstperson narration is highlynormative in signalling self-referenceby a narrator,and it is generallypotent enough to overrideother forms.Only in thecontext of "I" do we normallyaccept "he" as a merestylistic variant,not the other way around. (Norman Mailer's consistentreference to himselfas "Mailer" and "he" in Armiesof the Nightdoes relativelylittle to distancethe characterfrom the narrator.)The oppositeholds only where other contextualimplications of multiplenarratorship are offered,as in fictionsby Conrad in whichshifts from "he" to "I" signal that we shall hear Marlow's version of the narrativehappenings; but that is effectedbecause Marlow's audience is named, and perforceincludes the first,anonymous narrator, the "real" I.

III. STORY: FIRST STAGE: THE ILE DE LA CITIE Paragraphseven seems to follow,comfortably, traditional narrative paths. The narrator philosophizes about the art of photography(code of discourse: narrator's generalization), and enters the protagonist's mind to show self-assuranceabout such matters.But I have a problem with the sentence about Michel's philosophyof photography("Michel knew... 1/250sec."). Though I recognizeit, too, as a generalizingcomment, I'm notsure I understand the point,and it seems a pointof some relevance.The sentenceafter it ("Right now... time") perhapsonly means thata good photographerdoes not confine his eye to the small frameof a viewfinder.But how - in termsof his art- can any photographerseriously call that limitation"insidious"? Though it may confinehim in his extra-artisticpersonal viewing,it must always remain a necessaryconstraint upon the practiceof the art (along withlighting, distance, and so on). I cannot find a code to resolve the issue besides the earlier psychologicalone of ambivalence.Since I do not know what is causingthat, I remainin the dark.The expression"distracted tone" (forel tonodistraido, not "keynoteof distraction")is a bit odd too: presumablyit means (by thecode of physiology)that the eyes in ordinaryrelaxed perception are constantlyshifting about. But "distracted"then has suddenlytaken on a positiveconnotation, since it is more"natural" thanthe fixed quality of the photographer's eye, glued as itis

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 35 to the viewfinder.I rememberthe remarksabout distractionin paragraphtwo: perhapsthe answeris thatthen (in storytime)Michel was relaxedand confident in his normal,"distracted" way of looking,whereas now (in discourse-time) "death" has cleared up his visual distraction,giving him a fixed(obsessive?) viewpoint.Calling the word "now" "a dumb lie" (estripidamentira) is also strange.I catch anotherwhiff of the narrator'sambivalence. What could it mean? Does itquestion the viability of the epic preteriteconvention and perhaps even the possibilityof distinguishinga contemporarynarrative moment (and hence thewhole Westernway of conceiving stories - and even timeitself - as a seriesof grainsof sand,each one marked"Now," tumblingsilently through the sphincterof an hour-glass)?If it is a purelyphilosophical challenge, why does it seem to have so muchemotional pressure behind it? In the story "Right now" is 10 a.m., Sunday, November 7, 19- (epic preterite).Michel's actions at firstseem to follow the traditionalcode of causality.Out on a photographingjaunt, he findsthe lighttoo weak, so he dawdles along the Seine. He's looking for photographicsubjects, so he is unusuallyalert to appearances. And so on. The causalitycode evokes an easily graspedcode of avocation:"photographer-on-the-prowl." So I'm notsurprised to be asked to followthe order of Michel's perceptions:"Nothing there but a couple..." The couple is firstvisually slighted by a refusalto dip into the narrativecode of descriptivedetail. Like Michel, I pass them over on first reading.They're presented as a minorpicturesque feature of the landscape.For an instantor two the narratoris absorbed in his own privatepleasures. But his double leisure(photographer on theloose, photographerwaiting for the light to improve)leaves himopen to idle curiosity(code ofnormal psychology: "As I had nothingelse to do... "). Paragraphnine trackshis surmise: no, notjust a couple, because of age differences,perhaps a boy and his mother,no, not that,but an eroticcouple afterall. In a familiarway, the code ofcuriosity opens out intotwo relatedcodes, thatof description(one of thecodes of conventionalnarration, as a "task" of the narrator)and thatof extended speculation - firsta conjectured biographyof the boy's lifeso far(paragraph twelve), and thena predictionof what is about to happen to him(last partof paragraph thirteen). The narrator's interpretationof the boy's fear, I note, explicitlyavoids the privilegedinside view: he does notsay "The boy was scared," butrather "You could guessthat." The externalobserver divines not only the fear but its peculiarmixture with shynessand theconflicting need to be decorouslymanly. That it is "telegraphed" to keen eyes can stillbe explainedin the estheticand photographiccodes, but somethingelse seems to be surfacing. Paragraphten gets more problematic."The boy's frightdidn't let me see the blond verywell": perhaps a citationof a code of sympathy:later (paragraph twelve) he will speak of male adolescence in Paris witha kind of knowing, good-naturedtolerance. But the seeds of a more personal,even a vicarious identificationmay be beingsown, and I feelprompted to watchfor the flower. (I began to feel thisabout the verb "telegraphed" in the previousparagraph.) "Now, thinkingback on it,I see hermuch better at thatfirst second whenI read

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her face..." A code of memory,agreed, and it seems at firstthat the present tense "see" (veo) could be read, out of the narrativecode, as a "historical" present-tenseenlivening the usual preterite.But thenI realize thatthe demand of the sentenceis odder, for"read" (lei) is in the preterite,not the historical present.This violationof thecode of grammaticalconsistency recalls that of the earliergrammatical switches. After first asserting that he didn'tsee hervery well, thenarrator tells me thathe did in fact"read" (study,make an interpretationof) her face, including,presumably, her characterand intentions,not now, at the momentof thediscourse, but back then,at thestory moment, November 7, 19-. How can I reconcile the termsof this apparent paradox (which cannot be unrelatedto the paradox of the alive/deadnarrator)? One possiblesolution is a kind of time-negatingcode: maybethe experience is not relivedat the present momentbut actually lived, in the assumptionthat timeis an illusion(Proust helpsme swallowthis one). Thus discourse-timeand story-timeare identified.Of course, I mustcheck this extreme reading against later information. I also don't understandher sudden swingingaround "like a weathercock."Of course it's a simile(code of figures),but what does it mean? Weathercocksare controlledby the wind,and I am promptedto discoverwhat "wind" is controllingher. The figureargues that not herown desiremotivates her. The forcemust be external. (I note again how mydiscoveries follow the order of thenarrator's own surmise, yet I also rememberthat he is a retrospectivenarrator.) Though her swinging around is connectedonly by "and" withthe clause "the eyes, the eyes were there,"there seems somethingcausal about therelation. Further, the repetition of "eyes" makes me wonder.Is it emphasis,and ifso whatis beingemphasized and why? And "the eyes" raise an interestinggrammatico-lexical question. Spanish prefersthe definitearticle to possessiveadjectives with body parts:los ojos can be Englishedeither as "the eyes" or "her eyes." The translator'schoice of "the eyes" strikesme as significantlycorrect. (In thenext paragraph, however, Cortaizarwrites sus ojos negros.)In short,I'm not at all clear that"the" eyes are hers.Certainly calling them "the eyes" detachesthem from the body,estranges them, makes them potentiallysinister. Are the eyes those of some external person,the "wind" thatdrives the weathercock? That everygaze "oozes withmendacity" seems on the surfacea citationof a narrator'scultural generalizing code. But whatexactly does it mean? "Oozes" activatesthe metaphoriccode, and I have troublewith its tenor.Does it mean that lookingis itselfintrinsically mendacious, causes or generateslies? Or that theobjects of lookingpotentially entail mendacity, i.e., appearancesmay or may not be what theyseem? The differencebetween "The pond oozes slime" and "The pond oozes with slime" is subtle but important;in the firstcase, the implicationis thatthe pond generatesthe slime, in thesecond thatthe pond is a more or less indifferenthost of the slime.Other translations of rezumarthat I findin the Spanish-Englishdictionary are "exudes" and "seeps." Perhaps the stress is on the involuntarinessof the gazer's predicament- perhaps "one cannot help riskinga false interpretationthrough contemplating an appear- ance." Expelling"us furthestoutside ourselves," in thiscontext, seems to mean

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thatof all thesenses, seeing is themost far-ranging, therefore the most likely to be alienatedfrom the rest of thebody. It is interestingto note thatthe narratoragain refersto his visualsensitivity, not to validate (or even mention) a photographicability but rather an investigativeor even detectiveability. Like SherlockHolmes, he seesbecause he can make properallowances forthe omnipresence of falseappearance (code of character:avocation). This elaborate philosophizingon thedifference between appearance and realityis peculiarlyundercut in two ways. For one thing,the paragraphends lamelyand inconclusively:"... all thatis difficultbesides." For another,the parenthesesmake fun of the observer.The narrator,Michel, is accused of "rambling."Does the accusingvoice belongto anotherspeaker, say an "effaced"narrator, or simplyto anotheraspect of Michel'spersonality? My previousreasons for assuming that Michel is thenarrator, that another narrator does not stand behind him,are no more threatenedby thisoddity than by the switchingaround among the pronounpersons. I cannot finda new reason for believingthat the narratoris someone otherthan Michel. Yet I wonderwhy he should take such a detachedview of himself.If it is Michel,the self-mockery is sharpand devastating:it says, in effect, "Don't paymuch attention to me,folks, I just rambleon." More confusiongreets me in paragrapheleven. Michelremembers the "boy's image before [or "rather than": Spanish antes que] his actual body," but "remembersthe woman's body muchbetter than [mejor que] herimage." Now one can rememberan actual object eitherin termsof a mentalimage or in terms of an abstract,say a verbal,notion. But thisdistinction is notat all betweenthe object seen and themental representation of that object. It's possible,I suppose, that "image" (imagen) here means "immediate,therefore general or hazy impression,"although that would be strange,in English at least. Another possibilityis that"image" is the fixedphotographic image (as opposed to the memoryof theactual body-as-remembered).But themoment of the snapping of the picturedoes not take place until paragraphsixteen, so eitherthis is an anticipationto be held in mind,on the strengthof previouscitations of the photographiccode, or some kindof metaphoricaldistinction (code of figures) betweenappearance (province of thecamera, of art) and reality(province of the mind,of nature).Or the"image" maybe Michel'sfirst fixed visual impression or "shot," the snapshotin his mind,whereas "the actual body" would be thebody in movement,from all its visual perspective("that will clear itselfup later": notice the futuretense, ambiguously"later in story-time"and/or "later in discourse-time").If myassumption is correct,if he is in factacting like a camera, I can eitheraccount for it in a metaphoriccode (the same used by Christopher Isherwood in his Berlin Stories)or in more literal codes. Given Michel's second-paragraphlongings to be like (or to be, toutcourt) a typewriter/camera,I am disposed to the latterview. Whicheverinterpretation I pick, it seems clear thatconfusion continues in the narrator'smind and expression,corroborating myearlier sense of his ambivalence(code of psychology).A similarpoint about the "unfair words" (palabras injustas): "willowy" (delgada) and "svelte"

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(esbelta)are not"unfair"' to theblond in anysense thatI can makeout, since they are complimentary.And even if theyweren't, it hardlyseems reasonable for Michel to apologize for saying derogatorythings about this apparently objectionablewoman. More ambivalence.The best thatI can makeof it for now is in termsof the psychopathologycode - the narrator'sperception is/was affectedby hisemotional state, although possibly a code of philosophyis saying "Perception is nevercorrect, by definition,it is always'unjust' (in the sense of 'inexact')." Both could work: the philosophycode, of course, can be a mere facade or pretextfor the deeper code of psychopathology. The code of figures(metaphor) obviously has to be consultedto understand the wind "cuttingout," "framing"(not "paringaway") her face (recortabasu cara). "Framing" makes sense in the photographycode: "includingin an area, usually a small rectangle,of vision,and thus'cutting off' from the restof the world." As forthe world "left standing (dejaba al mundode pie) horriblyalone in frontof her black eyes," the idea that the whole world should stand beforea singleperson (even themost powerful), that she could makeits billions of people and animalsfeel "alone" hardlymakes sense even as hyperbole.But thecontext suggests figurativecodes - symbolismand hyperbole- derivingperhaps Michel's sympathywith the boy fromhis considerationof thefull ramifications of the woman's act (to be spelled out later). In her potency as a general instrumentof evil,she acquires thissort of power.Given thatsymbolization, her eyes can be both sinewy as eagles and puffyas green slime. All of which persuadesme thatthe degree of animosityagainst the woman and thenarrator's sympathy-identificationwith the boy is greaterthan I had thoughtin paragraph ten: the seeds mentionedin mydiscussion there are beginningto sprout,and I eagerlyawait theblooms. Paragraph twelveis fairlyeasily identifiedagain as a speculation.about the boy's lifefrom his appearance (code of traditionalnarrative description, code of surmise). I conclude (througha code of value) that the narratorthinks that adolescence is a prettygreat time of life("total love... availabilityanalogous to the wind and the streets"), and when I read in paragraph thirteen"This biographywas of the boy and of any boy whatsoever,"my intimationof a narrator-boynexus is strengthened.The boy is innocence on the verge of corruption,and thewoman is corruptingEve (code ofsymbols). There are, after all, other ways of thinkingof adolescent boys - as pains in the neck, for example. That innocenceis whatthe narrator sees and identifieswith in theboy is underlinedby the images: he is "a terrifiedbird," a "Fra Fillipo angel, rice puddingwith milk." Identificationis also hintedby his observation that both he and the boy have theirgloves in theirpocket (paragraphs 8 and 12). But I sense overtones that I cannot fitinto the chord. Especially the angel seems a bit excessive,and I seek futureclarification. In paragraphthirteen, the narrator says thathe could notsee thesky because he "could do nothingbut look at [theblond and theboy] and wait,look at them and..." Whycould Michel do nothingbut look and wait?He could easilyhave intervened,if he thoughtthe boy was being taken advantage of. Something

