Hi Michel. I was wondering lately if you made
any progress in your research concerning the
mysterious power of puppets…
So far, nothing new...
I recently discovered that you actually dealt
with the topic in your earlier work.
You must be referring to the few lines in
“Discipline and Punish,” where I describe
the automata of the 18th century as docile
bodies and as “political puppets” – or
more precisely as “small-scale models of
power“ (p.136)
No, I am referring to the rather extended
stuff you wrote about puppet shows in your
article about Flaubert.
Oh, I see. You mean my study of Flaubert’s
rather bizarre work, The Temptation of Saint
Anthony. Flaubert’s topic is the lonely
monk in the desert who is faced with great
temptations, earthly pleasures as well as
strange thoughts inflicted upon him by the
devil. Yes, I do talk about all of this but
also about the discourse, the archive, and
the library… Correct?
Let me refresh your memory. This is the reason
I brought you here, to this museum.
Ok, then lets go.
Better be careful, there is Salvadore Dali
waiting for you!
Hello Michel! How nice to meet you! Let me
show you the best, the greatest and the most
attractive painting ever made of “The Temptation
of St. Anthony.” Of course, it was done
by myself, the Great Dalí!
Thanks so much, but we are looking for something
different, something older. It is painting
by Brueghel the Younger or the Elder, depicting
the reading monk.
No, it’s not that…
This is 
the one Flaubert was so fascinated with...
It also shows a reading monk, here
and around him all the temptations with which
he is confronted in his solitude. As you put
it in your text: „Surrounding him on all
sides are naked women with open arms, lean
Gluttony stretching her giraffe’s neck,
[…] and nameless beasts devouring each other;
at his back is a procession of the grotesques
that populate the earth– bishops, kings,
and tyrants.“ – Now, what I am interested
in is the following. In your piece you also
talk about the fact that already as a child
Flaubert had seen a puppet theater piece about
Saint Anthony and that this gave him the idea
to write his book...
Correct. Similar as in Goethe. Apparently
Goethe had also seen a puppet theater show
on “Faust” in his childhood and was so
fascinated with the figure and the topic that
he devoted more than 30 years of his lifetime
to write different versions of the story – which
is the same thing that Flaubert did with St.
Anthony. – Is this the kind of puppet power
you had in mind? That these creatures inspire
human beings to write literary texts, perhaps
even masterpieces that transform them into
authentic writers?
Sure, that’s part of it. However, if I understood
you correctly, the same holds true if you
turn it upside down.
At least for Flaubert this actually leads
to the central feature of Saint Anthony’s
story. All the temptations Saint Anthony is
facing, all the extremely attractive beings
he is longing for to as well as all the highly
repellent figures that torture him, all of
them emerge from his reading in isolation.
It is obviously true that in Flaubert’s
book all the temptations are parading before
him as in a kind of puppet theater
– as you can see it here on the painting,
a „phantasmagoria“, a „monotonous progression
of grotesques“ (p.88)
The same holds true for my great painting!
But this is only a surface effect.
Precisely. In this “linear and naive succession
of figures“ (p.99), in this parading of
“figures crowded like puppets dancing the
farandole” (p.104), everything emerges from
the act of reading, that is by means of libraries,
archives, and discourses that Flaubert continues
to quote, to paraphrase and to differentiate
in his text – so, eventually everything
originates from the black and white of printed
signs. In this sense, I stated that „The
imaginary [...] resides between the book and
the lamp. […] It is a phenomenon of the
library.“ (p. 90-91). When thinking about
it today, this should also apply to puppets.
They also stem from the modern imagination,
they are not just small-scale models of power.
Does that mean, then, that Flaubert recognized
himself in the painting of Brueghel? Does
he identify himself with Saint Anthony, eventually?
The temptations do appear in the form of a
puppet theater. But in reality they represent
the succession of his literary works – the
ones he wrote and the ones he envisioned writing?
Could be the case...
Then, I guess you also recognized yourself
in Flaubert – and along with him in Saint
Anthony, the lonely monk reading in the desert
of the library...
Perhaps I did so as a human, but not as a
puppet. The puppet might allude or refer to
a temptation. It certainly originates in the
space between the book and the lamp. This
might explain its mysterious power. At the
same time, it is rather clear that the puppet
is not another book, not simply the imagination,
not pure discourse. Rather, it has to do with
the materialist desire that Saint Anthony
expresses at the end of Flaubert’s book.
There, Anthony only wishes for one thing:
to return to the beginning of life, to „achieve
the principle of time in a return that completes
the circle“ (p. 101). “He wishes to be
a dumb creature-an animal, a plant, a cell.”
(p.108). He desires to become matter, to pupate
himself and turn into something different
– and have everything start again, almost
as in Nietzsche and the eternal return.
Ok, perhaps we move on...
Hello Michel! Let me show you the best, the
greatest and the most attractive painting
ever made of The Temptation of St. Anthony.
I think gradually I understand what you mean.
