because a
point… the central point, I mean, the one right in the middle of all the points
you see… it’s a geometric point; you can’t see it because it has no dimension,
and if something has no dimension, it can’t move, not right or left, not up or
down. So it doesn’t rotate with the earth. You understand? It can’t even rotate
around itself. There is no ‘itself.’
Umberto Eco, Foucault’sPendulum
The perceived rotation of the plane in which the pendulum (built by
Leon Foucault in 1851) oscillates depends (non-linearly) on its orientation on
the ground with respect to either of the poles and equator (Aczel 5, 103). Speed,
therefore, as a reliable constant that emerges from the perceived “rotation” of
the pendulum within a uniform system, does not exist, but rather undergoes
continuous slippage as the ground upon which the pendulum stands “shifts.”[1]
This compromised solidity of ground is analogous to the semantic instability posited
by proponents of deconstruction, in which meaning continually evades the grip of
the sign. Having historically vindicated reader-response theory with his ideas on the openness of the text, declaring any form of reading “a dialectic between the rights of texts and the rights of their interpreters,” Umberto Eco has since developed a more conservative stance in an attempt to curb the unbridled meaning-making inspired by deconstructionist approaches to interpretation (“Reading” 820). While he continues to advocate the capacity of a text to support an infinitude of meanings, he remains adamant that the “text is a place where the irreducible polysemy of symbols is in fact reduced because in a text symbols are anchored to their contexts” (Limits of Interpretation 21). In light of this apparent contradiction, it might be beneficial to become acquainted with the precise circumstances under which such antinomy might be allowed to exist. One might wish, as Frederic Jameson did, “to distinguish between the [construction] of this particular inconsistency as a contradiction and its formulation in terms of an antinomy” (166). To this end, one might also consider that the schematic of the pendulum (appropriated as an analogue to the interpretative problem) both replicates and elucidates the antinomy represented in Eco’s ideas concerning the text.
According to Derrida, word (as signs) can be used in particular
contexts only because they belong to an order of ideal objects of meaning that
allow for the translatability of each word from one context to the next. The
concepts that underlie words are always
already existent because they lack any origin within an utterance—or,
indeed, within language itself—that would allow them to be tethered to any
context. The signifiers that govern the semantic field of an utterance, then, adopt
a position of universal transcendence with regard to all the possible particular contexts in which they could
be used. When reading Foucault’s
Pendulum, it is impossible to a position within one of the innumerable contexts posited by the
text—essentially playing along with the characters. It becomes difficult not to
read this critifictional text as an example of unbridled deconstruction
(Bouchard 497), the kind that allows the “play of signification” to eclipse the
value of context—of history as context and the unseen origin that is never in
need of reconstruction for deconstruction has not touched it, but nevertheless
grounds the present. Ideas advanced by Eco and Jameson support this. Eco, as
noted above, believes that context functions as a limiting factor for the play
of the sign (Limits of Interpretation 21),
yet if one appropriates the ideas found in Frederic Jameson’s The Political Unconscious, history
becomes the very instantiation of context within a culture (66). The
diabolicals (Belbo, Casaubon and Diotavelli) run into trouble precisely because
their intention is to reconstruct history using a found text whose ground is
itself the historical context that brought it into being. The play of
significations found in that text must be grounded by a history that is, like
the point from which the pendulum is suspended, motionless relative to the
list’s protean field of signification. This position forces the reader to see
the text and all its antics as a critique of extreme deconstruction and even of
itself. It allows readers to see the text as self-voiding in its tendency to
“speak with an awareness of the emptiness of what [it says]” (Colebrook 4) and
would make the novel, in the spirit of Rorty, an elaborate joke on the
absurdity of language in general (14) and the necessity have one’s wits about
when dealing with its play.