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 39 inhibitedhim. It wasn't politeness- he didn't thinktwice about takingthe photograph in paragraph sixteen. It looks like the same ambivalence and passivityhe has sufferedfrom since the firstparagraph. The code of psy- chology suggestsmore than ever that his behavior is odd. I sense definite recourse to a code of psychopathology.That would certainlyhelp to explain "look at themand...", not only a repetitionbut a fragmentending in dots of ellipsis. This citationfrom the code of punctuationsuggests endless repetition, thatis, psychologicalobsession. (Repetitionand ellipsiscould mean something else, e.g., emphasis,but thiscontext seems to obviateit.) The obsessive pours over and over things,like a cow chewingits cud. "To cut it short"I see as an embarrassedrecognition of thathabit. (Cf. otherexamples of beratinghimself for lingering- "Michel rambles on to himself,"and so on.) The narrator continuesspeculating, but it is now about whathappened immediately before and what will happen immediatelyafter. I note the elaborateness of his postulatedalternatives. Was the boy therefirst or the blond? Would he boltor stay? The concern is more elaborate than an ordinarySunday photographer lookingfor a picturesqueshot would need to exhibit.The obsessionhypothesis is gettingconfirmed. "Any of thiscould happen,though it wasn't happening yet" (Todo estopodfa ocurrir pero aun no ocurria)."Michel perverselywaited": why "perversely"? On the surface because he violates the code of etiquette(cf. paragraphseventeen: the blond saysno one has theright to photographwithout permission).But I now knowenough about Michel's mindto guess at a deeper reason. It is perverseto sitand do nothing,at bestto takea photograph.Perhaps he is mentallyparalyzed in some way (code of psychology).In this context, "picturesque" invokes the code of irony: given his mountinglyobsessive preoccupation,Michel's picture will hardly be takenfor Sunday-hobby reasons. "Strange how the scene was takingon a disquietingaura" argues that this feelingwas unusualto him."Almost nothing"is theappearance, the way others would see it. "Strange" is theway he sees it.To proveto himselfthat the plot (in both senses of the word) is no figmentof his imagination,he decides to photographit, thereby "reconstituting things in theirtrue stupidity": a citation of a code of big city cynicism.Here I discoversome potentialanswers to questions that began back in paragraphseven. There he said that the good photographerpreserves the distractednote, thatis, refusesto be trappedinto seeing thingsas ifthey were always framed by his viewfinder. Now he seems to be sayingthe opposite: the scene is becomingdisquieting (is he the one makingit so?). He is goingto use the camera to quiet it (himself?)down. I picturea man who uses his camera,a machine,to distancehimself from the world,especially fromits more painfulaspects. That mightexplain, too, whyhe seems passive, reluctantto intervene,in a way helpless.The code of psychopathologytells me thatthere are people whowill go to considerablelengths to stabilizethe world, to "fix" it in some image that theyfind comfortable. Though he speaks of the normalbanal lifeof Paris as "stupid," he seems to need thatstupidity. Why? What fearis itwarding off? A man in grey hat sittingin a car catches the corner of his eye. Michel

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 40 SEYMOUR CHATMAN philosophizes,that is, Michel-as-characterphilosophizes, back at the story- moment(by thenarrative-discourse code of mentalentry) that cars are "private cages." At firstI takeit as a randomdescription (codes ofnarrator's description). He contrastsit withthe freedom of wind and sunlight,and mightjust as wellhave included clouds. The code of text-cohesionwhispers to me that the contrast betweencages and skyand clouds is somehowimportant and thatI mustextract a meaningfrom it. Later I shall discovera sinisterconnection with Michel's own plight.I note, too, thatthe narratoracts as ifhe knowsnothing about thisman. Though the man is to play a crucialrole, thisignorance feels familiar; it is the conventionalnarrative code (used, say,in Dickens' GreatExpectations)in which the "I"-narrator,though living after the events of the story, pretends to see them as if contemporaneously,exhibiting the unwittingcharacter's ignorance. As narrator,later in thediscourse, after the fact,Michel will argue thatthe man in the car is a principalin the unfoldingtragicomedy. But as a character,in story-time,he may be permittednot to know (code of discourse: allowable disclaimersof knowledgeby a narratorwho was formerlya character in thestory he narrates). Michel prepares to shoot the picture: "Aperture at sixteen" (code of technology,photography: the "f-stop").He "studiesa focus,"i.e., focusseshis camera on anotherobject in the immediatevisual field,which is, he guesses,at the same distanceas his real target(code of artof candidphotography). At this point, as characterengaged in his hobby,Michel seems relativelyactive and healthy,recognizing even the estheticneed fora "rhythmed"photograph, to avoid the sense of stiffness.(It is the character-Michelof the "distractedeye," paragraphseven, not the narrator-Michelwho earlierin thediscourse needed the mechanicalquietus of thecamera.) Now a photographcannot have rhythmin the literalsense of the word,since it is fixedonce and forall by itschemical and physicalnature. But themetaphor is meaningfuland "healthy":I knowperfectly well whathe means; I have seen bothgood and bad photographs,and have noted thatgood ones containor suggestincipient movement, i.e., thesubject is caught at a momentand in a posturewhich I finddynamic, that is, about to move, whereas in bad photographsthe subjectsseem painfullyposed, stuckthere by the photographerin a rigid,uncomfortable and essentiallyartificial stance. The stiffimage destroysartistic rhythm by breakingtime into pieces instead of preservingthe illusion of duration.The facialand bodilyexpression of thefigure and its dispositionin the frame of the picturegive the sense that its very movementhave been caught.Only in thatfigurative sense can we say thata fixed image has "rhythm"and "movement."Photographers catch thingsat the one exact instantwhich communicates the whole time-period of whichit is a fraction (code of figures,visual synecdoche; code of photographicart). The womanstrips the boy of whatis leftof his freedom, hair by hair: I cannot help associatingthis graphically described process with Michel's own struggles withfreedom (wanting to give it up, beinghelpless, seeing the car as a private cage, and so on). The "possible endings"again reiteratethe elaborateness of his fantasizingabout whatwill happen, and thefact that he intentionallyclosed his

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 41 eyes suggeststhat he is fantasizingunder some stronginner compulsion. Once more I note repetition,suggestive of a nervousman's need to persuadehimself: "It mightgo like that,it mightvery well go like that." A preoccupiedtone of voice mustaccompany that repeated phrase. I note too thatthe assertion that follows is givenadded weightby the indirect freediscourse form. Logically, of course,the sentence must be somethinglike "[Michel, the character(not, I, the narrator)realized that]that woman was not lookingfor the boy as a lover.. ." Castingthe phrase in itsfree rather than tied form gives it added authoritysince it leaves open the possibilitythat the narratormay also (or independently)be certifyingit (code of discourse: free indirectstyle). But again I note how much is inferential,how as narrateeI'm being asked to go along witha whole set ofsuppositions about themeanings of othercharacters' behavior with no independentevidence for it. That would be fineif I had reason to trustthe narrator-character's reliability, but bythis time, I no longerhave. (I thinkwe do tendto givenarrators the benefit of the doubt until we are persuadedotherwise.) I note too thatthe direction of surmise seems to be closingtoward some goal: 1) she wantedto seduce him,2) no, herintentions were other,even more vile, a) perhaps,sadistically, to tormenthim, b) to dominate him to some unknownend fora game's sake, c) indeed,for someone else. He is preparingme for"someone else" but on littlemore thanan intuition(or so it seems now; laterI shall thinkotherwise). The conclusionis presentedas a merehunch - no evidenceis offeredto verify it. Indeed, the "other" voice of the narrator,which we've heard before(the mocker of Michel's "rambling") pooh-poohs the idea: "Michel is guiltyof making literature."This "other," I assume again, is only the post-story, discourse voice of the narrator.And it knows verywell (as I discoverafter finishingthe story)that the character-Michel'shunch is all too accurate.Again we have thekind of anomalywhich has facedus since thebeginning of the story: two voices warringwith each other,yet no reason to believe thatthey belong to differentpeople. How to explainit? The firsttwo sentences of paragraph sixteen are self-deprecating.Michel (thisalter ego complains)imagines "exceptions to the rule," "individuals outside the species," "monsters." What rule? Presumablythe rule of normalpredictability, according to thecode of thesocial order: an older woman approachinga youngboy is interestedeither in money (code of prostitution)or in some "special pleasure" (code of sexual behavior: perhaps as in the filmMadame Rosa, wherea prostitutegets attractedto the pubescent hero,an angelic-lookingArab boy). The rest of the paragraphis defensive, self-justificatory.The warring in the psyche continues (it my hypothesisis correct).He takesthe picture not to changeanything out there,that is, to help the boy (thoughlater he pats himselfon the back fordoing so), but ratherbecause he knowsthat he willnot be able to resistfantasizing about the woman("I'm givento ruminating"),and he wantssomehow a fixed,mechanical recordof her. The code of psychopathologyseems richlyinvoked. He prepares fora whole spate ("several days") ofobsessing. He doesn'ttrust himself, his own memory:he wantsa picturerecord... for what purpose? To "hang onto" (as the

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 42 SEYMOUR CHATMAN painterBill says in the filmversion)? To "help" himin hisruminations'? Again, and even morestrongly, we get the sense of a man whose hobbyrepresents far more forhim, psychically, than a way to pass leisurehours pleasantly. He takes thepicture, with predictable reactions: the boy is surprised,the woman irritated. I note thatMichel not only infers, from her appearance, the woman's feelings (a look of surprise,a look of"flat-footed hostility"), but goes on to divinea cause of those feelings("robbed," "ignominiouslyrecorded"). This could, in another story,involve a peering into a character'smind licensed by the omniscient narrator'scode. In thistext, however, I now have good reason to recognizean instanceof thevery "imaginings" or obsessionsthat he has just spoken about. So the note beginningin paragraphseventeen sounds hollow: it's not worth the troubleto go intogreat detail, he protests.After the veritable flood of minute particularsof whatprobably happened, what might happen, and so on! The code here is not ironic,since the narratorseems unawareof thediscrepancy: it is the macho tone of earlierparagraphs, the bravado thatsays "I don't care; nothing can hurtme because I'm so tough." Indeed, he speaks the way the boy might speak if we could hear him, strengtheningmy sense of theiridentification. Perhaps the boy's imagined emotions are Michel's emotions (code of psychology:identification, in the technicalsense). The same bravado seems to informhis reactionto the blond's requestfor the film:"For mypart, it hardly matteredwhether she got the rollof filmor not,but anyone who knowsme will tell you, if you want anythingfrom me, ask nicely" (code of sociology: the macho; code of psychopathology:compensation for emotional insecurity).I note thathe just doesn't say he demands to be treatednicely: he mustdrag in "anyone who knows me," as if he needed to justifyhimself by citing his reputation.I rememberthe uneasiness he expressedin going downstairs, how he needed to invitethe reader to join him(paragraph four). His reportof whathe actuallysaid to theblond, however, is curiouslyformal and distant,even stilted: "I restrictedmyself to formulatingthe opinion that not only was photographyin public places not prohibited,but it was looked upon withdecided favor,both private and official."Such elegant diction sorts queerly with a tough guy speaking to a tartParisienne (let alone a Parisiantart). I see evidence of a gap between Michel's view of himselfand how he actually comes offin public, anothersign that all is not well withhim psychologically, especially in thearea of aggressionand hostility(code ofpsychopathology: discrepancy between feelings and externalbehavior). I note too how theoddly stilted and distancedgrammar of the next sentencecorroborates this interpretation: instead of "While I said that," we read "While that was gettingsaid" (the Englishpassive translating the Spanish reflexive).It's as ifMichel were some inertconduit through which his wordswere "gettingsaid," or maybea phonographcartridge picking up and echoingpre-ordained vibrations (I rememberhis previouslonging to have other machines- the typewriterand the camera - tellthe storyfor him). Michel's passivityis takingon alarmingproportions, for all hisdisclaimers to thecontrary. Or perhapsbecause of thosedisclaimers. The boy disappears"like a gossamer filamentof angel-spit."I discover fromSpanish speakers that the flowery

