Scan barcode
suddenflamingword's review
4.0
you can feel the intentionality in every word in this work - up to and including calling this a "project." A project being a work that is happening over time and calls to mind the word "projection," with its suggestion of both "putting forth a representation" (holographic projections) and casting the interior self outward (psychological projection). Žigon's introduction is pitch perfect in introducing Joan of Arc's aesthetic legacy, how edwards' fits into that legacy, and the process that went into editing the raw work left behind following edwards' passing. As someone unfamiliar with edwards, I half hoped that Žigon would give something of a biography of kari edwards (it seems fitting for a work so informed by the biographical imagination), but it didn't meaningfully take away from the work itself. It's probably more important that the work itself acts as a vehicle for edwards biography: "edwards’ retelling is centered around Joan as a symbol of breaking gender barriers, but her Joan is also a fighter against rigid language norms."
And let me just say that dôNrm’-lä-püsl: is a wonderful mix of chaotic tedium, surreal complexity, and flabbergastery. Something like a prose poem reimagining the fast-forwarded solar flare of Joan of Arc's life, it put me in the mind of [b:Les Chants de Maldoror et autres textes|262308|Les Chants de Maldoror et autres textes|Comte de Lautréamont|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347400832l/262308._SY75_.jpg|58034415] mixed with a transcript of a town council meeting mixed with (essentially) the zeitgeist of postmodern poetry, a poem like John Ashbery's "Daffy Duck in Hollywood" being first to mind.
The base text might best be broken down by Žigon herself: "the text edwards keeps destabilizing the idea of time and reminding the readers that Joan does not fully belong to the past, just as she does not fully belong to the present" just as it breaks fdown gender and language. Such as when edwards' Joan envisions their future burning at the stake (using direct quotes from Joan of Arc) while also imagining their ashes "scattered on the future sight of a 7-11." Or such as when Joan asks the grand inquisitor "do you think I am crazy spending my days in prayer instead of my portal information system"? This is the foundation of a Joan who through the constant dislocation of time through language attempts to "bring zero language" as a otherworldly emissary - "zero language" being maybe the end of language's representational value, or the final language of all humanity.
It's not possible to encapsulate the spectrum of ideas here or to capture edwards' Joan here, except maybe in the words of Joan's companion "choisy" (named after the, probably historically unsupported, cross-dressing Abbe de Choisy). A "giant glamor queen" who walks up to Joan "huddled under the entry way of the universe" (already asynchronic: both approaching Joan in the open physical space but also standing under a metaphysical entrance), choisy asks Joan "are you not the one you are not"? Joan might be understood as what happens at "zero language," as the negation of identifiability and negation as identity, as, in their own words, "only the vehicle for the energy to pass through me." In a lot of ways you might think of it as being somewhat similar to i'm thinking of ending things with its memorable "we're stationary and time passes through us" line. Despite liking the movie, however, I found dôNrm’-lä-püsl to be less passive and indulgent in its commitments towards a character whose anticipation is a "generator gaining momentum to electrify an entire city." Their vision restores the possibility of a future just as it seeks to end time.
And it's a tragedy that edwards didn't get to complete her own vision.
And let me just say that dôNrm’-lä-püsl: is a wonderful mix of chaotic tedium, surreal complexity, and flabbergastery. Something like a prose poem reimagining the fast-forwarded solar flare of Joan of Arc's life, it put me in the mind of [b:Les Chants de Maldoror et autres textes|262308|Les Chants de Maldoror et autres textes|Comte de Lautréamont|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347400832l/262308._SY75_.jpg|58034415] mixed with a transcript of a town council meeting mixed with (essentially) the zeitgeist of postmodern poetry, a poem like John Ashbery's "Daffy Duck in Hollywood" being first to mind.
The base text might best be broken down by Žigon herself: "the text edwards keeps destabilizing the idea of time and reminding the readers that Joan does not fully belong to the past, just as she does not fully belong to the present" just as it breaks fdown gender and language. Such as when edwards' Joan envisions their future burning at the stake (using direct quotes from Joan of Arc) while also imagining their ashes "scattered on the future sight of a 7-11." Or such as when Joan asks the grand inquisitor "do you think I am crazy spending my days in prayer instead of my portal information system"? This is the foundation of a Joan who through the constant dislocation of time through language attempts to "bring zero language" as a otherworldly emissary - "zero language" being maybe the end of language's representational value, or the final language of all humanity.
It's not possible to encapsulate the spectrum of ideas here or to capture edwards' Joan here, except maybe in the words of Joan's companion "choisy" (named after the, probably historically unsupported, cross-dressing Abbe de Choisy). A "giant glamor queen" who walks up to Joan "huddled under the entry way of the universe" (already asynchronic: both approaching Joan in the open physical space but also standing under a metaphysical entrance), choisy asks Joan "are you not the one you are not"? Joan might be understood as what happens at "zero language," as the negation of identifiability and negation as identity, as, in their own words, "only the vehicle for the energy to pass through me." In a lot of ways you might think of it as being somewhat similar to i'm thinking of ending things with its memorable "we're stationary and time passes through us" line. Despite liking the movie, however, I found dôNrm’-lä-püsl to be less passive and indulgent in its commitments towards a character whose anticipation is a "generator gaining momentum to electrify an entire city." Their vision restores the possibility of a future just as it seeks to end time.
And it's a tragedy that edwards didn't get to complete her own vision.
More...