Pataphysical Essays (Imagining Science, 4)

This text is as original as it sounds. Pataphysics lives! The methods employed might be complex, but you get the end result, an elaborately permutative, intricate, fascinating and surprising narrative of different dimensions of contrarian thinking, involving concepts in some ways more complex and qualified than philosophy, logic, linguistics, (mathematics?)... etc. I was surprised at how this text was both accessible and unaccessible. However, given the complexities of pataphysics as I have read about it, that is not surprising. They are known to use mathematics, and numerous obscure rules to arrive at a unique type of literature. I still don't know if this writer was the only one to use this precise method, or if perhaps there were many imitators? However, the text virtually glows with intelligence, and I found myself immediately afterwards thinking of criticisms of pataphysics that the author himself clearly already thought of---pataphysics as represented here is highly conscious and linguistically conscientious. It is not dirty writing. And it shows. My critique of pataphysics is the following: "1. It could be more meaningful than average (a relativistic defense), 2. It could really offer a majority share of significance, 3. It could be that criticism is unnecessary, 4. It could be that it is saying nothing, in which case a critique looks foolish, and if it weren’t saying nothing there would be no reason for my specific criticisms." ----The Dimensional Exceptionist's Toolkit (as-yet unpublished). Basically, it's obvious that the text anticipates the criticism, and this criticism is a near-perfect response, as far as English goes. If you read the text, you'll get the idea.

Ascending the stairs of the great Basilica we passed a long file of visitors descending whose lives had obviously been wrecked by the experience, I was thankful I had worn a well ventilated pair of my goatskin caubeens.Stepping onto the observation platform my companion lit his dudeen and we complacently noted the manicured lawns stretching away to the Long Tom as it meandered through the great cabbage fields of Monroe. In the far west we could easily and without haste identify the glimmering lights of Horton and the great bushy triangle so beloved of Sir Les and because of which the taxi driver turned to ask if she had anything smaller. They don't write them like that anymore!

This is an amusing collection of nonsense writing written in the style of stiff academic science papers. It's amusing in small doses, but there isn't any larger pattern of theme or cohesion I can detect, so it loses novelty pretty quickly. There are some bits the have neat imagery and novel ideas, but mostly it's just fictional jargon thrown together without any particular cohesion or thought.

This is one of the greatest books in the English language (translated from the French): Beautiful, absurd, hilarious. Life itself is better with a large helping of the the funny absurd.

Alfred Jarry's, or rather his creations', Father Ubu's and Doctor Faustroll's science of exceptions and imaginary solutions has in René Daumal's version got a twist of the occult, which is rather the opposite of Jarry's idea – but of course all opposites are equal in pataphysics. But if you choose to disregard this small exception Daumal's essays are quite enjoyable. His humour, irony and general lucidity carries over the occasional gaps of occultism. And his views on contemporary sciences quite refreshing.

Absurd as any Pataphysical meditation should be, Dumal spells and purposefully misspells the anti-establishment roots of a field whose presence is a necessity in as much as a court requires a jester.