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 43

Englishtranslates a banal expressionfor the transparent spider-web like threads sometimesseen floatingin the air. The literaltranslation is "like thehair of the Virgin." I assume thatthe translatorchanged it to make an antithesiswith the "devil-spit"of thenext paragraph. On eitherreading the boy is seen as lily-white compared to the coal-black evil woman. I note the histrionicand hyperbolic expressionand wonder if it has anythingto do withmy theory of an emerging patternof psychopathology.In the code of Roman Catholicismthe Virginis traditionallyassociated with protection, safety; she is a favoriteguardian saint. Thus theinnocent boy loses himselfin herhair, joins thethousands and millions of other"hairs" thatsafely waft about herhead. And he himselfis "heavenly." "But virgin-hairis also called devil-drool."The meaningof the Spanish title "Las Babas del diablo" now becomes clear: the expression"devil-spit" (or "-drool") means about the same as English"close shave": a tightsituation in whichdanger is so near thatone can almostfeel drops of thedevil's saliva (code of Spanishidiom, based on thecode of figurativelanguage: metonymy). But the literalsense also has a kindof punningimport, since there is thecomparison of the blond's curses ("spit out") and the devil's saliva. I also realize,from what littleI know of the codes of Latin culture,that these are not reallyreligious references.Catholic dogma would not equate luck withthe Virgin,however much thatmay be done by the masses. Michel's taking"great pains to smile" seems to be another instance of the shy-boymacho stance: the show of self-assurancewhich is purchasedat some cost. The man in the grayhat now arrivesto take up his partin the"comedy." This characterization of the episode, like previousones, ostensiblyslights it, in thecode of the toughurbanite, but I now know better. In retrospect,too, I see again that Michel-as-narratoris withholdinginformation. A traditionalnarrative code, of course,permits him to do so: thoughhe mustknow, since he is tellingus afterthe fact and could tellus straightoff what part the man was playing,he elects not to, eitherto heighten suspense(code of thefirst person narrator-protagonist, code ofplot suspense) or to preservethe order of his own perception(he knew thatthe "clown" was involved,but not exactlyhow). Or both,since his suspenseand curiositymust perforcebe ours. When Michel tellsus thatthe man had been pretendingto read thepaper we are again in the code of surmise(for all the assurednessof Michel's diction).It seems more and more importantto get clear about whatactually happened on theIle de la Cite. But itis difficultto do so, sinceour only source of information is Michel himself,and we have begun to suspecthis reliability.He describesthe man, the "flour-powderedclown," in a peculiar mechanical metaphor(his grimacewent from one side of his mouthto anotheras thoughon wheels).And he confessesthat he does not knowwhy he gotdown off the railing or whyhe did not give themthe photo. But I can guess why,if my psychological hypothesis is correct.He feltthreatened, and could notdecide whetherto fightor to flee.His macho stanceprevented him from accepting his own fear and also whatcaused it, hisidentification with the boy. The partabout theirfear and cowardicemay be an accurate assessment.But I feel, fromprevious surmises about Michel, that

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 44 SEYMOUR CHATMAN somethingelse may be goingon. Perhapshe is projecting,putting on theothers what he feels himself(code of psychopathology).A possible balance-sheet stands thus: he identifieswith the boy - who therebyis made a paragon of virtue,a hairof theVirgin - and projectshis negative feelings onto theman and the blond - whomhe endows withall the vices of thedevil. Given theform of the discourse,I do not have any outsideindependent proof of theirguilt, since, by thecode of thefirst person narrator, any evidence acquired about anythingin thestory has been strainedthrough Michel's consciousness. For all I reallyknow theymay be as innocentas lambs. I rememberfictions, like Henry James' "The Lie," where the code of the "unreliable narrator"permitted lies, distorting, manipulationsof thefacts to suitthe narrator's own ends. Michel'scontempt for their "cowardice and fear" could easily be an unconsciousreaction to the cowardice and fear which he refusesto recognize in himself.That would certainlyexplain the discrepancybetween his stance of bravado and what he actuallypermits himself to do. His tensionis highand rising("we made a perfect and unbearable triangle").The laugh he flingsin theirfaces seems designed moreto breakthat tension than to mockthem. He walksoff "a littlemore slowly, I imagine,than the boy." "I imagine" could perhapsbe taken in the codes of sarcasmor understatement.But thefact that he compareshis walkingoff to that of the boy lends support to my previous hunches about Michel's sense of identificationwith the boy. Michel too feels that he is escaping something dreadful,even though,as a street-wiseadult (if we are to believehis own picture of himself),it is hard to see whyhe is in any particulardanger, at the level of "reality,"at least.

IV. STORY: SECOND STAGE: MICHEL'S ROOM A space occursbetween paragraph nineteen and twenty,and thiscitation of the typographicalcode seems explained by the firstsentence: "What follows occurredhere, almost just now." The story-momenthas been broughtvirtually (thoughnot quite) up to the presentdiscourse-moment, the "now" when "one wondersand wonders."The space is thesign of a textualjuncture. The firststage of thestory ended withMichel walking off in apparenttriumph, leaving the pair stymied.The narrativenow concernswhat happened later, immediately before Michelstarted to type.I look forwardto learningwhy he wantedto tellthe story (as well as whyhe is so conflictedabout it).The accountstarts calmly enough. He liststhe shots he developed,mentioning that of the blond and thekid last, almost as an afterthought("then he foundtwo or threeproof-shots"). Of thatshot, he makes a poster-sizeenlargement, ostensibly because both negativeand first enlargementwere so "good." "Good" in whatsense I ask, forhe admitsthat onlythe shots of theConservatoire were worth all thatwork? "Good" seemsnot to be a termin theesthetic code. It could be "good" simplyin thetechnical code, I suppose, "well-exposed" or the like, butsomehow I don't believe it. There's alreadytoo muchto suggestthat Michel has strongpsychological investment in what happened on the Ile de la Cit6 thatmorning, and his ambivalence("one wonders and wonders") remainsevident. He tacks it up on the wall and is

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 45 constantlydrawn away fromhis work to look at it. Knowingsomething about him, I seek obsessive, identificatory,projective reasons, and I am not disappointed. At firstthe blow-up inspireshim to "remember"... what'? Presumablyall the detailsof whathad occurred.He speaks of "comparingthe memorywith the lost reality."Though elsewhere he has shownexcitement and curiosity,he describesthe operationas "gloomy." Why"gloomy"? Is therea hint (in the psychopathologicalcode) about the price he's paying for his obsession,that the inquiry itself is morbid,fraught with personal conflict? There is confusionin theexpression: how can one comparea memorywith a pastreality except throughthe functionof the facultyof memory?And if this "frozen memory"is so completeand accurate,why should the comparisonbe gloomy? Because the realityis "lost"? But theexperience was unpleasant:why should he "miss" it? I am impressedthat the memory of thescene is frozenor petrified- like a photo. I focusnot only on the fixednessof the memory(a play,too, on "fixative" in the code of photography,and by figurativeimplication, obsessivenessin thepsychopathological code), butalso itseerie completeness- "nothingis missing,not even, and especiallynothingness, the truesolidifier of the scene." "Solidifier"translates fijador, a technicalterm in photography,the acid bath forfixing the image afterdevelopment (code of photography,code of figures).But theequation of memoryand photographis no meremetaphor: he does notsay "a frozenmemory, like a photo..." but"a frozenmemory, like any photo..." (theSpanish has todophoto, "every photo"). Seeing memoriesas fixed and completephotos ties in withMichel's earlier yearnings that typewriter and camera take over for him, disburdenhim frompersonal responsibility.The snapshot-in-the-headshould be "snapped" by eyes-become-cameras.But the nothingnessthat is not missing,what could that be? One obviousmeaning would be the emptyspace, the backgroundagainst which all objects and theiractions must stand out (code of visual perception,code of design). But perhaps somethingmore profoundis being said: could the "nothing"be preciselythe absence of meaningof the situation,an absence whichcan onlybe filledby the kind of speculationthat he now seems to be indulgingin? That meaning,like beauty,lies alwaysand inherentlyin theeye of thebeholder, no matterhow he triesto squirmout of his responsibility? "There was the boy, therewas the woman" sounds like a kindof obsessive stock-taking(code of psychopathology):Michel examines the photo intently for a clue of some sort."The firsttwo days I acceptedwhat I had done..." suggests to me: a) that"afterwards" he no longeraccepted it, but no exact mentionof a laterperiod occurs (code of chronologyfalsely invoked); and b) thatwhat he had done makes himfeel guilty in some way.But why?Superficially, for wasting his time?More deeply,for intruding on "life"? For peeping?He soundslike a small or adolescent boy. Looking up now and thenfrom his work,he examinesthe blow-up:"the firstsurprise was stupid"(badly translated as "I'm sucha jerk"). I naturally twaita second surprise,but again am disappointed.The code of the potential series is regularlyevaded in "Blow-Up." He is sittingdirectly facing the photo,but notesthat if he sat at thediagonal, say 45 degreesor moreeither to the

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 46 SEYMOUR CHATMAN leftor the rightof thecentral axis of thepicture, he mightbe able to make fresh discoveries.This seems a citationof a code of detection.Michel no longerlooks at thephoto with even a pretenseof esthetic interest: he clearlywants to discover somethingin it. (The search becomes the whole point of Antonioni'smovie Blow-Up.) But I findthe notionvery odd. If we thinkabout photographyas a preeminentlyflat, surface art, I wonderhow anybodycan claimto see moreif he looks at theimages from an oblique angle. A photois not a piece ofsculpture: it has no thirddimension. Nor is it a trompel'oeil painting,in whicha shape is undecipherableif seen frontallybut clear if seen froman angle. The code of detection is not developed, as traditionallyin detectivefiction. There is no mentionof whathe saw at thatoblique angle thathe could otherwisenot see. What we get is a referenceto a "dry leaf... admirablysituated to valorize a lateral section." The "lateral section" seems to be some kind of perspective marker(code of visualdesign). Here it establishes,validates the perception of a thirddimension. So I inferthat the "surprise" was to discovernot a newelement in the picture,but a new frame,a new "deep" space forit, a thirddimension. Underplayedas it is, thisdiscovery marks a dramaticchange in thestory, for the three-dimensionalproves to be no mere figureor artisticlicense, but a space actually to be inhabited.Subtle hintsbegin to drop that the narratorshall (passively)participate in eventsin thatspace. For instance,he does notsay that he looked at the woman but ratherthat she "caughthis eye." His visionis the object of a predicategoverned by thewoman. The code ofgrammar tells me thatan eventin thediscourse-time, like taking a restfrom his translation,is byconvention less convenient than the remembering of an eventin thestory-time ("I enclosedmyself happily ... in thatmorning"). In narratives,the discourse exists for the sake of the story,not the other way around. I note the inconsistencyof "happily" withprevious negative feelings about the events,with the "gloomy operation" of memory,and chalk it up to Michel's continuing emotional vacillation and ambivalence (code of psychopathology).His ironicdetachment is undercutby what turnsout to be self-reassuringrationalization or even apology - I note the concessives in "Basically, I was satisfiedwith myself"(implication: though peripherally dissatisfied),in "my parthad not been too brilliant,"in his regretthat he hadn't thought"to leave withouta completedemonstration of the rights, privileges and prerogativesof [naturalized]citizens." Even hissatisfaction in helping the boy is self-erodedin no less than fourdifferent ways: "if my theorizingwas correct, whichwas not sufficientlyproven," "out ofplain meddling,""now he would be regrettingit," "Michel is somethingof a Puritan."Again thepsychopathological implicationsseem clear. There is a momentwhen a realisticview prevails, where he speaks of his "theory,"rather than takingthe unexaminedfantasies as the reality.But thisproves to be onlya lullbefore the outbreak of thestorm. The twenty-firstparagraph begins by furtherundercutting the previous paragraph's satisfactionat a job well-done. Before,Michel says, while still workingon his translation,he did notknow why he had hungthe enlargement on the wall; a code of logical consequence impliesthat afterwards he did. But we

