academia – Robert Garnham

Professor Zazzo Investigates- 8. The Law of Infinite Reverse Criticism

THE LAW OF INFINITE REVERSE CRITICISM

I believe it was Professor Zazzo Thiim who first conceived of a branch of criticism which, in its entirety, was devoted to the criticism of criticism. For a while, only those in academic circles were aware of this new science, and the principals to which it could be attached. The theory of Reverse Criticism, it was hinted at the time, might be applied not only to literature and the arts, but also to other facets of human conscience and philosophic living. It was an interesting concept, and, more than a subtle joke, a hypothesis which demanded attention before, inevitably, it was superseded by the next fashion, the next phase. However, it seems only the one proponent has not completely abandoned the concept, and indeed, has made it the basis of his life work. And this man? None other than Professor Zazzo Thim himself.

I first became aware of his work when I met him at an art gallery. It was one of those evening exhibitions open only to members of the gallery, in which work by a substantial artist, working in water colours,based on the life cycle of the grizzly bear, was being displayed for the first time. I noticed the Professor, a tall, white-haired man with a long scarf, working his way around the room and peering at the notes being taken by various critics. Indeed, it seemed he was more interested in the notes than the actual work hung around us. At last I managed to make my introduction.

‘A civilisation’, said he, ‘Is defined through its art critics. Every facet of its aesthetic life is categorised, pondered, and probed by those who profess to know better, or at least, those who offer advice on the protocols and temperaments observed’

‘And?’ I asked.

‘The point is, most of them have appalling handwriting

I frowned, and started to walk away, but then the old man reached out and grabbed my arm.

‘Think of it!’, he said, excitedly. ‘There are but two layers – those who can, and those who criticise. Remember the old maxim – ‘those who can, do, those who can’t, teach?’

I nodded.

‘What if there was another level? A level of those who can but decide not to? A civilisation in which even criticism is criticised, can only be a better place’.

That night I went back to his office and he showed me some of his work. There were folders filled with script, reviews of art criticism, literary criticism. One critic was pointed out as having a more than average dependency on adverbs, another used too many paragraphs.

The most interesting review was that of a literary critic who, according to Thim’s report, had made the mistake of reading James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ while wearing a hat. ‘A trilby, perhaps’, Thiim had written. ‘Even a beret, but certainly not a bowler! How can one ever have confidence in, or an affinity with, the content of the book they are reading, with a bowler hat perched on the top of their head?

I soon became friends with the formidable Professor Thim and we would meet at least once a week so that I could read more of his Reverse Criticism. Yet towards the middle of this year there was something of a crisis, hinted at only in the fact that his secretary had phoned and warned me not to come for a couple of weeks. When one morning I finally insisted I arrive and carry on with my reading unhindered – using the flimsy excuse of a post-graduate thesis in the role of the critic – she told me that the Professor had been taken ill, and that the department could not be as accommodating as they had previously been.

I arrived in any case, as if everything were the same. His office seemed fairly normal, though there was no sign of the Professor. As was my practice, I sat myself at his desk and leafed through one of his collections, although I did note that the book itself had been rearranged and some of the pages taken out. Half an hour passed with no sign of the Professor, and I was in the middle of making some notes for myself when the door opened.

‘Ah’, said a rather pleasant, middle-aged man. I was led to believe that nobody would be here’.

I stood from the desk, feeling rather sheepish. ‘I rather bullied the secretary, I’m afraid’.

‘Yes’, said the man, leaning back and placing his hands in his pockets. ‘All very sad, isn’t it?’

I asked what he meant, and watched as his face folded first into shock, then a well-meaning affectation of acceptance. ‘Zazzo’, said he, ‘Is very ill’.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It all started a few weeks ago.’ The man sat down on the other side of Thim’s desk and lit his pipe, an object which seemed to juxtapose with his relative youth. ‘My dear colleague had just returned from a production of Romeo and Juliet, and he was anxious to catch the first of the play’s reviews, that he might begin to dissemble them as was usual for him. Indeed, he was particularly excited, having clearly seen one of the critics picking his nose during the balcony scene. How could a critic properly criticise one of the key scenes in such a state? Zazzo wanted to begin work immediately. Ah, the poor fool. How tenaciously he clung to that outdated philosophy, and look what harm it has done him’.

