BSPH: Louis Aragon - Suicide

Some works of art are playing on a gag reflex. However, due to ambiguousness of the verbiage, the word "gag - choke or retch" is often mixed-up with the word "gag - joke". Because "higher aspirations are about to make one his bitch". Case in point - this poem.

This is a poem by French surrealist writer Louis Aragon titled "Suicide". It was published in 1924. It is a tongue-in-cheek poem that takes two unconnected concepts and mashes them together to concoct a bout of mild cognitive dissonance. 

In addition to that, "Suicide" holds a recognition of being one of the earlier examples of conceptual poetry - the one that deals more with an ideas behind the text than the text itself. In this case - it is about a reduction of language to its barest. In the same time this poem is also an affectionate parody of the utter pretentiousness that often plagues this kind of poetry.

"Suicide" is a thing of its time. It is a faux-provoking piece made purely for one's amusement - a trifle designed to annoy and perplex those who are vain enough to try to perceive its "hidden depths". In its historical context, "Suicide" is nothing more than "just another" poke at the literary conventions of then-mainstream establishment and its eerie double standards. 

The poem deals with the concepts of what can be and what cannot be considered as literature. It stretches the idea far enough to make the sound of tearing heard loud and clear - because it is a funny imaginary sound. In a way, it is an elaborate "take that" to all the pretentious, overwritten, overstuffed writing and critique surrounding it locked in a perfect echo chamber of perpetual self-celebration. The irony is that the surrealist movement itself was locked in an echo chamber of its own and that was a big contributor to its subsequent downfall. 

The poem itself consists of Latin alphabet recited in an alphabetical sequence broken down into five lines thus making it more or less looking like a short poem with a beginning, middle and end. However, it is a just an alphabet with a different title slapped on it. But the correlation between the title and the content is what makes it tick. 

There is an intentional cognitive dissonance at play. It begs to ask "What an alphabet sequence has to do with the concept of Suicide?" only to point out that there is no actual answer to that question with any form or shade of definiteness. In fact - there is nothing to it at all. Because it is just an alphabet sequence titled "Suicide" - because why not. Technically, this is the whole point of the poem. 

Ambiguousness is one of the virtues of "Suicide". It is what makes it special. Just like Hemingway's "Blank Verse", it is a throwaway joke that can be mistaken for a statement. It can be whatever a particular reader wants it to be without ever diminishing its aesthetic impact or lack of thereof. 

Being the way it is - "Suicide" is so open to interpretation - there is no other way to perceive it but to transform it by comprehending it. It is just too hard to keep yourself from it. The more you look at it - the more ideas it evokes. The thing - our minds have natural tendencies towards "making sense". It is an element of a survival instinct that after generations of comforting was left to its own devices and got bored so much it jumps on every opportunity to do its thing - to make sense out of something no matter what. This poem gives mind a chance to run wild a bit only to realize at some point that sometimes there nothing to make sense of. 

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However, there is a lot to chew if we take a step in another direction and indulge ourselves in a slight bout of overthinking.

For example, "Suicide" might be interpreted as a scrabble riddle disguised as a poem. There are several words in Latin, French or English languages that contain every letter of their alphabets making a monstrous wordzillas. This notion adds another needless dimension to the poem. This way, the poem is presented in a deconstructed form, its content is reorganized in a default alphabet sequence and the goal of the reader is to put it back together - uncover the meaning behind this elaboration. There is a clue in the form of the title but that's not exactly a key. 

The thing might be an easy task if you just type the query to the search engine and select the words. But since there are several options - there is a need to select the one that fits the most. Every choice gives a different shade of meaning and there is a ghost of chance to make a perfect match. 

On the other hand, the process may be a futile attempt at breaking the non-existent "code" with numerous tries and fails to come up with the correct solution - by matching vowels and consonants in a semblance of coherent phonemes - all while constructing all sorts of shorter words in the process that just come and go never taken seriously. 

Then there is a distinct visual rhythm in how letters f, l, r and w cap off their respective lines until the last line ends midway through. The breaks make an illusion of having distinct parts of the text - as if the sequence A-F, G-L, M-R, S-W and X-Z were some alien words, magic spells of sorts, intentionally encrypted words that can make something happen (one thing for sure, Big Bird would have liked it). 

Either way, there is a narrative that actively involves readers. There is an experience beyond the text imposed by the reader itself in order to do something.