Quick Chat: ONGOINGNESS #2

I’m interested in things that seem impossible, that seem as if they can’t coexist, that are paradoxes, but I think the truest things are the ones that seem like they shouldn’t be able to coexist together. Take, for example, one of the major dilemmas in Sarah Manguso’s Ongoingness: do we arrive at ‘pure experience’ through language or in spite of it? I would say it’s both at the same time. 

First, let me unpack what ‘pure experience’ is referring to. In Ongoingness, ‘pure experience’ is used to mean making the most meaning out of one’s life by transcending one’s subjectivity in order to get at the essence of feelings, events, and memories. This is, of course, against the backdrop of death. Limited time compels maximum experience. 

Manguso kept detailed diary entries for 25 years because she felt that the days were too full, that she needed ‘extra days, buffer days, between the real days’ (11) in order to process what she had experienced, in order to be ready for what was next. What she wanted to achieve through her writing was ‘Language as pure experience, pure memory’ (16). The idea being that through meticulously going over the details of her experience, remembering and arranging what seems important, would make the most meaning out of her life. The fault with this, though, is that experiences never stop – one thing happens, and then another – so no one thing can be understood without the context of everything before and everything after. ‘Pure experience’ is not a collection of beginnings and ends, but of ongoingness. 

Now, let’s try to make this a little more concrete. After maintaining her meticulous diary entries, Manguso is forced to write significantly less because she has a baby. She needs to feed him, and simply watch him – these interactions are wordless. Through these wordless interactions, Manguso begins to remember things she did not even know she could. For example, on page 66, when feeding her son, she remembers a moment when food was dribbling down her face, and the food was scooped up back into her mouth. The implication is that the memory is deeply ingrained in her body, but inaccessible through language. Language is unable to encompass everything, so trying to use it to reach ‘pure experience’ is not enough, but it is something. We have this book. And for the most part, I think we read and write because we know it gets us closer to ‘pure experience.’

‘Ongoingness’ in the book as it relates to ‘pure experience’ involves language and no language. Working through language, while also allowing for the lack of language, and going against language. And in response to my previous post about this book, about whether or not having a baby is the solution to the existential crises one has about time and death, I think this paradox of language and no language helps. It seems that part of what having a baby made such an impact is the interaction of one who views things through this prism of language, and one who does not. There is a confrontation there of what language does and does not do, and what it means in that interaction. 

Okay that’s it for Ongoingness. I hope all of this made sense somehow. Let me know your thoughts!