The question is not new. But the chaos of the modern world in which we give the impression of losing ourselves has brought the primordial question back to the forefront: who are we? In these times of “weakened symbolic order,” we will not shy away from the new edition by Hachette Littératures of the reflections of essayist Claude Arnaud on this identity that “slips through our fingers.” From the “mastery of the self” evoked by Seneca to the one who is “no longer master in his own house” according to Freud, a reason already advanced by Pascal to make him fundamentally “hateful,” the novelist does not hesitate to use himself as an example in the introduction to illustrate the myriad tricks and other oddities concerning what is generally believed to be “self.”
Each era proudly claims to be progress over the previous one, and the “I” eventually follows suit, breaking with its generational roots and preferring, in a phrase that summarizes the issue posed by the author, “to dedicate itself to the continuous invention of oneself through the permanent reworking of social and professional, emotional and sexual ties.” The job market is certainly not the only one at fault, as it has been a long time since professional identity rhymed with personality construction: in a career that retains only its name, humans are invited to constantly question themselves, to grow more like a “rhizome” than to follow a vertical path. Precarity demands it, adaptability now takes precedence over competence and expertise. With a confident sense of phrasing, Claude Arnaud leaves no detail untouched about these evolutions that regularly inflame the thirst for the “I,” while indicating the paths that ultimately prove to be dead ends: the “seen” that equals the “recognized,” the “confession industry” where stools become couches, substitute identities or prostheses, and other identity “kits.” After a dizzying array of theoretical concepts, the author, like a good clinician who pretends not to know himself, enjoys enriching his observations with a host of examples of famous or anonymous characters who have, so to speak, struggled with their identity: the story of Martin Guerre where distance, resemblance, and finally narration—evoking thoughts of Paul Ricoeur—become constitutive of an identity. Or the Count of Saint Germain whose apparent timelessness managed to deceive a world perpetually mired in denial of finitude. In the realm of identity and sexuality, the author also discusses the epic of the Chevalier d’Eon, whose biological sex truth was only revealed post-autopsy, while “he” managed to play on the ambiguity of his gender throughout his life in the great courts of Europe.
If the 18th-century aristocracy played, out of idleness, with masks and pretenses, the 19th century, according to Claude Arnaud, took advantage of the insights of Nietzsche, Freud, and Proust to “undermine the proud image we had of ourselves.” Writers and filmmakers are certainly not the last to exemplify his ideas: his discussion of the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa and his literary doubles, that of actor and director Eric Von Stroheim who ambiguously nurtured his cultural heritage and his way of “softening” the mindset of actors, the tragic figure of the pseudo-scientist Jean-Claude Romand or the “fictitious and constructed” origin of Binjamin Wilkomirski, are, among others just as significant, elements that illustrate the complex relationship of the self… with itself. In other words, the identity enigma won’t be solved anytime soon.
Claude Arnaud, “Who Says I in Us,” Coll. “pluriel,” Editions Hachette Littératures, 2008, 430 pages, 10.50 euros.