‘What?’ I asked, impatiently. ‘What happened?’

‘While waiting for the reviews he sat down right here and began leafing through that selfsame folder, the one in which he had kept all of his Reverse Criticisms since he had first conceived of it. And what do you think occurred? He began criticising his own criticisms, themselves criticisms of criticisms. And when he had finished that, he looked at what he had written and decided that these, too, needed criticising. But this did not satisfy him, so he criticised the criticisms of criticisms of criticisms of criticisms, until he was literally spinning in circles, frantic that the cycle of event and criticism would never be broken. You see, each new criticism was a separate event, a new work worthy of classification’. My new companion looked down at his lap. ‘The poor man. He hasn’t stopped since.

‘And where is he now?’ I asked

‘He has been confined to the medical centre. A nurse administers whatever help she can, but Thim will not rest until he thinks his job is complete. Yet it does not take a genius to work out that his work will never be finished. Oh, poor Zazzo. Poor Nurse! How she suffers, merely trying to do her job’.

‘Why?’ I asked

‘Because he keeps criticising her!’

For a while we both sat there and pondered the fate of our mutual friend. What a delirious, hateful circle he had invented.

When Zazzo Thiim was judged to have improved sufficiently to leave the medical centre, myself and a few of his colleagues decided to throw a party on his behalf. The middle-aged academic I had met in his room – Doctor Hubert Worthington – had by now become a close friend too, and we had spent the last couple of weeks planning how we would handle the Professor when he returned.

We had decided that there would be no criticism, not the slightest word for or against any aspect of our lives. Worthington suggested we shield Thiim from any work of art but, in an institution such as ours, this would almost certainly be impossible. The most important aspect of his return would be that there was no mention of the illness he had just suffered, or the reasons behind that illness. Apart from this, it was assumed that everything would go according to plan.

The party was held in the main canteen of the building, and it was dutifully and respectfully attended by colleagues and students alike. The illness that had befallen Thiim had been worrying for us all, for he, despite his eccentricities, had always been respected and well-liked.

The tables were spread with a buffet lunch and there were several bottles of white wine on a side-table. The chatter in the room was low-level and jovial, as if everyone was conscious that they were in the presence of a sensitive man. Thiim himself was happy, oblivious to the concern of his contemporaries, and he held court at the buffet table, explaining in great detail the hidden significance of works as diverse as Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’, Michelangelo’s ‘David’ and the Postman Pat books.

Of course, I was especially anxious about meeting the Professor again, for our association had been built around the concept of Reverse Criticism, the very theory which had resulted in his illness. Yet the moment Thim saw me he opened his arms wide and greeted me with such friendliness that it was obvious he didn’t blame me at all.

‘My friend’, he said. ‘How are you?’

Choosing my words carefully, so as not to hint at any criticism, I said: ‘How well aren’t I?

‘My word’, he said, throwing the end of his scarf over his shoulder. ‘The weather’s taken a turn for the worse, hasn’t it?’

‘It’s colder than it was yesterday’, I agreed, without the slightest criticism.

‘I must say, I do like your jumper’, he said, bending over and peering at the stitching.

‘Good’, I said.

We stared at each other for a moment.

‘Well’, he said. He looked at his watch. ‘I suppose I’d better mingle. After all, isn’t that what this party’s for?’

‘Yes’, I agreed.

I didn’t see much of the Professor after this, although I could tell from the various conversations he was having with his colleagues that they, too, were as cagey as I had been in their replies to his questions. For some reason, I gravitated towards Doctor Hubert and the Nurse, who were sipping white wine in the corner of the canteen.

‘How does he seem?’ I asked.

The Nurse frowned. ‘It’s hard to say. Some people can be remarkably resilient after a period such as his. I would say, just by looking at him, that he has recovered most of his faculties. However, we must still be careful

‘You mean’, said Hubert, ‘That something could set it off again?’

‘Absolutely. And he could suffer as a result. His illness – I am sorry to say – would be much worse than it was before’.

This was not good news, and I was dispatched round the room to warn the other guests that Thiim could suffer a relapse at the slightest mention of any criticism. However, the mood of the party did not suffer as a result, and Thiim remained oblivious to our sensitivities.

