Words

I begin my experimental essay. Writing only becomes possible after an event. The time of words is always the after something. To write one has to have the irresistible ability to realize objects and phenomena in words: a capacity to actualize the world within words, to make yourself real in words.

Self-portrait

1

Being able to complete something had become an obsession. Always, when (she has forgotten the word) she is on the threshold of being realized, she turns her back. She would walk from one corner of the room to the other, from one to the other, from one to the other, counting the months left until completion.

Completion?

A finish?

A halt?

In her head, a thousand times she replayed, in detail, the image of the series of days, which had followed one another incessantly for two years already. The same day was constantly repeating itself. If nothing happened for another few months, she could finish her studies.

To finish?

To complete?

Then, she would be deprived of the opportunity to turn this phase of her life into a story of words.

To be deprived?

In vain?

Vain?

After a two-year interruption, she once again felt the power that suppresses that irresistible ability, the one that had surfaced and demanded to be realized.

In the evening, after two bottles of beer, she told her boyfriend of her intention to quit. The next day she regretted expressing her thoughts in words. Now she was certain that, again, nothing would (she has forgotten the word). She would be walking from one corner of the room to the other trying to recall the conversation from yesterday word for word. At least she was hoping she had spoken her mind with the wrong words.[1]

2

The indomitable desire to leave things half complete had arisen yet again. Right after his departure. During the summer they had lived together (which quickly passed) she had not written a word. They had met over the winter. At first everything went smoothly. The idea for the story had emerged from a brief conversation on a mundane topic. While speaking of different things they had both uttered the “real” word, and subsequently something important changed. On her way home she was thinking of this emerging relationship with words characterized as “real.” For the first time words were yielding to reality, which [reality] had been given the definition of the “real.” She could not find a way to think of the occurrence in words, because it had already been defined as “real.” Reality was no longer a fabric of words. It was real.

During the entire summer (which quickly passed) the desire to leave anything half complete had not yet emerged. The wish to replace reality with words had turned itself on its head. Words — which were more in number than the flowing days and seconds of that quick summer — were being uttered for the one and only purpose of re-al-i-za-tion. To leave stories unfinished in the most interesting places and replace them with words had yielded to the crazy impulse of realizing all stories written in words. Desire. The image of the billboard having momentarily caught her eye in the morning was realized entirely on the evening of the same day. Any new idea, even if it was the most abstract; every text she read, from the philosophical to journalistic; a fleeting musical phrase that she heard, an image from the novel turned into film, or a poetic syllable that could occupy her mind were realized into stories a few hours later. Words, sounds, feelings, thoughts, images, letters, lines, everything was disentangling itself from the pressure of being pleasurably realized.

Words especially. Words. Under the influence of that power devouring all and everything with the speed of light, words had acquired an equivalent place in reality. Every uttered word was immediately turning into either an object or an act. It seemed as though the rhythm that had filled everything with the irregular flow of a wave, and had turned time into a course, was ceaseless. The Rhythm. Over time she had expelled words, hoping that at least this time reality would not recoil in the face of them. Now in this drawn-out winter outside, and the unreal distance which divides the two of them again, words pretend to replace the world.

3

She was little when she discovered the magical power of recreating reality in words, and of possessing the world with words. On the way to school,[2] closing her eyes tightly, she had repeated in her mind, with words: “He has not passed away, he has not passed away, he has not passed away,” and the deceased was no longer him. With that self-confidence, common to children, she had begun to experiment with this newly discovered magical skill everywhere. After a short while, all of her friends were convinced she was living in an antique summer house full of servants, in a perfectly happy family. She too was convinced of this. Even more so. She could close her eyes for a moment and repeat with words anything that came to her mind, and reality would transform into these words, words that she had uttered in her head. Through time she adopted the most distinctive of magical skills. Then she began to live in a place where everything was covered in words. Even the cement and the reinforced concrete of huge architectural structures were made of words. She had also mastered the skill of recreating the reality of others in words. This was a real discovery, a magical ability more attractive than any childish game. Like tin soldiers, she had begun to transport people she knew, one by one, to that swaying space of words. From typical apartments, she had transported her teachers to huge, bright summerhouses; she had liberated them from worrying so they could write their important examinations without needing anything. This much had not satisfied her. She had become so sophisticated that, at one point, she had even read one of her teacher’s papers, then the other, and another. She had left a couple for later. To her friends, she had given surnames of universal importance and had overseen every step they took. They had to fit their newly appointed calling. If not, she would again close her eyes, and repeat in her head (with words), that those with the new surnames were her friends, and those with the new surnames would be her friends. Again, reality was plummeting.

