GENESIS REJUVENATED by Carlo Suarès : Part 3

Part 3 : GENESIS REJUVENATED by Carlo Suarès - this episode continues on from Chapter 2 / The First Day - reading the following sections in sequence : The First Night, The Second Day, The Second Night, The Third Day, The Third Night, The Minor Genesis, The Minor Shadow, The Flight of the Seventh Day, The Continents.

Before the Page will finish with its presentation of Genesis Rejuvenated in its entirety in our next episode, episode 42. 

La Nouvelle Création : Au Sans Pareil, Paris 1929. 

Genesis Rejuvenated : The Menard Press, London 1973

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Before we come to the page, before the first word is ever written down, or read, or listened to, there is a longing to connect. My name is Charlie Merhoff, your host here at Before the Page, a podcast featuring poetry, parable, fiction, and non words to echo our longing. Greetings. You have arrived at episode 41 of Before the Page. Today we are going to continue on with our reading of Genesis Rejuvenated by Carlos Suarez. Listeners will be hearing the entire book read over the course of four successive episodes, of which this reading is the third. Genesis Rejuvenated was originally written in French and published in Paris in 1929. At the urging of George Orwell and others, it was translated into English by Edouard Roditi. However, due to the financial crisis and the outbreak of World War II, Genesis Rejuvenated remained unpublished until 1973. Carlos Suarez passed in 1976. Genesis Rejuvenated only ever appeared in a limited edition. It is a rare book indeed. We continue on deep within chapter two. The first day. And they lived and acted and scrambled about and procreated and became a countless legion and did not know themselves. Some saw themselves naked, and clothed themselves in uniforms, and made the uniform salute, and answered the salutes and glorified themselves, gave themselves names written down in books, and said See, I am that name. Some glorified themselves for this, and others were humiliated. Some invented God and said, He is my cousin and glorified themselves. Others made themselves even smaller and begged for a blessing and humiliated themselves. Some were white and others black, and they glorified themselves and humiliated themselves according to their strength. Some went to bed, and others worked, and they glorified themselves and humiliated themselves according to the time they spent resting in bed. Small, very small prides, scarcely vain, fruitless small prides seated on stools but not sweeping the mountains for fear of the sun, for fear of life. Vanities and morals associated in marriage and eternal triangles with religions useful for the masses and comforting for personal vanities. Vanities, small prides of the pontiffs and great humility vested with powers, small prides of chosen peoples, of revealed truths, of enlightened nations, of established elites, small prides of clans scarcely even snobbery, justified, explained and forgiven a thousand times daily, small prides which cannot help it. It's a fact we are thus different from the rest, and it is better pride of clean hands or of dirty hands, pride of clothes or of nakedness. Infinitesimal prides which say pride is evil we never and disguise themselves for fear of hell or of public opinion or of remorse because remorse is all the time there in their very hearts. Remorse for being pride but not for being small. Cowards they give the show away, cowards they do not aim at satisfaction, cowards, they will never burst, but will enter into the blood and rot. And stagnate in thick stagnant green blood, quite contented, cowards and gnaw small bones, and will flatten themselves out and begin again, ever again without ever knowing the joy or the great fulfillment, but shivered painfully, weakling prides never admitted, but absolved and forgotten, prides and remorse quivered in response to the life of the great compassion. Then, seeing this vague quivering in the shadows, the supreme adolescent with locks of sunlight said We will breathe life into this corpse, and how heavy is this corpse and his eyes were very blue with love, and he struck the second great stroke of the last hour of night. The second day and said peace and joy unto avarice, not absolved, not justified, not forgiven, not forgotten, but conscious of its being. And this was the second day of the new Genesis, that is free from forgetfulness and summits and foundations and hell. Then fell headlong in showers of lead the geniuses of the second genesis, of predatory avarice, all of them, and wallowed and clung with hooked steel talons to all accumulations, and killed children so as not to feed them, and dug the dead to feed themselves, and counted their gold, encountered themselves beneath and never arose from their gold in order to remain above it, in order to be within it, in