I worked my way around the room and spoke with a good many people about a wide number of subjects. It seemed everyone had an opinion about the world, or about literature and art, and I got into a few heated debates about one aspect or another concerning these. Yet whenever we saw Thiim approach, we would change the subject and begin discussing, in earnest tones, what we could see through the window.

‘A bird!”

‘A tree!’

‘A house!’

‘A lawn-mower!’

It was a tiring event and I wanted, desperately, to go home, to think about something else.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted no more to see Professor Zazzo Thiim, for I, more than any of his contemporaries, had been closer to the philosophy behind Reverse Criticism. To continue with my studies now, after everything that had happened to the main proponent of that philosophy, would not only be dangerous for Thim’s health, but also my own.

What, I began to wonder, if the same thing happened to me? Would I be as lucky as Thiim?

Would I make such a full recovery? Or would I spin out of control, into a vortex of eternal criticism, unable, ever, to find my way out?

At last it came time to give a couple of speeches and applaud the return of Professor Zazzo Thim. Hubert Worthington took to the stage at the end of the hall and gave a moving – though empty – appraisal of Thiim’s work and career.

‘He became a Professor. He worked hard. He sat at a desk. He marked papers. He delivered lectures. He read books. He went for long walks in the orchard…

And then, suddenly realising that this could, conceivably, be regarded as criticism, he amended his words.

‘A-hem. Sorry. He went for walks in the orchard’.

When Hubert had finished his speech, there was a polite, muted applause, for anything more thunderous or spontaneous might probably have indicated some form of opinion.

It was then the Nurse’s turn to make a speech.

‘Professor Zazzo Thiim is a man. He is a Professor. His name is Zazzo Thiim. I am a Nurse. He was my patient. We both work here’.

Another muted round of applause followed, and the Professor himself stood on the stage.

He thanked everyone for coming, and said how nice it all was, that the food had been good, that he particularly admired the brushwork on the painting over his left shoulder, though not the frame it had been placed in, and that he was looking forward to coming back to work, although his office needed a coat of paint and the radiator smelled. At the end of his speech there was a tentative, subdued clapping, and a buzz fell on the room as various guests began to file towards the door.

Alas, Hubert chose this moment to pick up the wrong cup of tea. ‘Oh god’, he said. ‘That’s disgusting!’

A silence fell on the room and everyone looked at him.

‘No it isn’t’, someone yelled

‘I mean. the purpose of my saying that it was disgusting was

‘Handled with great sensitivity’, someone said, finishing his sentence for him.

‘No it wasn’t’, said the Nurse.

‘Not that it’s important, someone else said.

I could see that the downward spiral had begun. ‘Of course it was important!’ I said.

‘Yes’, someone agreed. ‘Important, but not relevant.

‘The question is not the quality of the tea’, Hubert said, ‘But the fact it had sugar in it, which is, I think you’ll agree, only a product of my own prejudices regarding hot drinks’.

‘No’, a student yelled. ‘The whole criticism itself was not important’.

‘It wasn’t even a criticism’.

‘Yes it was’.

‘He smokes a pipe’, someone shouted. ‘How can someone who smokes a pipe make a valid judgement on taste?’

By now, everyone in the room was shouting and screaming, adding their opinions and criticisms on the original criticism, which had been that Hubert had felt the cup of tea he had inadvertently supped to be disgusting. And while this was happening, Professor Zazzo Thim stood on the stage next to the microphone, regarding us all with a quizzical eye, puzzled, and yet strangely entertained. Indeed, the whole performance was only ended when the Nurse managed to round us all up and transfer us at once to the Medical Centre.

Which is where we remain today, unable to finish our eternal criticism of the main point, the beginning factor, that of the cup of tea drank by Hubert being disgusting. We shout, we scream, we pound on the tables, unable to let go, unable to accept that the problem will never be solved, that the criticism will be infinite.

Professor Zazzo Thim, meanwhile, has returned to work. He visits us every now and then. He always chooses his words carefully.

Professor Zazzo Investigates – 6. Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish!

FISH! FISH! FISHI FISH! FISH! FISH FISH

Professor Zazzo Thim’s experimentations with surrealism have been well-documented, though there are still one or two questions which have remained outstanding from this most provocative and exciting time of his life. Indeed, many historians have assessed the time to be one of great bonhomie among the surrealists, with Thim himself occupying the role of grand master. Yet my investigations have uncovered the truth, and it appears that the determination and the willingness to subvert which we now associate with the surrealist fad was, if anything, subdued.

Jacques Collard was one of the surrealists. An old man now, he remembers the time fondly, though his brow creases into an ugly frown the moment I remind him of Zazzo Thim.

“No, no, no!”, , he says. “The view we have no of Thim’s part in this is all wrong! It is based on Thim’s own testimony! We hardly ever saw him as one of us! If anything, we saw him as an annoyance …”.

Collard paints a picture of the cafe culture prevalent at the time, of the surrealists, united by their subversive acts, holding court at one of the many Parisian bars associated with deep thought, philosophical ideals and literary merit. “We would make such grand pronouncements” Collard says, “Such as proclaiming the death of language, or at least, the terminal illness of the full stop. None of us had a clue what it meant, it just felt good to say it. Bilo was the master at the time – an artist, he had embraced surrealism for all its worth and he created bizarre works which he exhibited here and there throughout the city. We became known for our fine talk, our love of food, and our rebellious spirit. There were always disciples, or tourists eager to catch our glimpse. To start with we thought Zazzo Thiim was one of these”.

Collard leans back and presses his palms together as if in prayer. His apartment looks out over a flower market, a merry-go-round, and the white wedding cake of Sacre Coeur towering above. His voice deepens as he remembers his subject.

“We knew very early on”, he whispers, “That Zazzo Thim was an idiot”.

“Go on”.

“The first thing he said was, I want to be like you. I want to be with you. I want to be a surrealist”. We asked him if he was a surrealist at heart, and if he ever dreamt of lobsters, or bearded nuns. No, he replies, but he did once spend a night in Basingstoke. At this we turned to each other, as if confirming our suspicions. ‘What form of surrealism are you developing at the moment?’, Bilo asked. ‘Literature’, Thim replies, without hesitation. I remember the groan which passed around the cafe terrace. ‘In a medium such as ours, the fullest impact is gained through visual means’, Bilo told the hapless youth. ‘Surrealism is about the ephemeral, the short-lived, the dream-like, the throw-away. You would have to prove to us your devotion to the cause before we even considered you as an equal’.

“I can do it”, Thim said, filled with an unusual confidence.

“Then you have one week.”

“We all waited for Thiim to leave before we fell about, laughing. Oh, how I remember that week! A cold spell had fallen upon the city and we were frozen to the bone. The cafe terrace was warmed by a gas heater, yet the chill and the drizzle still fell from an overcast grey sky. We talked about many things, the surrealists and I. We talked of our art, and the methods we would employ, as we put it, to go beyond surrealism, to the next phase, whatever that might be. We would talk for hours of this exciting time, and speculate as to what the world might look like if surrealism was developed further.

“Thim came back the next night. He always wore along scarf, the ends of which would trail along the cobblestones. ‘See here!’, he said, coming over to our table and standing in our midst. ‘For I have created a surrealistic masterpiece!’

Ms. Muller-Reed, an art critic of note, took a drag on her cigarette and motioned that he enlighten us further.

‘A poem’, Thim said. ‘Called, ‘Ode to a Washer-woman’.

Thim straightened, pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and began to read. ‘Hippo hippo hippo! Yawn, oh hippo, oh yawn! And then we both swat at a swarm of bees..”

We looked at him for a while, and it was Bilo who spoke first. ‘Merely a pastiche”, he said

“We all laughed. Oh, how cruelly we laughed. Ms. Muller-Reed especially could find no sense in a poem about a hippo and a swarm of bees and she was most vociferous in her condemnation.

“What do you take us for!”, she hooted, slamming her palm down on the table surface. “I’ve never heard such rot!”

“Dejected, the hapless youth slouched off, and we continued our speculations as to the advancement of our cause.

“The next night he came back again. By now it was very cold and there was a light snow falling from the sky. We wore gloves and sat around the heater, shivering, though unwilling to venture inside. ‘A-ha!’, said Bilo, on seeing young Zazzo. ‘Here he comes again with another poem for us!’

‘More than a poem’, Thim replied, ‘But a surrealistic masterpiece!’

Knowingly, Ms. Muller-Reed winked, and we sat back in glorious expectation.

“The Cinema’, Thim said. He cleared his throat and began to recite: In the cinema I cook asparagus. The marching band sneeze in unison. A-tisshoo! A-tisshoo! Here comes my aunt with the Christmas tree.

‘Stop!, Bilo said. ‘Please, stop!’ Dramatically, he placed his hands over his ears. But it was too late, for Ms. Muller-Reed was already roaring with laughter.

‘Oh dear, oh dear! What a marvellous send-up! Never have I heard such a fateful attempt at surrealism! Go, go this instant! Oh dear, I think I shall be quite senseless if this were to continue any longer..!

“The next night he came again, more determined than ever, and he grandly announced that he had a poem which would re-write the rules, and leave them gasping at his abilities. He then proceeded to show them a blank piece of paper. “Here it is’, he said, ‘My poem. At the bottom of the page was the smallest full-stop.

‘Now you’re just being silly’, Bilo said. And they all roared with laughter once again.

“I must admit, I began to feel sorry for Zazzo Thim. A pattern emerged – he would come every night with his latest attempt at surrealism, and we would laugh, and then he would go home, dejected, crestfallen. It became our tradition, and we would speculate freely on what delights he would have for us. It was as if he was trying a little too hard, you know what I mean? Anyway, about a week afterwards I decided I would find where he lived and offer him some friendly advice.

“He was staying in a decrepit hotel in the Quatier Latin. The concierge allowed me in and I took a winding, rickerty staircase up to his room. The walls were damp and the landing was ill-lit, I almost fell to my death when one of the steps gave way underneath my shoe. I knocked on his door and he let me in, surprised to see one of his beloved surrealists come to visit him. I remember the smell of his room even now, a mixture of dust and over-worked electrics, the dampness of his bed-clothes, the mould growing on the window-sill. He motioned that I sit in the one armchair, then asked why I had graced him with my presence.

‘I am concerned’, I told him, ‘That your work may be in vain’.

He sat on the edge of the bed in front of me. That fact that you do not find my work notable in any way’, he said, ‘Does not detract from the fact that it is just as worthy, if not, worthier than you realise.’

‘An artist is always protective of his output’, I told him. He looked up at me, his forehead wrinkled, the scarf still wrapped around his neck. ‘Maybe you should write how you feel, rather than how you want to be perceived’.

‘In this modern world’, said he, ‘Are we not now defined by how we are perceived?”

‘ Exactly’, I told him. ‘And I see in you a serious man, a man of strong, sensible conviction, a man so far removed from the basics of surrealism as to irrefutable sober.”

“At this, Zazzo looked down at the floor and let out big sigh.

‘Don’t you see?’, he whispered. I don’t care about surrealism. I don’t care about the basics of the movement, nor do I care about visual or literary representations. I just want to belong to a group, I want to be surrounded by friends’.

“I got up from my seat. ‘Noble words, indeed’, I whispered. ‘But surrealism is more than just a social club. It is a way of living. And you, my dear friend, are in complete opposition to its aims and philosophies. I must leave you now, for the world here – if you don’t mind me saying – stifles me with its boredom’.

At that moment the door opened and a llama came in. ‘Oh, for goodness sake’, Zazzo said. He ushered it back out into the hall again, and fought briefly, ducking to avoid a globule of spit from the irate beast. He was just about to close the door when a circus clown appeared on the landing from the floor above, inquiring as to the whereabouts of his monkey. I told you before’, Thim said, ‘The last place I saw him was in Papua New Guinea. “But I need it’, the clown whined, ‘Because we are meant to be trampolining for the Duke of Norfolk this afternoon!’ Thim turned to come back into the room when there came the sound of scampering from the stairs and a herd of badgers swamped the landing, jumping over the furniture, flowing en masse as if directed by some primal determination. At last he managed to push the door to, before turning to me again. ‘Sorry about that’, he said. ‘You know, sometimes this place can really get on your nerves’

“The next night he was back at the cafe terrace with another one of his poems. It was about a nun, I remember that. And the nun was having trouble blowing up a balloon, it wasn’t very good. Ms. Muller-Reed made some biting comment about the translation of sense into the senseless, and Bilo snorted back his derision before waving Thim away with a flick of his hand, like a king, dismissing his servant.

‘The trouble with that lad is’, Bilo said, as we watched Thiim walk off to the end of the street, ‘He is far too serious’.

I thanked Collard for his observations, and I went for a walk around the local area. The streets were crowded with tourists, and commercial artists who, running up to me, asked that they paint my portrait for money. I wondered how Thim had acquired this reputation as a surrealist even though he was shunned by the surrealistic establishment, but then I recalled Thiim’s own account of this period, and the opening paragraph of his own autobiography, which begins with the words:

Every day it seemed that strangeness was attracted to me. I became immune to the normal pleasures of living. I would open my brain, and things would be poured in. I didn’t really know what was happening.

I realised that Thim himself had never proclaimed himself to be a master of surrealism, nor had he ever been noted for his surrealistic style, yet the image which has been brought to our consciousness now is of a man so steeped in strangeness as to be wholly consumed by it. And perhaps this was the very form that the cafe patrons were searching for, this one level beyond surrealism, unknowing, unbidden and unconscious. I sat for a while in the park on the steps of Sacre Coeur, and closed my eyes in the afternoon sun. I wondered if it were possible that strangeness can stick to people, that unusual events gravitated only to a certain type of person. How glad I was to be a sober, investigative fellow, inquiring, yet safe from the whims and unconventions of a truly strange world. How satisfying this last thought: that Zazzo Thim was so surrealistic, that the surrealists didn’t even know it. How I revelled in my ordinaryness!

At that moment I was attacked by a flamingo.

Commentary on the novel ‘Jasmine, Honeysuckle, Diesel Locomotive’ by Zazzo Thiim

Many things strike one as peculiar in the novel Honeysuckle, Jasmine, Diesel Locomotive. At Just under nine words it is often seen more as a novella. Secondly, it’s sentence structure employs a certain Proustian deferment of the clause to its final undoing. (See Appendix Two). Thirdly, it is the only true book to have been written entirely in dialogue. Other factors, of course, are of detailed academic interest, and most of them have been probed by the eminent literary historian Augustus Slack who argues that ‘Honeysuckle, Jasmine, Diesel Locomotive, in its brevity, says more than most works ever could. Human affection balanced with environmental concerns. Destiny with the sensuous nature of the present. Allegory with undeniable truth . . .’, and so he goes on.
There are many purists who object to aspects of the novel. The comma between the fourth and fifth word is often seen as superfluous, an unnecessary caesura, while others attest that this is a tribute to Lucie Fisher herself – how often, they point out, did Thiim refer to her as ‘my little punctuation’ (Slack, p118). Interestingly, the same purists detest the extended version mainly because it is without a comma. The word ‘while’ has connotations of a different kind, that Thiim should ‘wile away the hours’. (Tiffin, p93). The bumps and crenulations of the word are seen as mountain peaks, the troughs and ridges of a machine measuring his own irregular heartbeat as Fisher walks away. Others see the omission of the comma as an admission that life goes on, concepts race one into the other without pausing for thought.
The ‘I’ and ‘you’ of the novel – its leading protagonists – are often translated as being Thiim and Fisher themselves. Certainly their characteristics would bear this out. Zazzo’s defiance of routine, Lucie’s quiet subservience, the constant hint of impending violence, the crumbling society of which they are both representatives. Other writers have written more fully on these subjects and this is not the place for a detailed observation – suffice to say that the significant theme of the novel is one of lost opportunity, love stifled by geographic variables, the brevity of all emotional embellishment. Forget the location, Thiim seems to be telling us : just grab it while you can.
Others, though, have a different interpretation. Leonard P. Sterne has argued that the usual order is inverted : Fisher, in her absence, travels the world, while Thiim castigates himself for forgetting. (Sterne, p6). Others wonder what it is that the ‘you’ is forgetting : the ‘I’, the world, the act of travelling – and under what context is the sentence uttered? Has ‘I’ met ‘you’ after his journeys, or is this part of a letter addressed backwards through time? (See Appendix Two). Did he even go away at all?
It is highly unlikely that Fisher would have read the finished novel. Indeed, she barely read at all, and had a very short attention span. It could be said that Thiim wrote the novel, therefore, safe in the knowledge that it would only ever be paraphrased to its sole recipient. And as such it remains as successful, a novel which, from its inception to its final realisation, has done everything that it set out to do.