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THE RITUAL KILLINGS OF
THE LANGUAGE By
Alek Popov In
his essay “Non Radical Manifesto” my friend and eminent literary critic
Alexander Kiossev tells the story of a Bulgarian
author who decided to switch his native language and started writing in
English. He describes with a great deal of dramatism
his efforts. How hard he struggled to eradicate every trace of his mother
tongue and to master the sounding of a foreign chef-d’oeuvre, to capture its
mechanism. For this noble purpose he spent endless hours listening to the
audio books of great English novels. The
story invokes in my mind a strange image that is comic, tragic and deeply
mythological all at the same time. I see the restless writer jogging in the
alleys of Is
the exit of your native language a rational choice? In
case of Bulgarian the obvious facts are that it is spoken by relatively small
number of people, that the reading public is far not enough to sustain the
financial independence of the local authors except for a very few, that the
translators from Bulgarian are scarce and they can hardly find publishers for
their endeavors. Yes, from a market point of view writing in Bulgarian is not
the most lucrative strategy. But the same is relevant for every language
spoken by less than 50 million people. Actually if we calculate properly we
should all write only in English and in close future – in Chinese. Still
writing has never been very rational undertaking. Authors
of course tend to devise various tricks to reach the broadest possible
audience. The change of language platforms could be viewed as a tactical move
in such a direction. However, given the experience the simple fact that you
have aspired to a big language does not make you automatically a big writer. If
we paraphrase the famous verse of Marina Tzvetaeva
we may say: “There
is no difference in what language nobody reads me…” In
fact leaving the native language is an act charged with a great deal of
emotion, anger and symbolism rather than a cool rational choice. The process
of learning the native language is often described in methophoric
terms. There is a common notion that children somehow suck it like the milk
of their mother. That is why we probably call it “mother tongue”. However
this metaphor refers only to the first stage of learning. Afterwards the
“sucked” material should be organized and disciplined. Here is the moment
when the father’s figure comes forth. The real holder of the language who is
ordained to transform the liquid primitive substance into Word through a
system of rigid paradigms. And for this reason we often describe language not
only as “mother tongue” but also as “our ancestors’ speech”. Just have a look
at the barbed faces in the pantheon of the grammar founders. Literature
as the highest possible organization of the language is by default subject of
father’s authority. And word of course could be perceived as the unlimited
hunting ground of the phallus, where he performs under the disguise of such
immanent writing tools as quilt, pen, pencil etc. Literature
gets its dynamic through controversies and fights between generations.
However, to quit the native language as a creative tool is something more
than the usual rising against the patriarchal institution of the word. This
is an outright attempt to annihilate it –a ritual father killing under the
influence of a strong mixture of anger, shame and deep sense of helplessness
and despair. Because the fathers have failed their general duty to provide a
meaningful cultural tradition. Their works are not worthy enough; they appear
derivative, culturally deficient and backward and most importantly the world
does not give a shit about them. The humiliation to write in such context
seems unbearable, but what can one do? Almost nothing… The revolution is no
longer an option. The situation reflects somehow the spoiled national
project. The spoiled social project. The spoiled Transition. Both
the mother’s tongue and the father’s speech are totally fucked up. |