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 47 neverreally learn if that is true,for he nevertells us. One moreattempt to make thingssound logicaland consequentialfails, one moresense thatMichel is being drawn into something irrational,unexplainable. For reasons beyond his understanding,he feltcompelled to hang the photo. His anxietyechoes in the repetitionof "the [unknown]reason, the reason," as if graspingat the word mighthelp himunderstand the reason. The actof hanging the photo was notonly inexplicablebut "fatal." Passivityin some sense presupposesfatalism. Passive people don't do things;things simply happen to them.And "fatal" how? The sentence that follows gives an extraordinaryanswer: "I don't think the almost-furtivetrembling of the leaves on thetree alarmed me, I was workingon a sentenceand roundedit out successfully."It seemsclear that this is no figurative or rememberedmovement or sound but literallyand uncannilythe rustleof leaves which issues forth from the photo. Unless the story now turns supernatural,this is a delusion,the second and confirmingpiece ofevidence of a full-scalehallucination, intermingling with the sense thatthe flatspace of the photohas extendedinto a thirddimension. "Habits," Michel says, "are like immense herbariums."Which habits? Perhaps"habit" refersbackwards, to theprocess of translation: "the movement of the leaves did not alarm me because I was deep in the habitualprocess of translating,doing myusual work." But thecode of punctuationprompts me to ask: whythen is the "habit" sentenceconnected in such an offhandway, by a casual, even unwitting,comma-splice, to the "movie-screen"sentence? Is he referringto anotherhabit entirely, that of imaginatively projecting himself into the space of a self-createdvisual artifact?The large size (movie-screen)of hallucinationreplaces the small size (32 x 28 cms.) of reality.Further, an herbariumhouses a collectionof dried plants systematically arranged. Again the systematized,unfree, catalogued note. So whenhe tellsme thatthe enlargement "in the end" (i.e., finally,after all thisinspection, reverie, reminiscing) "looks like" a movie-screen,I beginto wonderwhether he does notsimply mean that it is a movie-screen.The twenty-secondparagraph seems to justifymy suspicion.

V. STORY: THIRD STAGE: INSIDE THE BLOW-UP "Her handswere just too much."The code ofgrammar demands "... too much forwhom?" Again I suspectthe identificationthat has begun to haunt me - "too much" bothfor the boy and forMichel, whose curiosity, dread, excitement are also aroused. In themidst of a sentence,Michel sees thewoman's hand begin to close on the boy. I feel thather movementis not happeningin memory,but rightnow, literallybefore Michel's eyes. He literallysees thismovement. All the possible illusions of realityhave now transformedthe photographinto a full-blownhallucination: it has depth, it emits sounds, it displays internal movements.It is not only a movie screen but a holographicmovie screen,an illusionaryspace whichthe hallucinator may enter, indeed will soon be forcedto enter.And whenhe says "therewas nothingleft of me," I take himliterally; he has exited this ordinaryworld and entered thatof the photograph-become- hallucination.Suddenly, the statement that he was dead, in thefirst paragraph,

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 48 SEYMOUIRCHATMAN falls into place. He follows the action in the "photo": with abnormal close attention:the kid duckinglike a boxer,the woman murmuring and kissinghim, then the boy nervouslylooking for the man once he beginsto understandthe woman's message,the "master" comingon thescene. Only at thismoment, the momentof Michel's compulsiveinspection of the blow-up,does he infer,to his horror,that the seductionwas forhomo- rather than heterosexual purposes. I see now thatthe momentof discoveryhas been elaboratelytimed in twoways, throughthe chronologyof storyand throughthat of discourse: I) Michel only "discovers"the "real" natureof the "plot" (quotationmarks of "as if") whenthe boy "discovers" it, that is, at the appropriate moment in Michel's own hallucinations.If the situationwere normal,I mightinfer that the events as Michel actuallyexperienced them back on the Ile de la Cite wentby too fast. Only by powerfulimagining - a "slow-up" in time, correspondingto the spatial blow-up- can he make a more carefulexamination of the boy's face, therebypermitting him to learn the "truth."But the real reason seems to be converse:events slow up preciselybecause he cannothelp it; he is doomed to be obsessed by them, in excruciatingdetail. 2) By exercisingthe first-person narrator'sconventional right to withholdinformation, Michel insuredthat our own discoveryof the "facts" should exactlycoincide withhis and the boy's (answeringthe question about the reason for the teasing delay of the last sentence of paragrapheighteen, "It was only at the point that I realized [the man] was playinga partin the comedy"). But it occursto me, here again, that Michel-as-narratorcannot help this kind of timing: he does notdo it to heighten our frisson,but to re-enactthe events for himself. The re-enactmemententails a compulsivere-ordering, one thatdoes notjibe withthe sequence reportedin the paragraphsfourteen through nineteen, but precisely with his own innerneeds. I wonderwhy the difference between a heterosexualand a homosexualpickup shouldbe so horrifying(remembering that the horrible "reality" is thereality of a hallucination).The code ofpsychopathology suggest that I look in thedirection of what I have learnedin previousparagraphs about Michel'sown psyche- the identificationwith the boy, the fantasyabout hispurity ("to lead theangel with his tousledhair"), thisobservation that he is not thefirst man to send a woman to entrap a young boy. Ostensibly,it seems like a big-cityplatitude (code of narrator'sgeneralization). But I have already seen such platitudesconceal psychologicalblocks in thisman. So I takethe question seriously: Was therealso "a firstman" in Michel'sown experience? Was Michelseduced as a youngboy in thisway? Or did he simplyfear such a seduction,his toughstance developing to cover apprehensionabout his own latent homosexual impulses? The story refusesto tellme; it's not thatkind of story.But in a wayit doesn't matter,since (as the code of psychopathologyagain suggests)the fearof an incidentmay be more disturbingthan the incidentitself. Though "Michel followsthe action,"I mustalways remember that this action is notwhat he actuallytold us he saw on the Ile de la Cit6; in paragraphseventeen our last glimpseof the boy was as he ran past the car; onlyafterwards did theman come out, and thenMichel simply left.So what I am readingnow cannotbe a merefilling out of Michel's memory

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throughforgotten details; it mustbe an alternativeversion. Yet unlikeprevious alternativeversions (e.g., in paragraph fifteen:"closing my eyes, I set the scene"), thereis no acknowledgementor recognitionby Michelthat he is in fact fantasizing.This is hallucination,not mere fantasy (code of psychopathology).I note, too, a histrionicnote in the mountingchord of hysteria.Forgetting the tough city code, Michel says that the "reality," as he now sees it, i.e., hallucinatorily,is more horrible than what he had imagined earlier, a heterosexualpick-up of unclear motive.But therewas no mentionearlier of "horror"; at worstMichel perhapsfelt a kindof cynicaldistaste. Further, the imaginedseduction itself is paintedin virtuallyoperatic terms -"an awakening in hell." Any lingeringdoubts about the personal reference,about Michel's identificationwith the angelicboy, now seem dispelled,and thatidentification providesreasons why he takesit upon himself to be guarantorof public morality. There is a grandiosereligious note; in thisheated context,Michel may well be feelingthe need to be a savior,indeed the Savior (he gets"nailed to theair" a few sentenceslater). And it is easy to see how a crisis- a "break," in psychiatric jargon - mightoccur when this guarantor should discover his "failure"to save all theboys of Paris.The shellof his neurosis or psychosisis about tocrack open.4 And like all neurosisor psychosisit is, in Karen Horney'swords, "a searchfor glory."There is rue and perhapsanger in his recognitionthat this boy, or some boy somewherein Paris,might say "yes," - whateversaviors might hope to do forthem. Michel cannotstop theworld (in Carlos Castenada's sense). He is the victimof all-or-nothinglogic (code of psychopathology).His inabilityto accept the limitsof his powersleaves himbroken, reduced to impotence,helpless and inertas a machinewithout an operator. There is in fact"nothing left of him." "There was nothingI could do." All that exists is what is literally happening there in the photograph-become- hallucination.The transformationis complete: his mindis now a machineor combinationof machines- a moviecamera, a holographicmovie camera that turnsthoughts into solid images,feeds them to a projectorwhich in turnflashes them into the three-dimensionalspace on his wall. His total mechanizationis explicit:"I turneda bit,I mean thatthe camera turned a little."Imagined events have visuallymaterialized by the intensityof his absorptionwith them. Even theirorder is dictatedby Michel's obsession.For now the man comes up to the couple while the boy is stillthere. "All at once," Michel cries,"the orderwas inverted.""Order" signalsthe code of chronology:the sequence is changed.It also signalsthe code ofpower: they, the others, were going to win.And theresult is a helplessness,a stateof trappeddespair on hispart: "[... ] they[man, blond, boy]were going toward their future; and I on thisside, prisoner of another time, in a roomon thefifth floor, prisoner of notknowing who theywere, that woman, that man, and thatboy, of being onlythe lens of mycamera, something fixed, rigid,incapable of intervention."In short,what was an earlywish has become a "All the drives forglory... aim at the absolute,the unlimited,the infinite.Nothing short of absolute fearlessness,mastery, or sainthoodhas anyappeal forthe neurotic obsessed withthe drive forglory" (Horney, 1950; 34-35).

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fatalreality: Michel, now turnedmachine, holographic recorder, can perform only one function,mainly to rehearseits obsessions. Therefore, he is incapable of helpingthe boy "thistime" because "thistime" happens not in thereal world butonly in Michel'smind: that is, three-dimensional, projected space. He is only the lens of his camera, "somethingfixed, rigid, incapable of intervention." Henceforthhe can only feel victimized,trapped, numb, powerless. Clearly, a common constellationof features,or "syndrome,"to use the professional jargon. Since Michel becomes a surrogatefor his Contax,a machinewhich can only capturefrozen moments of reality,time becomes frozen for him, too. I note the elaborate helplessstruggle with verb tenses:"what had to happen,what had to have happened, what must have had to happen," "which was now going to happen, now was goingto be fulfilled"(verbal repetition as signof the code of obsession). The others"go to theirfuture; he remainsthe prisonerof another time"; "The abusive act had certainlyalready taken place": he can only so surmise, since he is not in time. But a few sentences later: "[... ] he was going to moment." say yes [... ] Everythingwas goingto resolveitself right there, at that The code of story-timehas shiftedinto thefrozen present, or moreexactly, the frozeniterated present. These sentencesseem to presentan objectivecorrelative of the obsessive mindat work.As thetrauma is enacted(re-enacted?) it creates itsown temporalframe. So ordinarychronology goes out thewindow. The orderis inverted:when Michelsays "they were alive, moving,they were decidingand had decided,they were going to theirfuture," the code ofinference tellsme thatfor him everything is thereverse. He is notalive, he does notmove: I can read, withoutundue strain, "catatonic." He no longercan decide hisfate, he shall be controlledby hisvisions and obsessions.He had no future.This "other." a frozentime, of whichhe is prisoner,is the eternalempty present (the timeof the clouds, I suspect).His obsessionsshall incarcerate him more efficiently than any jailer. It is not strangethat his jail shouldbe a terriblysilent place: it is the special silence of catatonia, "stretchingitself out, settingitself up." At this moment,Michel can bear it no longerand screamsterribly. At thispoint, with behavior so obviouslyclinical, I feltthe need to fillout my knowledge of the code of psychopathology.What came to hand were two popularizations of psychoanalytictheory: Eric Berne (1962) and Charles Brenner(1957). Afterthe fact, I see theeminent rhetorical suitability of dipping into such texts. They are storehouses of modern-daypsychological topoi, compendia of accepted opinion about mentalillness. Berne describesin detail oftenastonishingly similar to thatof "Blow-Up" the experiencesof a paranoid schizophrenicpseudonymed "Cary Fayton" (1962: 164-7). A lonermost of his life,unable to make humancontacts, he sufferedan acute breakdown: He sawhis own feelings reflected from others, and just as a lightreflected from a mirrormight appear to a confusedmind to come fromthe mirror itself, so he thoughtthat he wasloved and hated by people who hardly knew him or knew him notat all.He heardvoices and saw visions which confirmed his projected feelings. [...] he puthis own wishes into the minds of others and felt as ifthey were directed

