Speaking in Tongues

Humea KVIlW Oppenheimer continuedfrom previous page momentous if perhaps expected questions—what is this horror to be called? how is it to be named?—with an eerie simplicity: The haze united us and the wrinkles on our faces became outlined as in greasepaint in that red dustso we left our city, and the cloud settled on the far shore, and the people there had no need of names. As Nurkse's adroit phrases suggest, the strength of this poem, and indeed of his impressive book, finds its full freedom through a naming-anguish, often abandoning what he elsewhere affirms, to wit: Eliot's own conviction, as expressed in Four Quartets, that the right revealing names can always be found, even for the vilest of experiences, and most valuably as a means by which to objectify if not constrain their vileness. No right name seems available for the vileness ofthis terrorist attack, or for terrorism—in much the same way as "holocaust," though not without its journalistic uses, shudders under the weight of its grisly inadequacy: a stronger term, such as "evil," might provide a greater, if temporary relief. Nurkse'spowers as apoet can be seen topourforth most tellingly in his treatment ofthe horrifying attacks on New York's World Trade Center. One result of this book's struggle with naming is that its last "suite," which presents a thematic shift, becomes a revelation. We find ourselves here descending into the ocean and lost among chattering sea creatures. At first, the descent feels simply implausible—what is one to make of whispering eels, grieving lugworms?—and, from the viewpoint of naming, confusing. Yet this only at first. We soon adapt to a new quasi-scientific dimension, and greco-latinate terms of classification begin to take over, competing with Four Quartets'?, implicit liturgical latinates. What is more, the exchange begins to feel right: chaetognath stands in for glass worm, acmaeidae for limpet: the experience satisfies. In the end, indeed, it seems a solid, brilliant reminder, as does Burnt Island itself, that the anguish of finding apt names for our experiences remains among the chief, ifprecarious, sources of redemption in an age of ferocious, ambushing attacks and apprehensive populations. Paul Oppenheimer is the author ofthree books ofpoetry , including most recently The Flame Charts: new poems (Spuyten Duyvil), and a biography, Rubens: A Portrait (Cooper Square Press). Speaking in Tongues Charles Marowitz On Bullshit Harry G. Frankfurt Princeton University Press http://pup.princeton.edu/ 76 pages; cloth, $9.95 It is always intriguing when an intellectual highbrow, setting aside weightier matters, takes himself down a few pegs to consider more mundane topics: Aldous Huxley on "Canned Fish," Walter Benjamin on "Hashish in Marseilles," Roland Barthes on "Striptease." Harry G. Frankfurt is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University; not quite in the league of Huxley, Benjamin, or Barthes but a renowned moral philosopher and the author of books such as The Reasons ofLove (2004), Necessity, Volition , and Love (1999), and The Importance of What We Care About (1988). In his latest short work, he has been tempted into a much more earthbound subject; namely, "Bullshit"—a subject about which many of us have ardent, profound, often divided opinions. If fish, hashish, and strippers can be philosophically analyzed, there is no reason in the world to deny finite consideration of a pastime that affects virtually every member of the human race, either as receiver or dispenser. In the first part of his treatise, Frankfurt tries to formulate a definition we can all live with. He compares "bullshit" with "humbug," stating that "both lying and humbug are modes of misrepresentation " but qualifies the similarity by declaring that "humbug" falls "short of lying." "Humbug," in the Dickensian, Ebenizer Scrooge-sense of the word, is also a "mocking" ofcertain values the speaker either disdains or refutes. It can be used interchangeably with "bullshit" when used to denigrate ideas with which people violently disagree. But throughout, Frankfurt evaluates "humbug" only in terms of fraudulent language rather than attitude. A person denouncing an idea with which he disagrees is as much the result of character-differences as it is semantics. Without considering specifically what is being called "humbug," it is...