Mek-Ouyes and Public Things

What is the poor thousand-headed animal who walks in the morning on millions of feet, at noon walks on two times fewer feet, with still as many heads, and in the evening walks on only two feet? [...] "The Republic!" The Republic, dawning in a democratic Eden, weakened at midday by divisions, and ending at twilight in the despotism of a single person. (La Scène usurpée, 37)

"La République roman" is the name of a cycle of novels undertaken by Jacques Jouet. To date, this project is composed of the following texts:

1. Le Directeur du Musée des Cadeaux des Chefs d'État de l'Étranger (Seuil, 1994)
2. La Montagne R (Seuil, 1996)
3. La Scène usurpée (Le Rocher, 1997)
4. Une Réunion pour le nettoiement (POL, 2001)
5. L'Évasion de Rochefort (Festival de la Nouvelle de Saint-Quentin, 1997)
6. La République romaine (Afat Voyages, 1997).
7. Fins (POL, 1999)
8. Ce que rapporte l'Envoyé (Le Verger, 1999)
9. La voix qui les faisait toutes (Sansonnet, and unpublished amplified version, 1999)
10. Annette et l'Etna (Stock, 2001)
11. La République de Mek-Ouyes (work in progress).

"République roman"--is that "The Republic of the Novel" or "The Republic (is a) novel" or "Novel of the Republic" or "The Republic called Novel"? Nothing is certain yet. Nevertheless, Jacques Jouet wanted me to address it here even while not yet knowing fully what could be said about it: a work in progress.

"La République roman" is obviously not a naturalist enterprise, like "The Natural and Social History of a Family during the 3^rd, 4^th, or 5^th Republic" (cross out useless possibilities), nor is it a Greek-style utopia--although it is the triumph of the poet and the world of simulacra over the philosopher and the paradise of ideas. It is the notion of a political novel exempt from any commitment to action. Jouet implies this in La Montagne R when he says, "When one speaks of a writer's political vein, the politics in question are always those of hard knocks! I'm sorry, but I prefer soft knocks" (102).

What's noticeable, first of all, is Jacques Jouet's difficulty in speaking about this project in a global manner. For from a certain point of view, this enterprise borders on the philosophical and political critique of power as practiced by Marxism and Leftisms as well as by the philosophies of "la différence" and the social sciences ("Where have those sweet days gone?"). Admittedly, these analyses all gravitated around a more or less reformatory line, and took one form--the essay. Jouet's mode of investigation is the novel. This arouses questions. Why is the novel in this case more pertinent than the essay? Further, what can be added to the critique of politics, since now this critique has been cynically appropriated by the very people it condemned?

I will begin with a digression on a philosopher who is paradoxically still unknown in North America, although he has taught in several foreign countries (is he perhaps wary of the entrepreneurs of Deconstruction?). François Laruelle has taken on the task of pointing out the impasses of modern philosophy. For him, the constitution of a galaxy of thought designated as the "philosophy of difference" has failed to institute new values and, notably, a morality, which, since Descartes, remains the crowning achievement of philosophical activity. Pondering this failure has led Laruelle to constitute a discipline that he calls "non-philosophy."

What is non-philosophy? It is not just one more philosophy, but a theory that attempts to cast doubt on the philosopher's ability to describe reality. Whether the philosopher is one of "presence" (classical philosophy) or one of "alterity" (modern philosophy), his discourses are, for François Laruelle, comparable to so many "Procrustean beds." Non-philosophy takes on the task of analyzing this failure, and of finding...