4

She knew nothing about his days. To know nothing, one must do something: to break off contact with those who knew how to make stories of words about him. Them, especially. Distance was the possibility of her words. She had burdened that period of time so much with layers of words that later, (after two decades) when she made an attempt to remember the prehistory, she had found that words had placed such a dense layer upon reality that circumventing them would already become someone else’s life. Never again had she made such an attempt. The erased memory had been definitively replaced by the memory of words. She had forgotten everybody who could bear witness to other kinds of memory.[3] Every time she met someone she had forgotten, she was amazed that the stranger had recognized her.

5

The presence of words everywhere was necessary for her existence. She doubted her existence wherever words did not exercise sovereignty. In the beginning, sometimes, but later even more: she would always be forced to recoil, to make her existence in words possible. To leave everything incomplete was perhaps her only rule. To protect. Words. Now that it was this drawn-out winter outside, again, the desire to yield to the irresistible sovereignty of words had risen in revolt. This time, her education was to remain incomplete. She was looking for the proper words to turn the business of leaving things incomplete into a story. Perhaps not finishing things is the only way to give space to words. Any relationship, action, and story that could become whole and ended in silence — was a threat to words. Just like when the last gunshot was to be fired as she was leaving home, the hand had shaken. If the gunshot had rung, the way all the gunshots of the world ring: “bang-bang,” she would be deprived of the possibility to realize the ending of the story in words. So then she had closed her eyes a thousand times and had thought of a thousand melodic variations of that gunshot. Just like when she found herself upon a romantic relationship (those always remained up in the air); afterwards her guys or girls would stand — confused and ridiculous — in front of one another, a vision of words, the story unfamiliar to their own stories — unregimented. Her masterfully synthesized vision of words was to acquire absolute power over reality; and reality was plummeting again.

6

She had gotten used to it already — that when reality, like a herd of horses, revolts in the face of wordy textures, there needs to be distance in order for words to restore their power. And she would distance herself to cultivate new forms and syntheses of words. Maybe in an island. No. In her four-walled cubicle. Well, ya, it is the same as an island.

***

Upon completing the history course with (high) honors during her first year at the university,[4] she had decided to work not towards the development of her memory, but the contrary. Enemies live inside memory. She was obsessed with making sure that historical events, dates, and people’s names would occupy the memory she was saving with care, for words. It was necessary to remember everything only temporarily. To learn; then completely forget it. She was reading the books of her favorite authors in this way. What is read must be forgotten immediately, so that one can write it again using different words.[5] Thus, memory was constantly being subjected to a violent unloading. She had perfected this technique to the point that she had the power to completely forget the next day whatever happened to her the day before. That emptied space emerging in her memory was a carefully opened space meant for words. It was necessary to forget everything in order to allow for the possibility of re-writing in words. So, she was forced to learn how to forget to build another memory of reality.

7

She does not remember section seven of the text.

8

(she cannot remember the word) she had gotten to a place where the game had the pretense of turning into reality. She had the feeling it was no longer herself synthesizing the textures of words; now they were forcing her to adjust to their syntheses. She failed to find any principle at the basis of syntheses. They were arbitrary. Once a seemingly magical skill had now been put into work like an engine and operated ceaselessly. In the past — to influence reality — she would shut herself in for days to find the unique syntheses of words. Now, in a second, words were arbitrarily lining up next to each other without any necessity for synthesis.