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towardhimself. It waslike projecting his feelings on a screenso he couldsit back andwatch them as thoughthey were someone else's [...] Thus he avoidedthe guilt whichwould have arisen if he werethe aggressive one [...] In [a later)stage he lay fora longtime almost as thoughdead. In sucha state patientsoften show sudden, unpredictable outbursts of great violence[...] Hence Michel's scream,which moves himinto another stage. It enables himto change thefantasy, but he onlygoes fromthe frying pan intothe fire, and no less passively:he realizesthat he "was beginningto move towardthem," not of his own volitionbut like a programmedrobot. The effectuncannily resembles that of a movie camera on a dolly trackingin to closer viewsof itssubject (code of cinematography). In his words: "... in the foreground,a place where the railing was tarnishedemerged from the frame.The woman'sface turnedtoward me as thoughsurprised, was enlarging,and thenI turneda bit,I mean thatthe camera turneda little,and withoutlosing sight of thewoman I began to close in on the man..." Finallythe woman is cut out of the frameby the "camera" dollying forward.(The effectis preciselya dolly-shot,not a "zoom," whichwould keep all objects in theframe.) The manin thegrey hat stays center but ultimately goes out of focusas thecamera approaches (this is whatwould happen with a real lensif it got too close to itssubject). As Michelapproaches, the man looks angrilyout of eyes which have become mere black holes. In the code of photographythe "black holes" mightbe taken as a productof overcontrastylighting, but the context now overrules so simplistica view.The manis devilish(code ofsymbols); his eyes are holes, like a skeleton's. (Berne mightsay that his eyes project Michel's mortido,his death-instinct.) Again, we get thegrandiose note: theman wanted"to nail [Michel]onto theair" (code ofChristian iconology). And at that verymoment, by sacrificing himself, as Christdid formankind, Michel saves the angelicboy again. Or ratherthe camera saves him,as theboy flies between it and the man. In thecode of psychopathology,the boy's salvationis a projectionof Michel's own desire to be saved - fromwhatever it is that makes him a helpless victimof his obsessive fantasies.He says,in so manywords, that he is happyto see thatthe boy has "learn[ed]finally to flyacross the island, to arriveat the foot-bridge."But, since he himselfremains in theclutches of hisgrandiose self-image,it is alwaysthe others,never himself that he "saves." And even the others,the young boys, live onlyin a "precariousparadise." I interpretthis as a toposof worldlywisdom, however much entangled in thepsychosis: innocence is all too easily lost in thisworld, the child'snaked feetcannot forever avoid the muddystreets of adulthood.The precariousparadise has itsdismal counterpart in the room in whichMichel is now locked away, and we begin,perhaps, to understandone meaningof theclouds (code ofsymbols). Michelfinds himself confronting the couple alone, "out of breath."Surely his breathlessnessreflects the fatigueof resistanceto effortrather than effort itself. He has not moved of his own volitionbut has been propelledmalgri lui. "No need to advance closer" (a bettertranslation than Paul Blackburn'sof no habia necesidad de avanzar mds) turnsout to be merelywistful self-reassurance. I sense the full physical force of the verb pro-jectare,to throw forward,

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 52 SEYMOUR CHATMAN reverberatingagainst its cinematic and psychoanalyticovertones. But the relentlesscamera-dolly with poor Michel astridecontinues moving toward the man, passingthe blond out of itsframe. As it approaches,the man gets blurred. One understandsfirst, at the purelytechnical level, that lenses are incapableof extremelyclose focus (code of photography).But the image of the half-open mouth,the shaking black tongue,and theman's final transformation into a lump blottingout everythingelse is obviously more profoundlypsychoanalytic. Michel's worstfear is realized: he is drawnwilly-nilly into the black palpating mouth of the putativehomosexual. All his resistance,his picture-taking,his bravado,his messianism- all fornaught, he breaksdown into tears like an idiot. This man who would reveal corruptionwith his camera, hoisted on his own petard,is draggedphotographically into a hellishcavern in Sodom.

VI. DISCOURSE: CLOUDS AD INFINITUM "Now there'sa big whitecloud, as on all thesedays, all thisuntellable time (este tiempoincontabile)... whatremains to be said is alwaysa cloud..." "Blow-Up" ends withthe clouds, all thatis leftis theclouds, and theirmeaning seems to fall into place in the emergentpicture of Michel's plightas we summarizetheir mentions: 1. "You theblond womanwas theclouds" (paragraphone). 2. "I ... see onlyclouds" (paragraphtwo). 3. He describes clouds, in a varietyof shapes and colors, and their associationwith other fleeting things, like birds (paragraph two). 4. "Nobody knows... what I am seeing"; but parentheticallywhat he is seeingis onlyclouds (paragraphfour). 5. The clouds must keep coming or somethingelse will, something associatedwith his being"replaced" (paragraphfive); 6. The pigeons seen back on the lie de la Cite in story-time"are maybe even some of thosewhich are flyingpast now," i.e., indiscourse-time amid theclouds. 7. He apologizes forharping on theclouds, and notesthat it is onlynow, in discourse-time,that he observes them; on the fatal morning,in the story-time,he didn'tlook at thesky once (paragraphthirteen). 8. He develops the photo and amongits other images - the woman,the boy,the tree - he sees "the skyas sharpas thestone of the parapet, clouds and stonesmolded into a singlesubstance..." Michel seems to go out ofhis wayto assertthe fixity of the clouds back then, in thatmoment in story-time whenthe photo was stillonly a photo.However, a parenthesisimmediately reiteratesthe sense of theirconstant movement now, in discourse-time: "now one withsharp edges is goingby, like a thunderhead." The finalparagraph conveys the exact momentwhen Michel opens hiseyes after his tearfulbreakdown. Not a second has elapsed betweenparagraphs. There is no evidencethat he has shiftedhis gaze; indeed,it is clearthat he is stilllooking at the photo, or what was the photo, fornow all thereis is "a veryclean, clear

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rectangletacked up withpins on thewall." Everytroubling image has vanished - man, woman, boy, tree,ile de la Cite, Seine. All thatis leftare clouds and occasionallya pigeonor a sparrow.It is nothis window that he gazes out,but the photo thathe gazes into-" fora longspell you can see itraining over the picture [imagen],like a spell of weepingreversed." What better metaphor for psychotic projectioncould one imagine:"a spellof weeping reversed"? The photoremains a three-dimensionalhallucination, but (the code of psychopathologyinsists) it has been sweptclean of any butmonotonous, benign images created by Michel's urgentneed to effaceevery memoryof an event so endowed withtraumatic import.The photograph,the projection of hispsychotic needs, has virtuallyput him into a trance.Now thatthe storyhas caughtup withthe discourse,I must re-focusmy image of Michel in his room.The discourse-spacehas become the contemporarystory-space. Instead of a man at his typewriterwriting his narrative,stretching his legsoccasionally, getting up to drinka beer,looking out of the window, I see a man planted in a chair gazing helplesslyat, and as if hypnotizedby, a photograph.And whyis itonly clouds and otherfleeting images that fill the frame?Because I inferthey are soothing,graceful, silent, and, especially,they move. That is,they give off a simulacrumof life without any of its messiness,and to Michel,its horror. They can be countedon to remainalways and only clouds. They come in infinitevarieties of shapes, texturesand colors, but theycannot harm him, they have no import,they provide a meansfor total and constantdistraction at a safe and emptydistance. They are the perfect delusionalsubstitute for life. They servethe same functionas televisionsets, the only active principle,one rememberswith a chill,in the lives of millionsof bored, trapped,lonely people, whose passivityis so greatthat they need to be controlled by distractingperceptual imagery. What is staggeringabout "Blow-Up" is our realizationthat Michel has been in thisposture right from the beginning,but has cleverlymanipulated the discourse to dissemblethat fact (code of narrativestructure). Instead of an O. Henry"trick-ending" in thestory, the trickis in the discourse.As discourseand storyjoin up, I feelthe rug being pulled fromunder me. And I am led to believe thatMichel willgo on forever gazingat thoseclouds passing through his blow-up. Fictionrarely demands ready technical expertise; and in thiscase itsrhetoric seems satisfiedby a verisimilaror folkpsychiatry (albeit a modernone). But the readingof a fictionwould seem unfinishedwithout some profileof the characters one has livedwith, even verybriefly, as in thisshort story. On myreading, Michel is a paranoidschizophrenic suffering from at leastthe following symptoms which I summarizeby comparing them with definitions in Berne's book, mypsychiatric codebook: 1) "Projection,"my manual tells me, is "a defensemechanism which results in theindividual attributing a (conscious or unconscious)wish or impulseof his own to some other person or for that matterto some nonpersonalobject of the outside world. A grosslypathological example of thiswould be a mentallyill patientwho projectedhis impulsesand as a resultincorrectly believed himself in danger of physicalharm fromthe F.B.I., the Communists,or the man next

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 54 SEYMOUR CHATMAN door..." (Berne, 1962: 101). The psychosis marked most prominentlyby projectionis paranoic schizophrenia.Now what impulses,I ask myself,could Michel be projecting?And upon whom? For one thing,the fear of being homosexuallyseduced, which he projects onto the boy; secondly,the more deeply repressedfear of recognizinghis own homosexualimpulses to seduce an "angelic" boy,which he projectsonto the man in the greyhat; and, finally,the conscious longingto be at peace withthe universe,to turnhis obsessions off, whichhe projectsonto real or imaginedpassing clouds and birds. 2) The latterprojection leads to withdrawaland ultimatelyto catatonia.He is trappedin his top floorroom, doomed to watchthe clouds pass, forall intents and purposes dead (his own word) to the world. Michel's total isolation is manifestfrom the outset: he mentionsno one else - no friend,associate, relative- no one butthe three chance individuals who have come to haunthim. This early isolation corresponds to what Berne describes as a "simple withdrawal,an inabilityto make human contacts througheither libido or mortido..." Sometimes it seems to resemble "an insufficiencyof physical energy."Catatonia is onlya laterand exaggeratedstage of thisrepression and rigidifyingof musclesas well as emotions.I cannot,of course, know the state of Michel's musculature,and it may well be that"catatonia" is too hyperbolicto describe his finaltrance-like state as he stares at the photograph.It is clear, however,that at least hiseye-muscles have stoppedmoving; they can no longer even scan the photo but are helplesslyfixed upon it and by it, registeringthe passage of clouds fromleft to right.But the sudden violence characteristicof catatoniais there.Michel experiences a bizarreoutburst, perhaps an attemptto alleviate his sense of oppression(first the scream and thenthe crying"like an idiot" of paragraph twenty-three).Michel's catatonia, symbolized by the eternallypassing clouds, condemns him to his ultimatefate. Despite his feeling (paragraph five) that "it's impossible that this keep coming,clouds passing continuallyand occasionallya pigeon," theredoesn't seem to be muchhe can do about it. Passive all along, he finallycreates a marvellous obsessional- holographic-movie-hallucinationwhich can occupy him - renderhim totally passive- forthe rest of his life. 3) One of thestandard symptoms of paranoidschizophrenia is grandiosity,or in Berne's phrase "heightened[self-] significance." In thisstage a patientwill thinkthat he is "now thegreatest man in theworld, the procreator of all children, and the source of all sexual energy... a benevolentking and a greatlover from whom all giftscome to men and women" (1962: 168). Michel's grandiosityis amplyattested by his feeling that he alone ofall menis uncompromisedand fated to tell this tremendousstory (paragraph two) and by the implicationthat in savingthe angelicboy, he is saving"any boywhatsoever" (this, of course,is his wayof savinghimself, his own innocence,as projectedonto thisboy). 4) Michel is clearlyparanoid: "they" will replace him, "if the clouds stop comingand somethingelse starts."Ultimately he feels he is movinginto the putativehomosexual's mouth. Evidence is strorigof a deep irrationalterror and sense of persecution.Paranoid schizophrenics often hear voices: "the voices,of