The opening chapters of the novel describe events that occur
chronologically near the end of the tale. Foucault’sPendulum actually opens at the beginning of the end, where the stage is set
for the final scene and all has already taken place. It is at this alpha-omega
point of the novel that the pendulum is described. Casaubon, the narrator,
invokes its creator: “In the beginning he created a point, which became
Thought, where all the figures were drawn. He was and was not, he was
encompassed in the name and yet not encompassed in the name, having as yet no
name other than the desire to be called by a name… (18). The gesture toward the
voided signifier of deconstruction cannot be ignored. This original point—the
creator—whose existence and non-existence are one perpetually seeks a name that
cannot be affixed to it. Casaubon continues with his description of this
demiurge, noting that he “traced signs in the air” and exuded a “dark light […]
that gives form to formlessness” (18). The use of the verb “trace” as the means
of constructing the ephemeral signs (in the air) is no coincidence, as Derrida
has denoted the trace as that absence, after the sign (being) has been
evacuated, that presents itself as evidence of its former existence in that
place. This obvious gesture toward deconstruction culminates in a burst of fire
that becomes a center, but the “burst” alludes also to a bang that, like the
universe, is a center spread through everything that exists. It is a dissipated
center, a decentered system like the one described in Derrida’s essay on
structure, sign and play (196), and which undermines the very system that
deconstruction itself is.
Reference to this center, the missing Derridean origin, is also
made in the epigraph above taken from the text. At one point, the narrator even
calls it the center of the universe “a pivot, bolt, or hook around which the
universe could move” (5). This circumstance uncovers a measure of irony within
the text that actually allows it to support a Derridean perspective, though
only to a certain extent. The center is described as a “bolt,” in terms related
to fixing and grounding, yet at the same time using phrases such as “there is
no ‘itself’” that support the above establishment of the center as nothing.
Further contradiction is apparent in Casaubon’s analysis of reason
using the Belbo’s epistemological position as his material. Following hard upon
his conviction apparent in his statement, “In that instant I was convinced that
Jacopo Belbo was right” (6), he makes another statement that obliquely
undermines the first. He says, “Jacopo Belbo was reasonably right; Reason was
wrong” (15). Here one is found in the presence of contradiction on several
levels. The phrase “reasonably right” displays oxymoronic qualities. The word
“reasonably” is polysemic here: one interpretation denotes it as “to a certain
extent,”—and the corollary to being right to a certain extent is being wrong
the rest of the way. Another interpretation designates it as locating Belbo’s
position “within reason.” Yet the antinomy induced by the opposing proposition
obtains because if Belbo is right within reason, but Reason is wrong… then
Belbo is wrong. The sentence is constructed as though Belbo were in opposition
with reason while being at the same time located within it. In fact, the
construction of this anemic syllogism requires much more interrogation. For if
one were to bring to bear a bit of pressure upon the utterance, it becomes
clear that Belbo actually resides squarely outside of reason. Although if the
two statements are premises, the premise number two is somehow involves the
first premise in itself, negating it, and making it impossible to extract a
coherent conclusion from the syllogism. All that can be deduced is that he
discovers rightness within wrongness, ground within groundlessness. But even as
one finds it difficult to reconcile these polarized concepts, but it is
possible to connect the paradox to another idea identified in Eco’s theoretical
work Limits of Interpretation in
which it is possible to find simultaneous support for limited and infinite
interpretations of a text. Comparing this position to Georg Cantor’s
postulation of degrees of infinity, such a limited infinity would represent a
lower order of infinity (Rucker).
In his determination to seek
reason, Casaubon and his friends invent maneuvers that side-step reason
entirely. An illustration of this is his response to a piece in the museum in
which Belbo meets his death. Casaubon notes that “The apparent reason for this
piece was its medium, that it was made entirely of glass; but there had to be a
deeper reason” (15). Despite the fact that he can see right through it—all its
furnishings and functionalities are apparent, they are for him merely hidden in
plain view, for he refuses to see reason. Searching for something that is
clearly not there, he performs the ridiculous act of searching past reason for
reason. This might be connected with the earlier image of the sign that
disappears under the deconstructive gaze. Signification is allowed infinite
play because the deconstructionist searches past the obvious, the context that
is at hand, granting the concept too much power. One detects the voice of Eco
himself in a warning that slips inadvertently from the mouth of the
over-interpreting narrator. He says, “If you don’t stop, the word swallows
itself as well, fattening on its own absence like a Cheshire-cat black hole”
(26-7). The narrator comments on the delete and retrieve buttons on the
computer that contains Belbo’s record of the Plan. The plan has already
devoured the “irreparable” blankness of the page and now threatens to do the
same to itself. Thoughts are generated and then disintegrated—like the many
many “plans.”
The reader can him-/herself very easily become implicated in this
groundlessness—even in the very act of wondering what the text might mean.
