He was visiting Jerusalem when he was asked to write about Paris. He looked at the Ring Neighborhoods from the British War Cemetery in Mount Scopus. (Neve Yaakov. French Hill. Shuafat.) He thought about the Parisian suburbs. (Dionysiens. Bobigny. Sarcelles.) He thought about how Jerusalem is divided. How the arrondissements are divided. How everything is divided. He then thought about division, abstractly. (Meiosis. Algebraic number theory.) He thought about how nobody gets along with anyone else. Francophone Africa in Rue Saint-Denis. Bourgeoisie in Arrondissement de Passy. (Burqa. Chanel.) He thought about the Old City quarters. (Armenian. Muslim. Jewish. Christian.) He thought about how writing about Paris is a cliché, how writing about Jerusalem is a cliché, and then he thought about clichés, in general. (The mere phonological encoding of the word “cliché” is a cliché.) He thought about people suffering from a Jerusalem syndrome, a Paris syndrome, some syndrome. (Not Napoléon syndrome.) He then thought about suffering, in general. (Slavery. Cancer. Existential.) He thought about how Jerusalem was used symbolically for the Unattainable by exiles. (Leopold Bloom. Raskolnikov.) How he is an exile from all: Paris, Jerusalem, pick a city. (Pick a city.) He thought about his father, he thought about his father’s father, and then he thought about fathers, in general. (Biological. Christ. Freud. A cliché.) A cliché: Jew. Exile. Fathers. Paris. He thought that he is obscuring using irony and self-reflection. (Cerebral. Conceited. Low.) He thought that he is using a literary device in order to hide. He thought that it must be the pintele yid. (It haunts. It’s relentless. It’s Yiddish.) He thought, and then he thought about thought, in general. (Epistemology. Theology. Semiotics.) He thought about how he could have believed that he visited the British War Cemetery in Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, when he was asked to write about Paris. He thought about the likelihood. He thought about chronology. He thought about narrative interest. He thought about how it is absurd, and then he thought about absurdity, pointlessly. (Sisyphus. Oedipus.) He thought that he must be confabulating. (Amygdala. Hippocampus.) He thought about parentheses. (( )) He thought about square brackets. ([ ]) He thought about punctuation, he thought about grammar, and then he thought about syntax, formally. (Phonology. Prosody. E. E. Cummings.) He thought about how in any story someone or something must change. He thought about how he cannot change, how Paris cannot change, how Jerusalem cannot change, how nothing ever changes. (Ecclesiastes.) He thought about how to end the story, and then he thought about endings, conclusively. (Death.) He then thought about death. (Death.) He thought that he needs to have an epiphany. (Archimedean. Cathartic. Snow falling. Faintly falling.) He then thought about a deus ex machina. (Hope.)
Putain de Sa Race
