Now I want to talk about a book I particuarly enjoy and that I was planning to use since I started this blog: it is The Character of Rain (Métaphysique des Tubes) by Amélie Nothomb, a Belgian writer.
In this book, Amélie Nothomb imagines the beginning of her life in Japan when she was a baby who did not realize she was alive and behaved as a plant, according to her parents, or a tube, according to her. The Japanese tradition even says that a child under three years old liker her is a god. During the first two years and a half of her life, she does not consider herself as a human and calls herself "it" or "God" ; as a baby, she does not make a move or a sound. Her parents and the doctors worry about this and unsuccessfully try to make her react. She just needs to eat and execrate, she has no desire, which makes her perfect. Finally, they have no choice but doing with it until this ordinary day when the baby starts to cry out and never stops. Here is the moment when she finally discovers something that puts an end to her screams:
The grandmother took something out of her travel bag and marched stalwartly into the arena.
Two and a half years. Cries, rage, hate. The world was beyond the hands and voice of God. Encircled by bars, it wanted to destroy everything and couldn't, so it took revenge out on the sheet and blankets, hammering at them with its heels.
At this moment of the book it is perfectly clear that the character does not consider herself as a being, she says "it" to talk about herself and feels completely powerless. A terrible anger seized her after more than two years spent motionless, probably because she does not manage to define her own identity.
[... ] Suddenly its field of vision was filled with an unfamiliar face. An adult, of the same kind as the mother, from the look of her. After the moment of surprise had passed, God express with a bloodcurdling yowl.
The face smiled. God knew what she was trying to do. Pacify it. This would not work. It bared its teeth. [...] It prepared to bite.
[...] the hand approached, but it was holding something unexpected -something unknown- in its fingers. A white stick. God had not seen such a thing before and forgot about biting.
"This," said the grandmother to the child, "is white chocolate from Belgium".
The only word that God recognized was "white". Walls were white, milk was white. The others were obscure -"chocolate" and "Belgium". Pondering these indecipherable sounds, it realized that the stick was near its mouth.
"It's for eating," said the voice.
"Eating." A known word. Something it did often. Eating was the bottle, carrot puree with small bits of meat, crushed banana with chunks of apple.
Eating involves familiar smells. The odor of this white stick was unrecognizable -but better than soap and applesauce. God was afraid and tempted at the same time. It made a grimace of disgust yet salivated with desire.
The reader now sees how new things attract the baby and understands that she is not really living because she does not enjoy what is around her. She speaks about familial people like ennemies, she describes usual food as tasteless ; but a good-smelling new thing attracts and tempts her more than anything else. She just wants changes and needs a little something to discover her identity.
In a leap of faith God took this new thing with its teeth, and was going to bite down hard except doing so turned out not to be necessary, for the strange white substance melted on the tongue, and instantly took command of the mouth.
Sweetness rose to God's head and tore at its brain, forcing out a voice it had never before heard:
It is I! I'm talking! I'm not an "it" I'm a "me"! You can no longer say "it" when you talk about yourself. You have to say "me". And I am your best friend. I'm the one who gives you pleasure.
And thus it was that I was born in Japan at the age of two and a half, in February of 1970, in the province of Kansai, in the village of Shukugawa, under the benevolent gaze of my paternal grandmother, and by the grace of her white chocolate.
[...] Pleasure is a wonderful thing, for it has taught me that I am me. Me: where pleasure is. Pleasure is me.
[...] I am as powerful as the sweetness that I can taste and which I invented. Without me, this chocolate would be nothing. But when I put it in my mouth it becomes pleasure. It needs me.
At that moment, the baby who did not understand the purpose of her life finally finds something making her alive. As in the madeleine de Proust this excerpt shows how strong pleasure can be since it is thanks to it that the character fins her identity and actually comes to the world. In the first excerpt pleasure helped to remind memories, in this extract it is the source of the character's life and what helps her to become herself and see the sense of being alive.
Julie: I have really been enjoying your blog - some very interesting insights and connections.
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