Just Fooling: Paper, Money, Poe

. . . in regard to Kafka, we can no longer speak of wisdom. Only the products of its decay remain. There are two: one is rumor about true things . . .; the other . . . is folly [Torheit]—which, to be sure, has utterly squandered the substance of wisdom [Torheit, welche zwar den Gehalt . . . vertan hat], but preserved [wahrt] its attractiveness and assurance, which rumor invariably lacks. Folly [Torheit] lies at the heart of Kafka’s favorites. . . . This much Kafka was absolutely sure of: first, that someone must be a fool [Tor] if he is to help; second that only a fool’s help is real help. (Benjamin, Briefwechsel 272; “Some Reflections on Kafka” 144)

. . . Un morceau de papier! . . . Mais est-ce un songe, une réalité? Ne doutons plus: oui, c’est la vérité, Quoi! c’est donc toi, toi que je vois encore: Toi qui, naguère, humble servant de Flore, Te contentais d’entourer à moitié Le frais lilas offert par l’amitié; Ambitieux! tu courtises l’aurore! Et rose, œillet, anémone ou jasmin Tu trompes l’œil, et veux tenter la main! A de tels jeux, va, que rien ne s’oppose; Nous sourions à ta metamorphose. (Jourdain)

It might seem foolish at this point to inflate the significance of the new electronic media such as the internet and hypertext for the future of literature. ¹ Certainly the apocalyptic tone adopted by both promoters and detractors of these new technologies can seem overblown: one suspects that we have yet to see the end of paper. “To say adieu to paper today,” Jacques Derrida has noted in a recently published interview, “would be a little like deciding one fine day not to speak any more on the pretext that we know how to write” (“Le papier ou moi” 56). Perhaps. Yet a dismissal of paper today might be still better understood as a repetition and overturning of a decision in favor of paper some eight centuries ago when the art of paper making began to surface in Europe and parchment started to fade as a medium of writing. Such a parallel to the situation today in an age of electronic media can be detected in the account of paper’s origin offered by André Blum in his classic study, On the Origin of Paper:

In the course of a pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostella in Spain at the beginning of the [twelfth] century, [Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny] had noted books written on paper made by Jews. Mabillon and other critics after him thought that the reference was to paper from Egypt, but Peter the Venerable in this passage speaks of copies of the Talmud made, as he phrased it, “ex rasuris pannorum seu ex qualibet alia forte viliore materia” (from old rags or from some other more vile material). . . . The passage cited seems to contrast books made of paper with those of papyrus or parchment: “Juncis orientalium paludum aut ex pellibus hicorum vel vitulorum” (paper made from rushes of eastern swamps or from skins of goats or calves).

(26–27)

“The prejudice against paper” that Blum identifies emerging at this time resembles in some ways the anxieties today over a decision in favor of the electronic media. Such a resemblance is suggested by the following passage that appears a full three centuries after Peter the Venerable in the Latin treatise, De Laude Scriptorum [In Praise of Scribes] by Johannes Trithemius. The German Benedictine addresses his contemporary scribes as follows:

All of you know the difference between a manuscript [scriptoram] and a printed book [impressuram]. The word written on parchment [membranis] will last a thousand years. The printed word is on paper [papirea]. How long will it last? The most you can expect a book of paper [volumine papireo] to survive is two hundred years. Yet, there are many who think they can entrust their works to paper. Posterity will judge [Hoc posteritas iudicabit].

(62–63)

The anxieties about the ephemeralizing and degenerative effects of paper on writing made by Trithemius in the early-fifteenth century are echoed by current fears about the internet as expressed in recent books like...