order to dig their talons into it, and hunched and twisted above their gold like dried up leaves, they no longer fed themselves, but shat on their gold for fear of leaving it if only for one minute. And with their hands full, never possessed enough, but imprisoned themselves and walled themselves up alive, with hands twisted up talon like, for fear of losing, and still did not possess, and then wanted the gold to be within them and themselves, wanted to be the gold, but could not swallow it, and choked and could not possess it at all, accursed gold, madness, implacable separation, and they never possessed but withdrew ever deeper within themselves, and were ever alone like dry leaves, and fell into the lowest depths of their starved being, never yet possessing anything, unable to possess, and cried out aloud, proclaiming their implacable solitude, their unceasing torment, and were near unto death and wept. And just as under autumn rain the dry leaves soften and offer themselves to the earth and commune with themselves and yield themselves out of exhaustion, thus did they yield themselves in great abundance and prodigality, out of the very excess of their avarice, and gave nourishment and were the new life. And this was the second day of the new genesis of joy, which sang glory, glory unto avarice, unto avarice made fertile and liberated in abundance, glory and joy unto avarice, which was life, which ever was life, and without absolution or remorse or forgetfulness or sleep The second night and the small green patches of mildew of the avarices that dwell in the shadows quivered in the wind of cellars and shuttered houses, and gathered themselves in heaps in utter charity, real charity must begin at home, and they accumulated in their shuttered drawing rooms, genuine antique chairs, wood panellings, occasional tables, embroidered curtains, embroidered silks, tapestry, cushions, lamps, vases, lampshades, laces, clocks, watches, candelabra, porcelain, statuettes, sconces, brass, bronze, crystal, small bronzes, small marble sculptures, watercolored oils and black and white drawings, chandeliers, mirrors, complete with gilt frames, flowered carpets, paper flowers, paper on the walls, walls decorated with stucco, stucco on the ceilings, and in flowers like the carpets and like everything, and accumulated and said this is art and closed the windows on the lingering smell of rich cooking, so that everything should be well preserved, and said, This is art, and collected art because of its value. It's the best investment, and went out on Sundays and gave a few coppers for the poor of the parish, and felt virtuous and charitable and let everyone know it, and lived off the agony and great pity of hands eaten away by labor, and these hands they refused to see them for fear of softening their generous hearts, and sold their daughters for another bag of gold and said it was for her good, obtained a thousand times absolution, and died with the sacraments, and their soul rested in peace because of the masses paid in advance. Avarices, small avarices, scarcely even penny pinching and satisfied with only a full belly, said that they were everything and anything rather than avarice because of their conscience and of what people might say died as they were born fruitless, but quivered painfully when the great adolescent of pity and compassion came to life, and the adolescent said, How heavy too is this corpse and breathed into it his life of love, and struck the third great stroke of the last hour of night The third day and said peace and joy unto lechery, not absolved, not justified, not forgiven, but conscious of its being and this was the third day of the new Genesis without summits or foundations, set in an eternal and infinite point. And then came forward, creeping and crawling and softly undulating the geniuses of the third creation of lechery. All the geniuses of lechery, of the purple, profound and tenacious lecheries, and of the pale, livid lecheries which cling to the blood, lecheries like ploughed fields lying open to the sun and penetrating lecheries, irresistible abysms of madness and destruction, which kill the geniuses and know it, but can do nothing to avoid it and begin all over again their endless dissatisfaction and malediction. And they all wished to satisfy themselves endlessly, and quartered themselves all bloodstained, and opened out the unfathomed depths of the soul, the pits of the spirit cast headlong, and which slowly drop by drop destroyed its life and knew it, but could not refrain. And rushed forward and insisted on leaping forth in sparks and flames of eternal appeasement, but failed, failed to reach the bottom of the bottomless pit, failed to fall any further, baiting the flesh, which was offered and fled, shrieking with disgust, then crept back on their hands and knees, lecheries more vast than desire, more widespread than