I’m suddenly fascinated with French novelist Marie Darrieussecq, not just for her work but also because of her unique approach to the writing process. In a recent talk for the Frieze Foundation (available as a free download for anyone interested), she borrowed ideas from biology, philosophy, anthropology, and astrophysics, among other seemingly unrelated disciplines, to explain the writer’s place on and in relation to the planet. While writing, she strives to achieve a state of absence in both mind and body so as to become purely a part of the earth and its processes. She says, “the earth writes through me…I really sound like a crazy person.”

Almost. But as artists, isn’t that what we do–drive ourselves crazy with our own thoughts? What so intrigued me about Darrieussecq was her extreme emphasis on awareness. She considers everything from the activities at the molecular level to the shape of the moon. They’re the sort of thoughts that tend to make a person feel very insignificant in the scheme of things. But I suppose that’s the point. Darrieussecq notes that we tend to forget we humans are merely animals, only exceptional in that we’ve reached a state of civilization wherein we have no more predators. However, she says, “in our archaic mind we are still those people in caves to escape the bears, and I also write not about that, but with that.” Word.

Darrieussecq also read from her short story “Ghost Flat (A Modern Couple),” a metaphysical and existential work which I enjoyed enormously and transcribed for you, below. She wrote the story at the request of two architects, Décosterd and Rahm, based on the “ghost apartment” they invented, an interesting space-efficient architectural design you can read more about here. The short story was published about a decade ago in Japan, and apparently isn’t available anywhere (that, or Google has failed me). After the jump, a transcript of Darrieussecq’s reading of “Ghost Flat (A Modern Couple).”

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David and Goliath--the original underdog?

There is something distinctly magical about the idea of the “underdog.” Seemingly present in most–if not all–fiction, the underdog is only too easy to identify with. Who hasn’t felt that the world is against us, our problems are too great, our skills are too inadequate? What ultimately happens to this character becomes tantamount to our own abilities to succeed, or to fail. The need to read on, to learn how the underdog will summon his strength and overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds, consumes us.

As the saying goes, everyone loves an underdog.

But I wonder if this intense bond we tend to form with our beloved underdog stems not from simple empathy, but from some more primeval source. I recently was reading a copy of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Blood Rites, an interesting analysis of the origins of war and ritual sacrifice, which despite its subject matter provided some insight as to why we crave fiction and how, like ritual sacrifice, it might satisfy an unconscious, primitive hunger we all share. Read more »