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course,[are] onlyanother kind of projectionand reflection:they [are their]own thoughtsbeing spoken back to [them]"(Berne, 1962: 167).Michel, being a visual type,a photographer,sees imagesinstead, but clearly the basic mechanismis the same. 5) Finally,there is Michel's split personality,the symptomfor which the disease is named. Berne prefersthe term"hebephrenia," "a frenzyof youth," whichalso has interestingimplications for this story since so muchof Michel's behavioris protective(and projective)of his own lost innocence. (Or isit "lost"? Maybe he is a hystericalvirgin, in the grand old Freudian tradition.)The hebephrenicbehaves "as thoughhis personalitywas splitinto separate pieces, each actingindependently of the others ... [hisbehavior is] disconnected... witha somewhatsexy tinge" (1962: 168). Whateverits best name, a schismin his mind would explain Michel's enormousdifficulty with identity, his shiftingamong personal pronouns,his vacillationbetween vocation (dealing in words) and avocation (dealing in visual images), his job itself(translator as mediator betweentwo languages and twoworlds). Given thisprofile, "unreliable" seems absurdlymild as a characterizationof Michel's narrativereport (code of thediscourse). If Michelis projectinghis own homosexual impulsesand his greatfear about thoseimpulses, the villains,the blond, and the man, may actuallybe quite innocent.Unlike Antonioni'sfilm, where we can see the corpse for ourselves, Cortaizar'sstory is always compromised.Bound as it is to thefirst person narrator-protagonist (code ofthe discourse),it can offerno independentevidence that the man in thegrey hat is in fact a homosexual.Its limitationsare also thebeauty of its form. The "discovery" occurs only to Michel, in the solitudeof his room. Nothingthat happened out thereon theIle de la Cite as firstreported proves that the blond was workingas a pederast'sdecoy. At the one momentwhen something might have been said by the man and directlyquoted by thenarrator as evidence,I findonly "The clown and the woman consultedone another in silence..." "In silence": is it not conceivablethat the man was a totalstranger simply coming over to find out what was goingon, perhapsto help the womandeal withthis agitated fellow? I shall neverknow, but thisinference seems as legitimateas Michel'sversion. Michel, whose obsessivesearch through photography to fixa confusingworld has failed, retreatsinto a catatonicobsession with the very symbols of instability, clouds, in their aimless,senseless, natural drift (code of symbolism,code of folkphysics). Inanimatethough they are, theyshow more life than he. His realitymust forever remainconfounded with a self-createdappearance, indeed an artificialchemical copy of appearance. The finalprojection is beautifullycaptured in theimage of weeping.Michel's to the response emotionalonslaught was to burstinto tears. "Normally" the lachrymalflow would go frominside outward- fromtear-ducts out over the surfaceof the eyes and down the cheeks. But afterthe catatonicepisode, the weepingis "reversed": Michel turnshis own tears,the liquid signsof his own violentemotion, into raindrops. The raindropsare safe because distanced:they fallfrom outside the cleansed frameof thephoto. Two metaphorsare involved:

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 56 SEYMOUR CHATMAN the tearsbecome rain,conveniently, because theystop at thetransparent surface of the eye, the cornea, insteadof wellingpast them.But the sense of the word "reverse" is also metaphoric:he has stoppedhis flowof tears by externalizing them,by changingthem into another form of liquid,rain, issuing from another source,the clouds. I now understandwhat he meantwhen he said thatevery looking oozes with mendacity.I also understandwhat he meantback in thefirst paragraph when he said "you the blond woman was the clouds..." He acknowledgedat the very outset that the consequence of inquiry,from snapshot to blow-up,is thatthe incidentand thethree characters will vanish despite, indeed perhaps because of, the very minutenessof his inspection:the boy fleeslike a bird,the woman is brutallyexcluded as thecamera "tracks in,"' and finallythe "pederast" (ifsuch he is) loses his contour,becomes a mereblob because the camera has approached too close, beyondits own opticaltolerance. Only clouds are left.The camerahas exceeded itslimits, its power to fixvisual reality. That theblond woman, standing forthe whole incident,is the clouds, has become the clouds, makes sense ifwe consider the attributesof clouds: fleeting,ephemeral, unstable, natural - as opposed to thefixed stability of theart of photography (and byextension any art or any humanrecord, including the record of the memory). I now feel the need to look forsomething in thestory beyond the rantings of one madman strugglingwith apprehensions about homosexuality. My need for a thematiccode demands more generalimplications. I can now (and only now) step back and surveythe storyin broader terms,as the posingof a problemI knowvery well, a problemseemingly inherent in thehuman condition. We all comb the world's appearances forits realities,but we are always and ultimatelyblocked not onlybecause eyes are imperfectorgans, but because our minds raise compellingreasons not to see, or to see only the reflectionsof distortedmirrors. As Eric Berne putsit, "Schizophrenia is just an exaggerated example of the principlethat people feel and act in accordancewith their inner images rather than in accordance with reality" (1962: 169). At this level, "Blow-Up" urges me to generalize the experienceof the hero to my own situation as a human being in a tryingworld (code of philosophy,code of generalization).But thisinvitation comes to me late and withdifficulty. It is not some glancingspark offa galactic whirligigof signifiers.The storytakes on personalrelevance: candor (it too is a code) urgesme to recallmoments when I feltvictimized and projectedthe feelingonto others.And I recognizebroader culturalovertones: projection is a mechanism- as Rollo May shows in Power and Innocence - well understoodand handled by mythology.The Sphinx representedthe projection of the evil feelingsof Hellenic culture.Oedipus gloriouslytranscended his societyand age, refusingto join his countrymenin thatprojection. He understoodthat "... theonly way to deal withthe Sphinx is to take her back to hertrue home withinour own psyche"(May, 1972: 212). To cite the oedipal mythis not farfetchedin thecontext of "Blow-Up." As one of my students(Eric White) pointed out, we can see the photographand the hallucinationas an enactmentof the primaloedipal drama: the lust for the

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 57 mother and the consequent fear of being destroyed,in this case, literally swallowed up by, the father. Michel's drama occurs in a photographic (cinematographic,holographic) context as simple testimonyto his bias of interests.But the power of the storyis the resonanceit has forthe rest of us - projectorsall - even ifwe don't knowa Contaxfrom an Arriflex.5

My firsteffort depended on my own resources,my own searchingamong the codes of my readingexperiences, so I did notseek out otherinterpretations of thisstory. Afterwards, however, I was eager to knowif others agreed withme. I was delightedto discoverthe partial concurrence of a CortAzarspecialist, Lanin A. Gyurko(1972). Gyurkoconcludes (1972: 217): "The maximumiroriy of the narrativemay lie in the distinctpossibility that the horribletruth that Michel believes he has discovered.. . may be but another fabricationof his volatile consciousness.He thus may have destroyedhis own self,becoming ironically, the victimof a mereself-delusion ... Truthwithin 'Las babas del diablo' is like the clouds thatfloat across the blow-upthat is Michel's imagination,the clouds that constantlychange in size and shape, Truthis protean,evanescent, and perhapsonly imaginary- or nonexistent.The onlytruth for Michel, and one which,ironically, he is unawareof, is the horriblereality of hisown broken,obsessed, and deluded consciousness." The value ofan interpretationis its explanatory power. Otherwise we are doomed to therelativism of parti-prisand hobby-horses.Other interpretationsI have read do not account for important aspects of the text.One, forinstance, by HenryFernandez (1968-9) argues thatthe tensionis an estheticone, thata manwho uses bothprint and photographymust come to understandtheir limits of expressiveness;otherwise he commits the hubris deplored by Lessing. Michel, in this view, "tormentedby the imagesin his blow-up... [ends by seeing]only a skywith moving clouds in the photograph,a constantlyfluid reality existing simultaneously in timeand space, whichhe is content to merelysit and watch... The fact that he can no longerfreeze reality,as symbolizedby the constantlymoving blow-up, does not disturbhim." The incapacityof such an interpretationto answerthe veritable deluge of questionsthat have come up seemsfairly obvious. In June 1978 I was able to discuss the storybriefly with Mr. Cortizar himself.He graciously acknowledgedmy interpretation but foundit differentfrom his intentionas he rememberedit. For him the storywas essentiallya fantasy.The narratoris, in hisview, actually killed by theman at the end of paragraphtwenty-two. The finalparagraph (if I understoodMr. Cortizarcorrectly) was from the pointof view of the camera,which he sees lyingflat on theground pointing upwards to thesky, registeringthe passing clouds, doomed to a perpetualrecording of theempty sky. Since our discussionwas so brief,I am not sure thatI graspedMr. Cortdzar'sview correctlynor thathe would wish me to reportit. I do so on myown responsibility.Nor do I wishto engage the difficultquestion of therelation of thereal authorto hiswork. I shall onlyindicate my own difficulty in accommodatingsuch an interpretation.For one thing,it leaves me at a loss abouthow tointerpret the "I," not simplyof the firsttwenty-two paragraphs but especiallyof the lastparagraph. The "I" says that he opened his eyes and dried themwith his fingers.If "I" has become a camera, what metaphorwould explain the "fingers"of a camera dryingits eyes? My own code of figurative languagesimply doesn't stretch so far- and thatmay be myown loss.

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APPENDIX

BLOW-UP*

[1] It'll neverbe knownhow thishas to be told,in thefirst person or in thesecond, using the thirdperson plural or continuallyinventing modes thatwill serve for nothing. If one mightsay: I willsee themoon rose,or: we hurtme at theback of my eyes, and especially: you the blond woman was the clouds thatrace beforemy your his our yourstheir faces. What thehell. [2] Seated readyto tell it,if one mightgo to drinka bock over there,and thetypewriter continueitself (because I use themachine), that would be perfection.And that'snot just a mannerof speaking.Perfection, yes, because hereis theaperture which must be counted also as a machine(of anothersort, a Contax 1.1.2)and itis possiblethat one machinemay know more about anothermachine than I, you,she - theblond - and theclouds. But I have the dumb luck to knowthat if I go thisRemington will sit turned to stoneon top of the table withthe air of being twiceas quiet thatmobile things have when theyare not moving.So, I have to write.One ofus all has to write,if this is goingto get told. Better that it be me who am dead, forI'm less compromisedthan the rest; I who see onlythe clouds and can thinkwithout being distracted,write withoutbeing distracted(there goes another,with a greyedge) and rememberwithout being distracted. I who am dead (and I'm alive, I'm not tryingto foolanybody, you'll see whenwe getto themoment, because I have to beginsome way and I've begunwith this period, the last one back, theone at the beginning,which in theend is the bestof theperiods when you wantto tellsomething). [3JAll ofa suddenI wonderwhy I have to tellthis, but if one beginsto wonderwhy he does all he does do, ifone wonderswhy he acceptsan invitationto lunch(now a pigeon'sflying by and it seems to me a sparrow),or why when someone has told us a good joke immediatelythere starts up somethinglike a ticklingin the stomachand we are not at peace untilwe've gone intothe office across the hall and toldthe joke over again; thenit feelsgood immediately,one is fine,happy, and can getback to work.For I imaginethat no one has explained this,that really the best thingis to put aside all decorumand tell it, because, afterall's done, nobody is ashamed of breathingor of puttingon his shoes; they'rethings that you do, and whensomething weird happens, when you finda spiderin yourshoe or if you take a breathand feel like a brokenwindow, then you have to tell what'shappening, tell it to theguys at theoffice or to thedoctor. Oh, doctor,every time I take a breath... Always tell it, alwaysget ridof thattickle in thestomach that bothers you. a bitin order,we'd be [4] And now thatwe're finallygoing to tellit, let's putthings little walkingdown thestaircase in thishouse as faras Sunday,November 7, just a monthback. One goes down fivefloors and standsthen in theSunday in thesun one would not have suspectedof Paris in November,with a largeappetite to walk around,to see things,to take photos(because we were photographers,I'm a photographer).I knowthat the most difficultthing is goingto be findinga way to tellit, and I'm notafraid of repeating myself. It's going to be difficultbecause nobodyreally knows who it is tellingit, if I am I or what actuallyoccurred or whatI'm seeing (clouds,and once in a whilea pigeon)or if,simply,

* FromEnd of theGame and OtherStories, by Julio Cortdzar, translated by Paul Blackburn. Copyright@ 1967by Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission ofPantheon Books, a Division ofRandom House, Inc.