the flesh, lecheries which are never joined, thirsts never quenched of the geniuses of lechery which never could live and never could die. And so great this time was the strife, such was the vibration which passed simultaneously through the two worlds of life and of flesh that they knew not whether they would survive, ghastly impacts of battles of hates, and they knew not if they were love, wild embraces of love, and knew not if they were hate, despairing flights, and knew not if they were pursuits, desperate pursuits, and knew not if they wished to find contentments which were nevertheless suffering, sufferings which were nevertheless joy, words but which said nothing, speeches but which remained speechless, spirit transmuted into flesh, flesh transmuted into spirit. And the two worlds were so entangled that they could not recognize one another, but were made one, becoming both he and she together. Thus was lechery quenched in the sublimation of the integrated being, being born to the dazzling crystalline purity of its own harmony, lechery conscious of the geniuses refusing to die, strife moulding the spirit and the flesh, fertile, conquered by unity, purified by unity, and the renovated beings with their dazzling brows, standing proudly in the sunlight, on their twin legs like polished marble, with their feet on the earth and their brows in the sunlight, sang joy to the great purification, glory to lechery, which became the great purification because of its infinity. These were the new geniuses of the Genesis, forming together the first trinity, which in appearance was pride which created avarice which preserved and lechery to unite them, but which became in the In the true edifice humility which never asserted itself, generosity which gave and purity the mediator in its development and fulfillment. And in this fulfillment the appearance disappeared and the true edifice appeared in its reality, without any building, but only in one point which was all three infinite and eternal. The third night. This was the first quarter of the twelve strokes of midnight, and the small lecheries of the shadows made a wild rush in their flight to hide in the houses with closed shutters. Legitimate brothels founded upon sacraments and weekly fornications, with or without offspring, illegitimate brothels where the laboring girls sink and die in moral dilapidation, all of them registered with the police for the good of their society and of their families founded on sacraments, pale, wan lecheries at street corners, painted and hungry, sainted, ah saintly, for they never set fire to the legitimate brothels founded upon sacraments and the stiff necked cruelty of so called respectable women who say poor creatures with a bitter constipated look. But then protest to the vicar really, it's disgraceful. One sees them on all the street corners, and I have my young daughter with me. And the greasy conspiratorial manner of the fat father who says Now my boy go, and if you can't be good, be careful. And the young girls watch out of the corner of their eye and sigh and wait in morbid hysteria for the exhausted bridegroom lecheries of heavy digestions, little shame face, contented and forgiven lecheries, for the flesh is weak and God forgiving and everything will be settled and straightened out and ah what agony I had chosen heaven, but I am behaving as I had chosen hell. And what am I to do with temptations, all the temptations? Well, with a little asceticism, when I am old and of course impotent too, everything will work out evenly before my death, everything will be neatly settled a fortnight ahead of it, mediocre lucheries of the numberless petty repentances and numberless futile, sterile little absolutions. And the eternal adolescent with eyes of blue sky and locks of bright sunlight looked with great compassion at these flickering, fleeing, slimy shadows and sighed and said, This corpse is the most hideous of all three, being man and beast and ghoul, and his heart, which is the heart of the world was illuminated with blue. Then he said, This corpse is the heaviest and most cruel of all because of the beauty it might have had, and he breathed his life into it. And this was the end of the first quarter of Major Genesis The Minor Genesis and struck the fourth great stroke of the last hour which became day and said peace and joy unto anger, unto envy, unto greed, not absolved nor justified, nor forgiven, nor forgotten, but conscious of their being, and so saying, struck also the fifth and the sixth great strokes of the last hour, which were the second quarter of the twelve, and the three days of the minor genesis mingled as an inverted triangle with the first original triangle. Then anger in bitterness coveted the major genesis and tense and stiff in its powerlessness, as an impotent pride devoured itself in livid weakness. Envy desired but failed to obtain, obtained