Questions proliferate. One question arises, Why irreparable? Then more follow. What’s
irreparable about the space (on the screen) the words eat and the space in
history the numerous “plans” swallow? Does this refer to an irreparable,
indelible past, in which something has gone wrong that can no longer go right?
Is that why the words (plans) are in danger of swallowing themselves? Is that
why Belbo and Diotavelli die? If the reader tries to perform an interpretive
act within a groundless context, his/her ideas too will be groundless. The reader
may be lost in excessive interpretation before finding out that it is necessary
to respect the ground of the context in order for his/her own interpretations
to have purchase within the system.
Returning to Casaubon, one finds that as he stares at the computer
and recollects all the facts and frivolities of the past, he tries (perhaps too
late) to locate ground. It seems as if he wants to identify the context of his
inquiry and be grounded by that. He writes, “The only thing you can rely on at
a time like this is the laundry list. Stick to the facts, causes, effects”
(17). He want to stick to the facts, but he does so by recreating the facts. Recalling
Jameson, it becomes apparent that history is context, and context grounds text
(66). He therefore gets destabilized again by the very fact that he desires to
recreate context—it is history he attempts to recreate as the context of his
events. Yet in order to have ground, the context should already have existed.
Casaubon seeks the principle, the ground—the concreteness of the “fact,” but
only to use it to recreate itself—and he is lost again. All the versions of the
plan contain “fact”—but the overwhelming desire to ignore the facts that are
actually lost—to bridge the unbridgeable gaps is the imperative to use the
facts to replace the lost parts of history therefore recreating history (the contextual ground of all those facts),
and fact gives way to fiction, ground to groundlessness, again. This intensely
paradoxical desire is instantiated in the word-processing job he concocts for
the computer Abulafia. It is a cybernetic (looping) code that, when one
deciphers it, one finds that s/he has uncovered nothing not already known, a
code that merely uncovers its own principle of being (Porish 537). Casaubon reads
the code on Belbo’s computer screen: “Abu, do another thing now: Belbo orders
Abu to change all words, make each ‘a’ become ‘akka’ and each ‘o’ become
‘ulla,’ for a paragraph” (24). This description of the code is what the code is
used to encode, so that the deciphering of the code is one with the discovery
of the principle that governs the code.
The unstable nature of Casaubon’s
position—and by extension that of the rest of the characters and the book
itself—is further exemplified in the proliferation of “reasons”—where reason
equals ground—until the primacy of none can be recognized. He utters,
aimlessly, “I am here for this reason, and also for this reason and this…” and
in this utterance proves the futility of his attempts to reconstruct the past
(17). According to David Green, an infinite amount of information is necessary
to reconstruct the past, and this contributes to the irreversibility of
time-dependent processes such as evolution (334). And this is demonstrated by
the sheer amount of information the diabolicals come up with they show the
infinite ways that the past could have gone! Casaubon, therefore, identifies multiple
reasons and historical pathways because deterministic processes can also be
unpredictable (Emmeche 101). Many different chains of events can lead to the
same outcome, and there is no knowing which causes lead to which effects until
after one has been granted a diachronic view of the historical situation. Plus
several causes might be interacting in not a linear but a rhizomal or web-like
process.
Foucault’s
Pendulum has received a variety of interpretations based on post-structuralist,
feminist, and especially paranoid readings. However, it is particularly the concept of paranoid or over-interpretation
(by far the most prominent of ideas reflected in the critical analyses
performed on Foucault’s Pendulum)
that invites comparison between the pendulum itself and the multiplicity of
interpretations provided by the characters of the novel. The commonalities
between text and pendulum lie along the edges where infinities are reigned in
by context and common sense. Eco, in “Reading My Readers,” identifies certain
critical interpretations of his novel that remain within the locus of
possibility as dictated by the context of his work (822). He also proposes
alternate interpretations that, while proving to be in disagreement with some
of the ideas posed by his readers, remain complementary to them because they
are also supported by the text (824). These never-ending interpretative
possibilities that lie within the context of the work might be compared to the
rotation speed of the pendulum’s plane of oscillation, which travels a
continuous (though non-linear) path between (1) the 24 hours it takes the plane
of oscillation to return to its starting point at the poles and (2) the
infinitude of time (characterized by the non-motion of the plane) it takes to
return to its starting point when positioned at the equator. Technically,
therefore, an infinite number of values[2]
are possible for the pendulum’s speed of rotation to take.
