Here's a book that's a curious combination of subject matter – procrastination and television - signature Jean-Philippe Tourssaint with his idea of mobilizing the novel as a cultural form by what he terms an “intimate exchange."
The narrator of Television, a man I’ll call Hugo, announces on the very first page he quit watching television, once and for all, not only shows but also sports.
We’re in Berlin, following our forty-year-old scholar on sabbatical as he sets out to write a work on Titian with a specific focus: the relationship of art to politics as illuminated by a documented historical incident: Emperor Charles V bending down to pick up a paintbrush the maestro dropped when Charles V entered his studio.
Alas, there’s a small problem: Hugo is in a writer’s funk – he can’t progress beyond the first two words. As I turned the pages of Television, two quotes about procrastination popped into my mind: “To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.“ and “You cannot plow a field by turning it over in your mind.”
What Hugo can do is engage in miscellaneous activities to fill his time, things like watering his upstairs neighbors' plants, swimming nude at a Berlin park, join a friend for dinner, join that same friend on an airplane ride over Berlin – and reflect on what it means for an entire society to be flooded by the omnipresent reality of TV. And he has plenty of time on his hands since his pregnant wife and five-year-old son are off to Italy for vacation.
Yet again another reason Television is a curious read: the exact sequence of unfolding events leading up to the return of Hugo's family to Berlin does not appear to have much weight; in other words, rearrange the occurrences and nothing much would change - postmodern leveling in action.
What does make the novel a captivating read are the glimmerings contained within each scene - usually tinged with the humor, irony and absurdity that go along with modern living. As by way of example, in no particular order, here's a bunch I count among my favorites:
Boob Tube, One - “However reluctant I was to admit it, there was no getting around the fact that, ever since I’d gradually begun to turn forty years old, I was no longer physically up to five sets of tennis.” Oddly enough, Hugo is referring not to actually playing five sets of tennis but watching five sets of tennis on television. For me, a memorable instance of Jean-Philippe wry humor.
He goes on to admit over the years his TV watching became an addiction - he'd simply settle in to watch any show, any news, any documentary, any discussion: scholar as ultimate coach potato. “I was debasing myself in these long sessions before the screen, unable to drop the remote, mechanically and frenetically changing channels in a quest for sordid and immediate pleasures, swept up in that vain inertia, that insatiable spiral, searching for ever more vileness, still more sadness.” Oh, no! Even worse than a coach potato, Hugo the scholar, art historian and refined aesthete admits his TV watching has reduced him to a voyeur chasing his next hit of violence and anguish as if a jaded Roman spectator at the Colosseum.
Water Can Man - Uwe and Inge, the couple in the upstairs apartment, ask Hugo to tend to their plants while they're away on summer vacation. They lead Hugo from room to room, offering precise instruction on what is to be done, introducing Hugo to each plant in turn, Inge notifying the plants in German that Hugo will be looking after them, to which our art historian remarks to himself that he's always a little surprised to meet a plant that speaks German.
On one trip up the stairs in his pajamas, watering can in hand, Hugo encounters a odd looking chap tiptoeing down the steps hauling a gym bag filled with stereo parts and silverware. He wonders if he's witnessing a burglary. Several minutes later, peering down from the balcony, he sees the same chap and a woman loading the gym bag in a van and overhears their conversation about a bald guy in pajamas carrying a watering can. Both are laughing so hard they nearly topple to the ground. If you're looking for a little drama in the novel, this scene might qualify as the most dramatic.
Boob Tube, Two - “When artists represent reality, they do so in order to take in the outside world and grasp its essence, while television, if it represents reality, does so in and of itself, unintentionally you might say, through sheer technical determinism, or incontinence.” Thanks, Hugo! If you can't write, you can at least luxuriate in a bit of philosophizing.
A painting is “by its nature fundamentally different from the illusion offered by television when it represents reality, the purely mechanical result of an uninhibited technology.” Echoes of Walter Benjamin's famous essay on the elimination of that special aura surrounding works of art when a society is bombarded by reproductions via photography and such gizmos as TV.
Keeping on topic, my own observation: there are works of art retaining their full aura even in our highly technological 21st century: novels! I suspect Jean-Philippe is making this point in his own sly way.
Gift From The Gods - Late one evening, all the lights out in his apartment, Hugo stands at his window and beholds a vision of beauty - a young woman, a student he's seen in the neighborhood, is stark naked in her fourth floor apartment across the street. This vision of svelte loveliness prompts Hugo to recall the nudes from German Renaissance painters such as Lucas Cranach the Elder. A single instance among many: even with all the television, Hugo likens what he sees around him to great paintings - most refreshing for a reader.
Boob Tube, Three - There are numerous additional ruminations revolving around television viewing: never ask people directly about their TV watching as nobody wants to admit how many hours they spend in front of the idiot box; unlike CDs or books, never ask if you can borrow someone's TV; the debasement of life via TV, as when an American reporter stuck a microphone in front of a young man who just committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. "Why did you do it?" The young man "feebly raising his hand heavenward in the manner of both Plato's august pose in The School of Athens and the more enigmatic gesture of Leonardo da Vinci's Saint John the Baptist, painfully extended the middle finger of his right hand toward the camera and murmured "Fuck you."
Amusing Conversation - While standing nude on a lawn in Halensee Park, Hugo is introduced to Cees Nooteboom by the gent who provided him the grant money for his Titian project in the first place (both men are completely dressed). When Hugo is asked if he would like to join them for lunch, he answers he can't since he has work to do. Ha! I'm sure you do, Hugo.
Thank you, Dalkey Archive Press. In addition to a fine English translation by Jordan Stump, there's an Afterword authored by Warren Motte offering insights into Jean-Philippe Toussaint's literary aesthetic. Count me in as a new fan - a number of the Belgian author's other novels are up for reading and reviewing.
Belgian novelist Jean-Philippe Toussaint, born 1957
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