and no longer desired, always rejecting and always desiring, rejecting in the moment of obtaining and desiring in the moment of rejecting. Lonely, sad and wasted envy, haggard and mad and running here and there, in a desert of hallucinating mirages, with eyes fixed on the lovely mirages of cool shade and singing springs, never ceased wandering and burning and died. Greed in impotent lechery seized and devoured, and still wanted and insatiably ever devoured but never possessed, and collapsed beneath the weight of what she had absorbed, carried away and vanquished by the weight of her obese, dead, omnipotent flesh, overpowered by sleepy adipos, death, weird death, of flabby, relaxed hypochondriacs and sunk again into a beast and its eyes grew dim, and it was dead. And when all three had died, leaving hollow instead of solid their tracks on the world of the new genesis, their tracks moulded in the clay of the new world were their negation, and out of anger came patience, out of envy abnegation, out of greed, sobriety their tracks. And out of sobriety came detachment out of abnegation, affection and friendship, out of patience, understanding and intelligent building of the minor genesis. And from the world thus completed in wisdom and interlaced triangles there arose the radiant joyous hymn of the whole minor genesis, singing glory unto anger, who was so angry that she died, unto envy who was so envious that she died, unto greed so greedy that she died, who all died unobsolved, who never justified nor forgave themselves, but fully lucid went to their death in order to give life without ever compromising or fearing damnation. The Minor Shadow To this radiant hymn of new genesis in joy and sincerity free from heaven and from hell, and from absolution and damnation and from foundations and summits, but set in one point of wisdom, which is eternal life and truth. In response to this harmonious, proud hymn of powerful vibrations, summoning the supreme flight into the sky, there creaked and groaned all the small angers, envies and greeds of the kingdom of shadows of the old Genesis, which all refused to die. And refusing to die, they said anger, envy and greed are evil, and we are different, and they feared repentance and absolved themselves in secret and in disguise. Anger said this is disgraceful and my legitimate indignation will prove it in due time. Draped in my dignity I am an important person. The creature dares. And Anger said This whippersnapper has no manners and doesn't know right from wrong, no morals nor manners, and it's about time he learned. And Anger said it is for the good of honor and virtue and our ancestors and descendants and the family traditions and the race and the land. What? You big bum, you dare say that I am ridiculous? And Anger refused to admit that he was purely and simply raging. Envy said I am justice, and why must so and so have and not I do not covet, I am just, and said I know my worth and this post with so much salary per year was for me who am an expert in the field, and said I hate success because the masses are too foolish and said, Oh my dear, what a lovely necklace. Yes, and the old hag needs it to hide such a scrawny neck like a vulture's Yes, and I shall never buy a car because I hate speed. Oh luxury, that's all right for them, but it destroys all my spiritual joys, and they mean so much to me. Pious red cheeked greed, its use glued to a chair and its belly to a table, sings glory, glory unto the Lord of good roasts, sips, we drop, and then another, and says, O Lord, be kind, I understand you too well. I am too fond of your creatures. He will be flattered if I say this and will forgive. Greed says to eat well is an art just like music, but more refined, and in its kitchen Greed prepares delicious sauces while the world starves, and Greed says that's perfectly right. I am hungry. And this tiring, turbulent multitude, shouting and struggling and climbing and pushing and pulling and rising and falling and rising again and this petty tumult at our feet, and this vain antip of innumerable compromises and conceited absolutions made what they thought was a terrific noise and we never heard it. But a smile of roseate gold hovered gently on the blue love of the adolescent ocean, and the beams of light which danced there in sunlight, and the blue of love said, I will place upon this strife my heart of the world, which is blue, and my love which is the heart of the world, and the strife must die, and those who know not how to die are in truth as heavy as corpses, for they lack love which is life, and breathed into them his love, and they were suffocated thereby. The flight of the seventh day Thus came the new Genesis in six days and the world was complete. And this was the first half of the twelve strokes of the new day, being exactly halfway through the twelve, it struck the hour and we were suspended between