ADaM-Project

23:59:46

by Philippe Jonckheere (de) | April 22, 2003

Quelques lignes parmi les Vingt lignes par jour d'Harry Mathews. Après une journée comme celle-ci, je mesure bien la difficulté d'un tel exercice.

A man and a woman marry. For their first meal at home she bakes a ham, preparing it as she always does, at the start slicing off both ends before setting it in the pan. The ham is delicious, her husband delighted. "Why do you make it that way", he later asks her, "slicing the ends off?" "I don't know why" she answers, "except that I learned to do that way from my mother". Curious, the husband aks his mother-in-law at their next meeting, "Why do you slice both ends of the ham when you make it in the delicious way you taught your daughter?" "I don't know why", she answers, "I learned how to make it from my mother." The husband insists that he and his wife visit her grandmother, whom he again asks: "You bake ham in a wonderful way that has been adopted by your daughter and then by your granddaughter. Can you tell me why in this recipe one slices off the ends of the ham before cooking it?" "Don't know why they do it" the old lady replies, "but when I made it, the ham wouldn't fit in the pan."
This fable, illustrating our inevitable ignorance about why things happen the way they do, was told to us on the first day at the More Time Course, which included many other goodies: how to avoid fatigue by sleeping less, how to manage disagreeable emotions by sheduling them, how to replace paying bills by making contributions to institutions one admires (such as Con Ed, restaurants, taxicabs).
New York, 4/22/83


Harry Mathews a entrepris d'écrire Vingt lignes par jour pendant un peu plus d'un an, singeant ainsi la devise fameuse de Stendhal, vingt lignes par jour, génie ou pas. Et je remarque ce soir qu'il a commencé ce projet en avril 1983, il y a vingt ans exactement. Dans vingt ans où serai-je, serai-je encore vivant? Dans vingt ans nous viendrons tout juste de finir de rembourser le prêt conséquent que nous venons de contracter pour acheter la maison de Fontenay-sous-Bois, consternant que ce soit la seule chose pour laquelle je prenne pareillement date, je manque de nerf je trouve, à croire que ce soit là le seul engagement dont je sois capable.