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When Robinson Crusoe tries to convey what it felt like to be the sole survivor of a shipwreck, he finds himself at almost as much of a loss now, in the telling, as he was then, gloomily pacing the shoreline of an uncharted and to all appearances inhospitable island; until, that is, objects come to his rescue.
He cannot describe the ‘thousand gestures and motions’ he made, in his moment of crisis, without any hope of a response. Whatever form they took, the gestures and motions were, he thinks, an expression of despair, on his own behalf, and of sorrow on behalf of his dead comrades: ‘For, as for them, I never saw them afterwards, or any sign of them, except three of their hats, one cap, and two shoes that were not fellows.’
Narrative keeps fresh the capacity for memory and desire which, in turn, freshens narrative. What is kept fresh by the description of bits and pieces of clothing, or kept sour by it, is something else again: melancholy, perhaps. The hats, the cap and the shoes are not there for anyone. They don’t ask to be inspected. It matters little whom they appear to, and there is no sense to be made of them. This is what the world looks like when there is no one there to see it.
Source Narrative keeps fresh the capacity for memory and desire which, in turn, freshens narrative. What is kept fresh by the description of bits and pieces of clothing, or kept sour by it, is something else again: melancholy, perhaps. The hats, the cap and the shoes are not there for anyone. They don’t ask to be inspected. It matters little whom they appear to, and there is no sense to be made of them. This is what the world looks like when there is no one there to see it.
Source: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/david-trotter/mcteagues-tooth
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