two creations, between night and day, between reflecting moon and creating sun, and we felt the great impatience of eternal desires of flight and throbbing pulse beats, and we were balanced in an equilibrium that was not yet upset, and in conjunction that was not yet impact nor departure, but in a secant and an arrow of purple ready prepared. And we heard the great silence of accomplishment, the solemn silence of vertiginous departures, silence straining ahead, silence ready to spring forward and quivering, silence already straining forward, containing within itself all future speed, silence more swift than speed, devouring the silence of spaces and of cataclysms. Then we felt and were the cry, the vast cry, the tearing apart, the all and all gone, gone, endless spaces, bottomless pits, joy, flow of life, joy, sky, joy, gone carrying and carried away, breaking away from all bonds and pouncing ahead, joy, genesis of creation, overflowing. For the supreme adolescent had struck the seventh stroke and said peace and joy unto sloth, not absolved, nor justified, nor forgiven, nor forgotten, but conscious of its being. And this was like the last day of rest of all creation, drawing to its close, not the forgetfulness of God, but after the big remembering and the thousand lights when not one of them was missing in their clash and impact. And this rest, this sloth that was entirely sloth, did nothing and only was and relaxed, and let itself go and spread and opened up and did no more than open, and went down into the depths of the being like a good artisan well to the live ground water, and refused, all wearisome and degrading toil, and rejected all rest from degrading toil, and did not sanctify the sweat of hated toil, and became the channels of the sap which surges up, the channels too of desire that rises up, of desire the only motor and motive of life, and was the expression of desire which rises and was the stream of boiling desire, and was the only toil that is fertile and inexhaustible, never tired, never desiring rest, and was life which neither rests nor toils, for the real work is the such were the deeds and the lonely death of the man who sought in the dark woods. After this man had died, he was taken and buried in earth by four steel cables, but earth was no true earth, was coal and reinforced concrete and pig iron and all such things, and the man could not rest there in peace and said, I must invent the earth machine. Then he arose from the dead and built the earth machine, and on its earth trees grew, and birds throve and streams babbled, and again man said H two O and cut down the trees and began again and filled everything again. And when all was accomplished he died anew, and in the reinforced concrete and all the rest, but rose again and began again ever in a ghastly tearing asunder. And begat many children, who were all mankind and out of cruel heredity, were so numerous but ever alone, and lived alone and died alone, but because of their factory world, of their machine world, of their world of men, knew not the desolate loneliness of their soul. Between floor and ceiling, they knew neither sky nor earth, but only their shadows cast on the walls. The continents then after the great fulfillment and the joining together of good and of evil, man, the mediator between life and chaos, was at the same time both creator and creature, and his song was that of joy. And the old world rolled away and gave forth a great cry of distress, and beneath our feet rolled away with its great cry. Then swift as lightning, leaping forward in his strides, the sublime adolescent struck five times rapidly one after the other, the five last great strokes with his heel of fire on the five continents, and thrust his strokes deep into the bowels of the earth, and there then rose five beams of fire as far as the sky, five scarlet arrows in the blue infinite, five fingers of the hand now recovered in the joy of toil which is creation. And the five continents were the head and the powerful limbs of the new man and the sublime youth loved them. With his great heart of love which is blue ocean, he caressed them, and the blue ocean was mediator. With his great heart of love which is the heart of the world he embraced them in the blue of the sky, and the blue of the sky was mediator. And his long locks of golden beams of light were the rising upon the new Genesis. Well, listeners, that was a lot of listening. Thank you so much for bearing with us here at Before the Page. Our next episode, episode 42, will conclude our reading of Genesis Rejuvenated by Carlos Suarez, and it will be a much shorter reading. Thank you very much for listening today. And again, if you wish to be in touch with Before the Page, that is easy enough to do. Just go to before the page at gmail.com. It's spelled exactly how it sounds, before the page at gmail.com. Until the next, be well.