Yet Eco also identifies interpretational outliers: those readers
who have proposed meanings so extraneous to the ideas of the text that they
represent precisely the sort of paranoid readings proliferated by the
diabolicals who create the infamous “Plan” of Foucault’s Pendulum. One of these readers, Eco relates, “confessed
that, corrupted by the habits of my characters, he intentionally went fishing
for ultraviolet analogies” (“Reading” 824). Eco’s use of the term “ultraviolet”
highlights the location of this reader’s interpretation outside the boundaries of the text. This outlandish interpretation
can be compared the behavior of the pendulum at the boundaries of its own
context, as the equations that govern it also generate extraneous behaviors at
these points, behaviors that must be brought into perspective by relating it
back to its context on earth. For example, the time range for the pendulum’s
plane of oscillation to rotate through 360 degrees ranges from 24 hours to
“infinity.”[3] Yet this
infinity is tamed when context and common sense lead interpreters to the
following conclusion: the pendulum takes forever to rotate through 360 degrees
because it does not rotate at all.
These infinities lie at the edge of the pendulum’s context—at the
equator, widest rim of the world—and threaten to skitter off the globe entirely.
But just as the mathematician must relate his values back to the context of the
earth, so must readers continually find ground for their interpretation in the
context of the novel itself. For, Eco warns, “to say ‘the text is there’” in
answer to the question of whom/what to consult for interpretations “does not
necessarily mean ‘do with it what you will’” (820). Thus Jameson’s
historicizing charge might be modified to the following: Always contextualize! Further
comparison between the unstable ground (the rotating earth) of the movable
pendulum and the (un)founded nature of interpretations posited by the actual
characters of the text will grant additional support to Eco’s thesis as it
demands careful attention to context and the role it plays in limiting textual
interpretations to the lower orders of infinity.
Works Cited
Aczel, Amir. Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph
of Science. New York: Atria Books, 2003.
Bouchard, Norma. “‘Critifictional’ Epistemes in
Contemporary Literature: The Case of Foucault’s Pendulum.” Comparative Literature
Studies. Vol. 32, No. 4. (1995). 497-513.
Colebrook, Claire. Irony in the Work of Philosophy.
Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 2002.
Derrida, Jacques. “Structure,
Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” Modern Literary Theory. Philip
Rice & Patricia Waugh (Eds.). New York: Hodder-Arnold, 2001.
Eco, Umberto. Foucault’s Pendulum. 1989. New York:
Harvest-Harcourt, 2007.
---. "Reading My Readers." Contemporary
Literature. Vol. 107, No. 5. (Dec. 1992). 819-827
Emmeche, Claus, Simo Koppe &
Frederik Stjernfelt. “Explaining Emergence: Towards and Ontology of Levels” Journal
for General Philosophy of Science. Vol. 28, No. 1. (1997). 83-119.
Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious. Ithaca:
Cornell UP, 1981.
Porish, David. "Hacking the
Brainstem: Postmodern Metaphysics and Stephenson's SnowCrash." Configurations. Vol. 2. No. 3. (Fall
1994). 537-571.
[1] Or, which
amounts to the same thing, as the pendulum is moved from place to place on the
earth.
[2] This
infinity of values corresponds both to the (mathematical) infinity of points
between the poles and the equator, as well as to the infinity of values between
the pendulum’s speed at the pole and its total lack of motion at the equator.
The speed at the pole would be the same as the earth’s angular speed, which is
approximately 7.2921159 x 10-5 radians per second. The range
would therefore be between zero (0) and 7.2921159 x 10-5, and the
pendulum’s speed could in theory take any value in between this, regardless of
the length of the string of decimals contained within any fractions the value
might contain.
[3] It is
important not to get the revolution time confused with the speed, though both
depend on each other. The time it takes the pendulum’s plane of oscillation to
make a revolution at the poles is 24 hours—a finite amount of time because the
plane is rotating at a definite speed (7.2921159 x 10-5 radians) in
relation to the earth. The time it takes the plane of oscillation to make a
complete turn at the equator, however, is infinite, and this is because at that
point the pendulum’s plane of oscillation is not rotating at all relative to
the earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment