Jacques Roubaud, The Loop, Suiseisha, 2020 “Translator's Afterword”
This work consists of a full translation of Jacques Roubaud’s, La Boucle, Seuil, 1993. It can be considered a representative work of the author, who began his career in the 1960s as a poet, mathematician, prose writer and member of the “Oulipo” (Ourvoir de littérature potentielle – workshop of potential literature).
Jacques Roubaud is not only well versed in the poetry of the troubadours of medieval southern France, but also in classical Japanese poetry, including the Shinkokinshu (New Collection of Ancient and Modern Japanese Poetry), and has produced a number of brilliant works that make unrestrained and free use of his knowledge. Some examples of these include Mono No Ahare, a collection of translated poems based on “waka”, as well as the first renga produced in Western European languages (along Octavio Paz, Eduardo Sanguinetti, and Charles Tomlinson). In recent years, he has invented a form of verse called “trident”, which he calls “the world’s shortest poem”. He has published over 4,000 such tridents, which consist of a 13 syllables organized in a “5-3-5” pattern.
Meanwhile, he had also been planning for a work to which to dedicate his life, a work which he himself described as “megalomaniacal” and of which this translation may have been a small part. This work was to include both a mathematical plan and a poetic plan, all accompanied by a voluminous novel The Great Fire of London (a title which he got in a dream one night), and which would tell the story of the creation and the deconstruction of these plans.
Painstaking work and setbacks followed, until in 1983 his wife, the photographer Alix, died prematurely. As if to overcome the shock, the first branch of the project, “the great fire of london – destruction” (1989) was finally written with a title entirely in modest, lower-case letters, as the ruins of his former project. As mentioned in the work, which is filled with memories of Alix, it was an attempt by the author to destroy his own memory. It was born through the death of his wife and the disintegration of his plan.
In the same way, this work, part of “the Great Fire of London” series, was originally published as a standalone volume. However, it has since grown into a vast literary work, gradually taking on the appearance of a “never-ending book” as daily descriptions continue to be added, and memories of the past revived.
This series, which was intended to be completed in six volumes, was published by Editions du Seuil. Giving a rough introduction and omitting the bibliography, we can say that it consists of the following five volumes (which Roubaud calls “branches”), along with a “supplementary volume” added to the third branch, for a total of six volumes.
１. Branch 1: The Great Fire of London
２. Branch 2: (this work) The Loop
３. Branch 3: Mathematics
The Categorical Imperative
４. Branch 4: Poetry
５. Branch 5: The Library of Warburg
The five volumes (branches) were later combined into one large volume, this time with the overall title of The Great Fire of London and the subtitle of the first branch, “Destruction”. At the same time, the second branch, “The Loop” and later the fifth branch “The Library of Warburg” were also clearly indicated as subtitles.
This is not the end of the story. Jacques Roubaud’s Very Personal Guide to Tokyo, translated and published in Japan by Suiseisha, is based on a lengthy and unfinished version of the fifth branch. What’s more, a sixth branch, consisting of a vast text, was published in an unfinished form by a different publisher than the by Editions du Seuil and given a different title, The Dissolution. We do not know what other manuscripts might potentially be lurking.
Now, both “Destruction” and this work, “The Loop” are made up of 196 chapters of “prose moments” which, as you can see, are divided between the “story” which forms the main body of the narrative, and “insertions” that consist of digressions or supplements. There are two types of “insertions”. One, the “plug” resolves itself on the spot, while the other, the “fork”, has the possibility of developing independently from the “story”. It is entirely up to the reader whether to proceed along the “story” or to stop at each “insertion”.
As a rule which Roubaud imposed on himself, all of these writings were written before dawn, in the early hours of the morning. This was done to capture the “moment”, or the “present time of his writing” rather than simply having his paragraphs printed on the page. He forbade himself from making any corrections, backtracks or polishes. “No regrets”, he writes repeatedly. For the reader, once one “moment”, one unit of reading is completed, they are free to jump from there to any other “moment” as they like. The table of contents at the end of the book will serve as a suitable guide for such hypertextual reading.
Although the “Index of Key Terms” at the end of the book is another rarely seen document, and sometimes, readers who embark on a search for some of the poet’s key words end up stuck somewhere in the weeds, or looking up the infant word “wah-wah”. Here, the mischievous poet is playing with the seemingly rational, dry index.
Here, something of particular interest to us Japanese readers is that Roubaud cites “the style of Kamo Chomei” as the outfit, the literary style that should apply to his prose. Although he has clearly studied the style of waka poetry, including the ten styles of Teika, it is “the style of Kamo Chomei” that is most frequently used, along with the “Rakutai style”. The second character here, “tai” (“body”) does not have its own designation, but is rather defined as “old words for new times”. It would seem to imply a reevaluation of archaic language; a kind of pseudo-archaic form.
Now, although the title of the series, “The Great Fire of London”, refers to the great fire that burned down the medieval city of London in 1866 and triggered the birth of the modern city, it is not directly related to the story. As mentioned previously, it came to Roubaud during the night, in a dream, as the title of the “novel” that he should write, alongside his “plan”. In fact, in a lecture given by Roubaud in 1994, he stated, after quoting from the Hojoki and referring to the great fire that ravaged the emperor’s capital, Kyoto, in 1177 (the Great Fire of Angen), that, “I entitled one of my works The Great Fire of London because I read the Hojoki.” Perhaps this is why the title “The Great Fire of London” seems to take on a universal connotation that goes beyond a single historical incident.
Incidentally, this book is a translation of “The Loop”, the second work in the series. While some people might argue that the first work, “Destruction”, which is about “planning”, should be read first, this second work stands on its own as an independent read. While the story goes back to before the author’s birth, his memories as a child who looked at the world unfold and turn back in a vivid circle: the green paradise of his childhood, nature in the south of France, friends, animals, playing, war, the resistance movement, movies, and his awakening to reading and poetry.
As the author says, the book is not a novel, nor is it an autobiography. We might venture to call it a peculiar mnemonic, a memoiristic essay that hopes to revive the lost memories of the past. The one hundred and ninety-six “moments”, which include everything from the poet’s detailed and vivid prose to a Latin composition from his junior high school (though only the Japanese translation is given in this book), to a typewriter practice sheet messed up by his mother, are sometimes mixed with trivia and various digressions, with the humor that he never forgets to add being a great relief at those times.