We Are Already Dead. Long May We Live!: Death as Event in Koos Prinsloo’s Metropolis

Abstract

In this article, I think about death as “event” by reading Koos Prinsloo through the three syntheses of time – Habit, Mnemosyne and Thanatos – as explicated by philosopher Gilles Deleuze in Difference and Repetition, as well as work done with his sometimes co-author, Félix Guattari. I argue that Prinsloo’s oeuvre provides a critical and clinical function that can provide methods for releasing jouissance so that the death drive can be re-directed. Thus, whereas the critical function engages literary figures, styles and ways of being, as well as Kant’s understanding of critique, the clinical provides a symptomatology of life potentiality in a given work. Together, these function to identify the genesis of life as a creative force and, in so doing, restores healthy living.

 Opsomming

In hierdie artikel word die dood, met verwysing na Koos Prinsloo se kortverhale, gesien as “gebeurtenis”. Ek oorweeg die drie sintese van tyd (Habit, Mnemosyne en Thanatos) soos uiteengesit deur die filosoof Gilles Deleuze in Difference and Repetition (asook in werke van Deleuze en Félix Guattari). Ek voer aan dat Prinsloo se oeuvre ’n kritiese en kliniese metodologiese funksie bied vir die vrystelling van jouissance, of lewenspotensiaal, om sodoende die doodsinstink te herreguleer. Dus, terwyl die kritiese funksie met literêre figure, style en maniere omgaan (waardeur ook Kant se begrip van “kritiek” betrek word), bied die kliniese ‘n simptomatologie van die lewenspotensiaal in ’n gegewe werk. Sáám vervul hierdie funksies die doel om die ontstaan van die lewe as ’n kreatiewe krag te identifiseer en sodoende ‘n “gesonde” lewensbestaan daar te (her)stel.