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I'm tellinga truthwhich is onlymy truth, and thenis thetruth only for my stomach, for this impulseto go runningout and to finishup in some mannerwith, this, whatever it is. [5) We're goingto tellit slowly,what happens in themiddle of whatI'm writingis coming already.If theyreplace me, if,so soon, I don'tknow what to say,if the clouds stop coming and somethingelse starts(because it's impossiblethat this keep coming,clouds passing continuallyand occasionallya pigeon),if something out of all this... And afterthe "if" whatam I goingto putif I'm goingto close thesentence structure correctly? But ifI begin to ask questions,I'll nevertell anything, maybe to tellwould be likean answer,at leastfor someone who's readingit. [6] Roberto Michel, French-Chilean,translator and in his spare time an amateur photographer,left number 1 1, rue Monsieur-le-Prince Sunday November 7 of thecurrent year (now there'retwo small ones passing,with silver linings). He had spentthree weeks workingon the Frenchversion of a treatiseon challengesand appeals byJos6 Norberto Allende, professorat the Universityof Santiago. It's rare thatthere's wind in Paris,and even less seldom a windlike thisthat swirled around corners and rose up to whipat old wooden venetianblinds behind whichastonished ladies commentedvariously on how unreliablethe weather had been theselast fewyears. But thesun was out also, ridingthe wind and friendof the cats,so therewas nothingthat would keep me fromtaking a walk along thedocks of theSeine and takingphotos of the Conservatoire and Sainte-Chapelle. It was hardlyten o'clock, and I figuredthat by eleven the light would be good, thebest you can get in thefall; to killsome timeI detouredaround by theIsle Saint-Louisand started to walk along thequai d'Anjou, I staredfor a bitat theh6tel de Lauzun, I recitedbits from Apollinairewhich always get into my head wheneverI pass in frontof the h6tel de Lauzun (and at thatI oughtto be rememberingthe other poet, but Michel is an obstinatebeggar), and whenthe wind stopped all at once and thesun came out at leasttwice as hard(I mean warmer,but really it's thesame thing),I sat downon theparapet and feltterribly happy in theSunday morning. [7] One of the many ways of contestinglevel-zero, and one of the best, is to take photographs,an activityin whichone should startbecoming an adept veryearly in life, teach it to childrensince it requiresdiscipline, aesthetic education, a good eye and steady fingers.I'm not talkingabout waylayingthe lie likeany old reporter,snapping the stupid silhouetteof the VIP leavingnumber 10 Downing Street,but in all ways when one is walkingabout witha camera,one has almosta dutyto be attentive,to not lose thatabrupt and happyrebound of sun's raysoff an old stone,or thepigtails-flying run of a smallgirl going home witha loaf of bread or a bottleof milk.Michel knewthat the photographer alwaysworked as a permutationof his personalway of seeingthe world as otherthan the camera insidiouslyimposed upon it (now a largecloud is goingby, almost black), but he lacked no confidencein himself,knowing that he had onlyto go out withoutthe Contax to recoverthe keynoteof distraction,the sight without a framearound it, light without the diaphragmaperture or 1/250sec. Rightnow (whata word,now, what a dumb lie) I was able to sit quietly on the railingoverlooking the riverwatching the red and black motorboatspassing below withoutit occurringto me to thinkphotographically of the scenes,nothing more than letting myself go in theletting go ofobjects, running immobile in thestream of time.And thenthe wind was not blowing. [8] After,I wandereddown thequai de Bourbon untilgetting to theend of theisle where theintimate square was (intimatebecause itwas small,not that it was hidden,it offered its wholebreast to theriver and thesky), I enjoyedit, a lot.Nothing there but a couple and,of course,pigeons; maybeeven some of thosewhich are flyingpast now so thatI'm seeing them.A leap up and I settledon the wall, and let myselfturn about and be caughtand

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 60 SEYMOUR CHATMAN fixedby the sun, giving it my face and ears and hands(I keptmy gloves in mypocket). I had no desire to shoot pictures,and lita cigaretteto be doing something;I thinkit was that momentwhen the match was about to touchthe tobacco thatI saw theyoung boy forthe firsttime. [9) What I'd thoughtwas a couple seemed much more now a boy withhis mother, althoughat thesame timeI realized thatit was not a kid and his mother,and thatit was a couple in thesense thatwe alwaysallegate to couples when we see themleaning up against theparapets or embracingon thebenches in thesquares. As I had nothingelse to do, I had morethan enough time to wonderwhy the boy was so nervous,like a youngcolt or a hare, stickinghis hands into his pockets,taking them out immediately,one afterthe other, runninghis fingersthrough his hair, changinghis stance, and especiallywhy was he afraid,well, you could guess thatfrom every gesture, a fearsuffocated by his shyness,an impulse to step backwardswhich he telegraphed,his body standingas ifit were on the edge of flight,holding itself back in a final,pitiful decorum. [10] All thiswas so clear,ten feet away --and we werealone againstthe parapet at thetip of the island- thatat thebeginning the boy's fright didn't let me see theblond very well. Now, thinkingback on it, I see her muchbetter at thatfirst second whenI read herface (she'd turnedaround suddenly, swinging like a metalweathercock, and theeyes, the eyes were there),when I vaguelyunderstood what might have been occurringto the boy and figuredit would be worththe troubleto stayand watch(the wind was blowingtheir words away and theywere speakingin a low murmur).I thinkthat I knowhow to look, ifit's somethingI know,and also thatevery looking oozes withmendacity, because it's that whichexpels us furthestoutside ourselves, without the least guarantee,whereas to smell, or (but Michelrambles on to himselfeasily enough, there's no need to lethim harangue on thisway). In anycase, ifthe likely inaccuracy can be seen beforehand,it becomes possible again to look; perhapsit sufficesto choose betweenlooking and the realitylooked at, to stripthings of all theirunnecessary clothing. And surelyall thatis difficultbesides. [11] As forthe boy I rememberthe image before his actual body(that will clear itselfup later), while now I am sure that I rememberthe woman's body muchbetter than the image. She was thinand willowy,two unfairwords to describewhat she was, and was wearingan almost-blackfur coat, almostlong, almost handsome. All the morning'swind (now it was hardlya breeze and it wasn'tcold) had blown throughher blondhair which pared away herwhite, bleak face - twounfair words - and putthe world at herfeet and horriblyalone in frontof her dark eyes,her eyes fellon thingslike twoeagles, two leaps intonothingness, two puffs of greenslime. I'm notdescribing anything, it's more a matter of tryingto understandit. And I said twopuffs of green slime. I [12] Let's be fair,the boy was well enoughdressed and was sportingyellow gloves which would have swornbelonged to his older brother,a studentof law or sociology;it was pleasantto see thefingers of thegloves sticking out ofhis jacket pocket.For a longtime I didn'tsee his face,barely a profile,not stupid - a terrifiedbird, a Fra Filippoangel, rice puddingwith milk - and theback ofan adolescentwho wants to take up judo and has had a scuffleor two in defenseof an idea or hissister. Turning fourteen, perhaps fifteen, one would guess thathe was dressedand fedby his parents but without a nickelin his pocket, havingto debate withhis buddiesbefore making up his mindto buya coffee,a cognac,a pack of cigarettes.He'd walk throughthe streets thinking of the girlsin his class, about how good it would be to go to the movies and see the latestfilm, or to buy novels or necktiesor bottlesof liquorwith green and whitelabels on them.At home (it would be a respectable home, lunch at noon and romanticlandscapes on the walls, witha dark entrywayand a mahoganyumbrella stand inside the door) there'dbe theslow rainof time,

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 61 for studying,for being mama's hope, for lookinglike dad, forwriting to his aunt in Avignon.So thatthere was a lot ofwalking the streets, the whole of the river for him (but withouta nickel)and the mysteriouscity of fifteen-year-olds with its signs in doorways,its terrifyingcats, a paper of friedpotatoes for thirtyfrancs, the pornographicmagazine foldedfour ways, a solitudelike the emptinessof hispockets, the eagerness for so much thatwas incomprehensiblebut illuminedby a totallove, by theavailability analogous to thewind and thestreets. [ 13]This biographywas ofthe boy and ofany boy whatsoever, but this particular one now, you could see he was insular,surrounded solely by the blond's presence as she continued talkingwith him. (I'm tiredof insisting,but two long raggedones just went by. That morningI don't thinkI looked at thesky once, because whatwas happeningwith the boy and the woman appeared so soon I could do nothingbut look at themand wait,look at themand...) To cut it short,the boy was agitatedand one could guesswithout too much troublewhat had just occurreda fewminutes before, at mosthalf-an-hour. The boy had come onto thetip of theisland, seen thewoman and thoughther marvelous. The woman was waitingfor that because she was therewaiting for that, or maybe the boy arrived beforeher and she saw himfrom one of the balconiesor froma car and got out to meet him,starting the conversation with whatever, from the beginning she was surethat he was going to be afraidand want to run off,and that,naturally, he'd stay,stiff and sullen, pretendingexperience and thepleasure of the adventure. The restwas easy because itwas happeningten feet away fromme, and anyonecould have gauged thestages of thegame, thederisive, competitive fencing; its major attractionwas notthat it was happeningbut in foreseeingits denouement. The boy would tryto end it by pretendinga date, an obligation,whatever, and would go stumblingoff disconcerted, wishing he were walking withsome assurance,but naked underthe mocking glance which would followhim until he was out of sight.Or rather,he would stay there,fascinated or simplyincapable of takingthe initiative,and the woman would beginto touchhis face gently,muss his hair, stilltalking to himvoicelessly, and soon would takehim by thearm to lead himoff, unless he, with an uneasiness beginningto tinge the edge of desire, even his stake in the adventure,would rouse himself to puthis arm around her waist and to kissher. Any of this could have happened, thoughit did not, and perverselyMichel waited,sitting on the railing,making the settingsalmost withoutlooking at the camera, ready to take a picturesqueshot of a cornerof theisland with an uncommoncouple talkingand lookingat one another. [14] Strangehow thescene (almostnothing: two figures there mismatched in theiryouth) was takingon a disquietingaura. I thoughtit was I imposingit, and thatmy photo, if I shot it, would reconstitutethings in theirtrue stupidity. I would have liked to knowwhat he was thinking,a man in a greyhat sitting at thewheel of a car parkedon thedock which led up to the footbridge,and whetherhe was reading the paper or asleep. I had just discoveredhim because people insidea parkedcar have a tendencyto disappear,they get lost in thatwretched, private cage strippedof thebeauty that motion and dangergive it. And nevertheless,the car had been therethe whole time, forming part (or deformingthat part) of the isle. A car: like sayinga lightedstreetlamp, a park bench.Never like saying wind,sunlight, those elements always new to theskin and theeyes, and also theboy and the woman, unique, put there to change the island, to show it to me in anotherway. Finally,it mayhave been thatthe man with the newspaper also became awareof what was happeningand would,like me, feel thatmalicious sensation of waiting for everything to happen. Now the woman had swung around smoothly,putting the youngboy between herselfand the wall, I saw themalmost in profile,and he was taller,though not much

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 62 SEYMOUR CHATMAN taller,and yetshe dominatedhim, it seemed likeshe was hoveringover him (her laugh, all at once, a whipof feathers),crushing him just bybeing there, smiling, one hand takinga strollthrough the air. Whywait any longer?Aperture at sixteen,a sightingwhich would not includethe horribleblack car, butyes, that tree, necessary to breakup too muchgrey space... [15] I raised the camera, pretendedto studya focuswhich did not include them,and waited and watchedclosely, sure thatI would finallycatch the revealing expression, one that would sum it all up, life that is rhythmedby movementbut whicha stiffimage destroys,taking time in cross section,if we do not choose the essentialimperceptible fractionof it. I did not have to wait long. The woman was gettingon withthe job of handcuffingthe boy smoothly,stripping from him what was leftof his freedoma hairat a time,in an incrediblyslow and delicious torture.I imaginedthe possible endings (now a small fluffycloud appears, almost alone in the sky),I saw theirarrival at the house (a basementapartment probably, which she would have filledwith large cushions and cats) and conjecturedthe boy's terrorand hisdesperate decision to playit cool and to be led off pretendingthere was nothingnew in it forhim. Closing my eyes, if I did in factclose my eyes, I set thescene: theteasing kisses, the woman mildly repelling the hands which were tryingto undressher, like in novels, on a bed thatwould have a lilac-coloredcomforter, on the other hand she takingoff his clothes,plainly mother and son undera milkyyellow light,and everythingwould end up as usual, perhaps,but maybeeverything would go otherwise,and the initiationof the adolescent would not happen, she would not let it happen,after a longprologue wherein the awkwardnesses, the exasperating caresses, the runningof hands over bodies would be resolvedin who knowswhat, in a separate and solitarypleasure, in a petulantdenial mixedwith the art of tiringand disconcertingso muchpoor innocence.It mightgo likethat, it might very well go likethat; that woman was not lookingfor the boy as a lover,and at the same timeshe was dominatinghim toward some end impossibleto understandif you do not imagineit as a cruelgame, thedesire to desire withoutsatisfaction, to excite herselffor someone else, someone who in no way could be thatkid. [16] Michel is guiltyof makingliterature, of indulgingin fabricatedunrealities. Nothing pleases him more thanto imagineexceptions to therule, individuals outside the species, not-always-repugnantmonsters. But that woman invitedspeculation, perhaps giving clues enoughfor the fantasy to hitthe bullseye. Before she left,and now thatshe wouldfill my imaginingsfor several days, for I'm given to ruminating,I decided not to lose a momentmore. I gotit all intothe view-finder (with the tree, the railing, the eleven-o'clock sun) and took the shot. In time to realize thatthey both had noticedand stood there lookingat me, theboy surprised and as thoughquestioning, but she was irritated,her face and body flat-footedlyhostile, feeling robbed, ignominiouslyrecorded on a small chemicalimage. [171 I mightbe able to tell it in muchgreater detail but it's not worththe trouble.The womansaid thatno one had theright to takea picturewithout permission, and demanded that I hand her over the film.All thisin a dry,clear voice witha good Parisianaccent, whichrose in color and tone withevery phrase. For mypart, it hardlymattered whether she got theroll of filmor not,but anyone who knowsme willtell you, if you want anything fromme, ask nicely.With the result that I restrictedmyself to formulatingthe opinion that not only was photographyin public places not prohibited,but it was looked upon with decided favor,both private and official.And whilethat was gettingsaid, I noticedon the sly how theboy was fallingback, sort of activelybacking up thoughwithout moving, and all at once (it seemed almost incredible)he turnedand broke intoa run,the poor kid,

