Oublier Oméga

Paul Verhaeghen, hier, sur son blog, à propos de la traduction hongroise de son roman Oméga mineur:

[…] the Hungarian translation of Omega Minor is finally out.

This, then, too marks the end of this novel in its multiple translated guises. Gondolat sent me a copy. There's something decidedly weird about holding an object that, one is told, holds all the words you once wrote, except you cannot read them at all.

And how much of these are still my words?

I did an interview over Skype with a Greek journalist last week, which reminded me of how much about the book I have forgotten. (For instance, the cover of the Greek translation features a Pollock painting -- how appropriate, said the journalist, for this is how you described the end result of a bullet penetrating a skull in close proximity of a wall. I have no memory of that, but find it a cute, endearing metaphor which I sure would have liked had I read it in someone else's work.)

Such forgetfulness is good.

It's like, I imagine, the forgetting of the pain of birth so that you (proverbial mother) can decide to have a second child after all.

My skull, all emptied out, Pollock-dripping from the wall -- now I should be able to write again, from the emptiness of mind. Plus a certain fullness of the heart.