9

The obsession of forgetting everything

Snip

The nostalgia for the word

Snip

glades ruptures empty places

Snip

Naught and light muddy foamy light weightless naught and light

10

The ability to realize the world with words had reached its limits over the winter. The obsession of leaving stories unfinished, in order to complete them in words, had recoiled. Instead, she had begun to feel satisfied in making stories of invented events. Words had established their total sovereignty. (she cannot not remember the word) there was no need to undertake anything. The mere telling of any story was enough. In the same way, after two bottles of beer, she had told her boyfriend she intends to leave her studies unfinished. It was enough that she had explained her intention in words. (she cannot remember the word) when she said it, she had already left her studies unfinished. Without closing her eyes, she had said it out loud: “I have an intention to leave my studies unfinished.” And her studies had been discontinued. On Monday, wearing the shoes he gave her as a gift, she had gone to class assured that her studies had been left unfinished.

***

Words, like horses, had revolted on their hind legs, refusing to continue reality and to edit real stories. They had the ability to replace reality. It is not as if the world was finding continuity in dictionaries; the world was beginning and ending exclusively in dictionaries.

P.S. The above text has been made of 1,821 intervals and of the arbitrary synthesis of 1,844 arbitrary words, including the postscript.

A work of translation is finished, and yet it never really feels complete. Just like in the story below, nothing is complete or whole. Words occupy the space to transform an idea into a linguistic reality. Translation never feels complete. There could always be “other words” to re-create one linguistic reality in the space of another language. While the speaker of this story ponders the nature of the connection between language and reality, the translator works exclusively in the realm of a form of linguistic reality, transferring one linguistic texture into another, while never treating the transferred material as mere “information.” In other words . . .

In other words, to translate is to delve into the infinite possibilities of being. Similar to writing, the translation brings the awareness that there is no one way of putting a sentence together or of translating a phrase, since the possibilities are infinite — a process which could bring the translator to a deadlock, succumbing to language that behaves like a nomad, never wanting to settle down. This infinite possibility of translation, then, invites the translator to be open and welcoming in spite of the risk of being carried away by them. There is also an impasse: with too many paths to take, one is petrified and unable to move. For we know language is flesh without bones, as the Armenian saying goes, լեզուն ոսկոր չունի: it is flexible, plastic, and malleable.

The puzzle of a translated text is complete, the last piece is in its place, and yet the translated work as a whole is not perceived as finished. It is never complete. However, in translation something is also gained. Just like Asatryan’s story reflects, unwritten time is, in a way, wasted time; the reality, which has not been turned into a linguistic texture, is not really “real.” Through translation, the text gains another linguistic reality; and, though different from the original, the translated text extends its existence. Because the imagination of both the text and the translator comes into play, the translator seems to have drawn limits to the infinite, to settle meaning that behaves like a nomad, while always engaged in a process of (re)creation through the exercise of the imagination.

The translation of this piece has afforded me, as the translator, the quite useful exercise of contemplating the way we treat language — a language we assume we “know” that still remains foreign. It is this critical positionality afforded by translation that allows for the exposure of what can easily go unnoticed in a language that remains native and foreign at the same time.

Narine Jallatyan

1. Word — Phantasm (Modern Armenian Expository Dictionary, Edward Aghayan, “Armenia,” Yerevan, 1976).
2. In school her name was Helen Smith. She had lost her memory: how old she was then or what year she started school. But if her name was Helen Smith at that time, then she must have been born in 1861. Therefore, it was in the 1870s that she went to school.
3. Memories: materials that carry genetically foreign information for the organism and generate a specific immune response upon entering the organism through antibodies and t-lymphocytes. “Memories” are all those materials which when entering the organism are recognized by the immune system as foreign and induce the formation of an immune response.
4. In university, her name was Helen Keller. She had lost her memory: how old she was then or what year she started the university. But if her name was Helen Keller at that time, then she must have been born in 1880. Therefore, it was in the 1900s that she was a university student.
5. 5 One writes: “Sometimes, the author writes with a fixed program conceived in advance, attempting to find solution to the question she put forth and to develop the storyline when, suddenly, she departs from the route. Probably, a fresh thought, or another image, or a whole new subplot has come to her mind. If you ask what conditioned this digression, she will not be able to answer. It can be that she did not even notice the change, even though she is now producing a completely fresh material, and, apparently, previously unknown to her. However, at times it is possible to show convincingly that what she has written resembles, in obvious ways, the work of another author; a work she thinks she has never even seen.