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thinkingthat he waswalking off and infact in full flight, running past the side of the car, disappearinglike a gossamerfilaments of angel-spit in the morning air. [18JBut filamentsof angel-spittleare also calleddevil-spit, and Michelhad to endure ratherparticular curses, to hearhimself called meddler and imbecile, taking great pains meanwhileto smile and to abate with simple movements of hishead such a hardsell. As I was beginningto get tired, I heardthe car door slam. The man in the grey hat was there, lookingat us. It was only at that point that I realizedhe was playing a part in the comedy. [19]He beganto walk toward us, carrying inhis hand the paper he had been pretending to read.What I rememberbest is thegrimace that twisted his mouth askew, it covered his face withwrinkles, changed somewhat both in locationand shape becausehis lips trembledand the grimace went from one side of his mouth to the other as thoughit were on wheels,independent and involuntary.But therest stayed fixed, a flour-powdered clownor bloodlessman, dull dry skin, eyes deepset, the nostrils black and prominently visible,blacker than the eyebrows or hairor theblack necktie. Walking cautiously as thoughthe pavement hurt his feet; I sawpatent-leather shoes with such thin soles that he musthave felt every roughness in thepavement. I don'tknow why I gotdown off the railing,nor very well why I decidedto not give them the photo, to refuse that demand in whichI guessedat theirfear and cowardice.The clownand thewoman consulted one anotherin silence: we made a perfectand unbearable triangle, something I felt compelled tobreak with a crackof a whip.I laughedin their faces and began to walk off, a littlemore slowly,I imagine,than the boy. At thelevel of the first houses, beside the iron footbridge, I turnedaround to lookat them.They were not moving, but the man had dropped his newspaper;it seemed to me that the woman, her back to the parapet, ran her hands over thestone with the classical and absurd gesture of someone pursued looking for a wayout. [20] Whathappened after that happened here, almost just now, in a roomon thefifth floor.Several days went by before Michel developed the photos he'd taken on Sunday; his shotsof the Conservatoire and of Sainte-Chapelle were all they should be. Then he found two or threeproof-shots he'd forgotten,a poor attemptto catcha cat perched astonishinglyonthe roof of a ramblingpublic urinal, and also the shot of the blond and the kid.The negativewas so goodthat he made an enlargement; the enlargement was so good thathe made one very much larger, almost the size of a poster.It did not occur to him (now one wondersand wonders) that only the shots of the Conservatoire were worth so much work.Of thewhole series, the snap-shot of the tip of the island was the only one which interestedhim; he tackedup theenlargement on onewall of the room, and the first day he spentsome time looking at it and remembering, that gloomy operation of comparing the memorywith the gone reality; a frozen memory, like any photo, where nothing ismissing, not even,and especially,nothingness, the true solidifier of thescene. There was the woman,there was the boy, the tree rigid above their heads, the sky as sharpas thestone of theparapet, clouds and stones molded into a singlesubstance and inseparable (now one withsharp edges is going by, like a thunderhead).The first two days I acceptedwhat I had done,from the photo itself to the enlargement on thewall, and didn't even question that everyonce in a whileI wouldinterrupt my translation ofJose Norberto Allende's treatise to encounteronce more the woman's face, the dark splotches on therailing. I'm sucha jerk;it had never occurred to me thatwhen we lookat a photofrom the front, the eyes reproduceexactly the position and the vision of the lens; it's these things that are taken for grantedand it neveroccurs to anyoneto thinkabout them. From my chair, with the typewriterdirectly in front of me, I lookedat the photo ten feet away, and then it occurred to me thatI hadhung it exactly at thepoint of view of the lens. It lookedvery good that way;no doubt,it was thebest way to appreciatea photo,though the angle from the

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 64 SEYMOUR CHATMAN diagonal doubtlesshas its pleasuresand mighteven divulgedifferent aspects. Every few minutes,for example when I was unable to findthe way to say in good Frenchwhat Jose NorbertoAllende was sayingin verygood Spanish,I raised myeyes and looked at the photo; sometimesthe woman would catch myeye, sometimesthe boy, sometimesthe pavementwhere a dryleaf had fallenadmirably situated to heightena lateralsection. Then I resteda bitfrom my labors, and I enclosedmyself again happilyin thatmorning in which the photo was drenched,I recalled ironicallythe angrypicture of the woman demanding I give her the photograph,the boy's pathetic and ridiculousflight, the entranceon thescene ofthe man with the white face. Basically, I was satisfiedwith myself; mypart had not been too brilliant,and since the Frenchhave been giventhe giftof the sharp response, I did not see very well why I'd chosen to leave withouta complete demonstrationof therights, privileges and prerogativesof citizens.The importantthing, the reallyimportant thing was havinghelped the kid to escape in time(this in case my theorizingwas correct,which was not sufficientlyproven, but the runningaway itself seemed to show it so). Out of plain meddling,I had givenhim the opportunity finally to take advantageof his frightto do somethinguseful; now he wouldbe regrettingit, feeling his honor impaired,his manhood diminished.That was betterthan the attentionsof a womancapable of lookingas she had looked at himon thatisland. Michel is somethingof a puritanat times,he believes thatone should not seduce someone froma positionof strength.In thelast analysis,taking that photo had been a good act. [21] Well, it wasn'tbecause of thegood act thatI looked at it betweenparagraphs while I was working.At that momentI didn't know the reason, the reason I had tacked the enlargementonto thewall; maybeall fatalacts happen thatway, and thatis thecondition of theirfulfillment. I don't thinkthe almost-furtivetrembling of the leaves on the tree alarmedme, I was workingon a sentenceand roundedit out successfully.Habits are like immenseherbariums, in the end an enlargementof 32 x 28 looks like a movie screen, where,on thetip of theisland, a womanis speakingwith a boyand a treeis shakingits dry leaves over theirheads. [22] But herhands were just too much.I had justtranslated: "In thatcase, thesecond key residesin theintrinsic nature of difficulties which societies..." - whenI saw thewoman's hand beginningto stirslowly, finger by finger.There was nothingleft of me, a phrasein Frenchwhich I wouldnever have to finish,a typewriteron thefloor, a chairthat squeaked and shook,fog. The kidhad duckedhis head likeboxers do whenthey've done all theycan and are waitingfor the finalblow to fall; he had turnedup thecollar of his overcoatand seemed more a prisonerthan ever, the perfectvictim helping promote the catastrophe. Now thewoman was talkinginto his ear, and herhand opened again to layitself against his cheekbone,to caress and caress it,burning it, takingher time.The kid was less startled thanhe was suspicious,once or twicehe poked hishead over thewoman's shoulder and she continuedtalking, saying something that made him look back everyfew minutes towardthat area where Michel knew the car was parked and the man in the greyhat, carefullyeliminated from the photo butpresent in theboy's eyes(how doubtthat now) in the wordsof the woman,in the woman'shands, in thevicarious presence of thewoman. When I saw the man come up, stop near themand look at them,his hands in hispockets and a stancesomewhere between disgusted and demanding,the masterwho is about to whistlein hisdog aftera frolicin thesquare, I understood,if that was to understand,what had to happennow, what had to have happenedthen, what would have to happen at that moment,among these people, just whereI had poked mynose in to upsetan established order,interfering innocently in thatwhich had nothappened, but which was nowgoing to happen, now was going to be fulfilled.And what I had imaginedearlier was muchless

This content downloaded from 206.87.122.163 on Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:44:35 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RHETORIC OF DIFFICULT FICTION: BLOW-UP 65 horriblethan the reality, that woman, who was not thereby herself, she was notcaressing or propositioningor encouragingfor her own pleasure,to lead the angel away withhis tousled hair and play the tease withhis terrorand his eager grace. The real boss was waitingthere, smiling petulantly, already certain of the business;he was not the firstto send a womanin thevanguard, to bringhim the prisoners manacled with flowers. The rest of it would be so simple,the car,some house or another,drinks, stimulating engravings, tardytears, the awakening in hell. And therewas nothingI could do, thistime I could do absolutelynothing. My strengthhad been a photograph,that, there, where theywere takingtheir revenge on me,demonstrating clearly what was goingto happen.The photo had been taken,the time had runout, gone; we wereso farfrom one another,the abusive act had certainlyalready taken place, thetears already shed, and therest conjecture and sorrow.All at once the orderwas inverted,they were alive, movingthey were deciding and had decided, theywere goingto theirfuture; and I on thisside, prisonerof another time,in a roomon thefifth floor, to not knowwho theywere, that woman, that man, and that boy, to be only the lens of my camera, somethingfixed, rigid, incapable of intervention.It was horrible,their mocking me, decidingit before my impotenteye, mockingme, forthe boy again was lookingat theflour-faced clown and I had to acceptthe factthat he was goingto say yes,that the proposition carried money with it or a gimmick, and I couldn'tyell for him to run,or even open theroad to himagain witha newphoto, a small and almost meek interventionwhich would ruin the frameworkof drool and perfume.Everything was goingto resolveitself right there, at thatmoment; there was like an immensesilence which had nothingto do withphysical silence. It was stretchingit out, settingitself up. I thinkI screamed,I screamedterribly, and thatat thatexact second I realized thatI was beginningto move towardthem, four inches, a step,another step, the tree swung its branchesrhythmically in the foreground,a place where the railingwas tarnishedemerged from the frame,the woman's face turnedtoward me as though surprised,was enlarging,and thenI turneda bit,I mean thatthe camera turneda little, and withoutlosing sight of thewoman, I began to close in on theman who was lookingat me withthe black holes he had in place of eyes,surprised and angeredboth, he looked, wantingto nail me ontothe air, and at thatinstant I happenedto see somethinglike a large birdoutside the focus that was flyingin a singleswoop in frontof the picture, and I leaned up against the wall of my room and was happybecause the boy had just managed to escape, I saw him runningoff, in focusagain, sprintingwith his hair flyingin the wind, learningfinally to flyacross the island,to arriveat thefootbridge, return to thecity. For the second time he'd escaped them,for the second time I was helpinghim to escape, returninghim to hisprecarious paradise. Out of breath,I stood in frontof them;no need to step closer, the game was played out. Of the woman you could see just maybe a shoulderand a bitof thehair, brutally cut off by the frame of the picture; but the man was directlycenter, his mouthhalf open, you could see a shakingblack tongue,and he lifted his hands slowly,bringing them into the foreground,an instantstill in perfectfocus, and thenall ofhim a lumpthat blotted out theisland, the tree, and I shutmy eyes, I didn'twant to see any more,and I coveredmy face and brokeinto tears like an idiot. (23) Now there'sa big whitecloud, as on all these days, all thisuntellable time. What remainsto be said is alwaysa cloud, two clouds,or long hoursof a skyperfectly clear, a veryclean, clear rectangletacked up withpins on thewall of myroom. That was whatI saw whenI opened myeyes and driedthem with my fingers: the clear sky, and thena cloud thatdrifted in fromthe left,passed gracefullyand slowlyacross and disappearedon the right.And then another,and for a change sometimes,everything gets grey,all one enormouscloud, and suddenlythe splotches of raincracking down, for a long spell you

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can see it rainingover thepicture, like a spell of weepingreversed, and littleby little, the framebecomes clear, perhaps the sun comes out,and again theclouds begin to come,two at a time,three at a time.And thepigeons once in a while,and a sparrowor two.

REFERENCES

BARTHES,R., 1974.S/Z(New York: Hill and Wang). BERNE,E., 1962.A Layman's Guide to Psychiatryand Psychoanalysis(New York). BooTH, W., 1961. The Rhetoricof Fiction (Chicago: PhoenixBooks). BRENNER,C., 1957.An ElementaryTextbook of Psychoanalysis (Garden City). CHATMAN,S., 1978.Story and Discourse(Ithaca: CornellUP). CORTAZAR,J., 1967."Las Babas del diablo," in Las ArmasSecretas, translated as "Blow-Up" in End ofthe Game and OtherStories, trans. P. Blackburn(New York: RandomHouse). FERNANDEZ,H., 1968-9."Blow-Up," FilmHeritage IV, 26-30. GYURKO,L. A., 1972."Truth and Deception in Cortizar's'Las Babas de Diablo,'" RomanicReview 63, 204-217. HORNEY,K., 1950.Neurosis and Human Growth(New York: Norton). MAY,R., 1972.Power and Innocence(New York).

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