Coming Unglued

A commentary? On “Envois”? No, really, you’re joking, right? Or else you just want to see what might result from the collision: commentary + “Envois.” In which case, you no doubt already expect there will be accidents at the scene. I won’t say you pro-grammed it, since it will indeed have to have been an accident and therefore unforeseen, if not altogether unforeseeable. You don’t know what to expect, exactly; perhaps you harbor a small hope of seeing commentary derailed, ruined in advance in its very possibility.In advance: commentary supposes, at a minimum, an ad-vance order, an order of the pre-position of the text to be com-mented on. It, the proposed preposed work, is already there, in advance and in front of the commentary, before it. But “Envois” demonstrates, and this is also its performance, that things in this regard are never really certain and thus a matter of certain knowledge. Rather, there is only belief to go on once it can be admitted — but can it? must it? — that what we call knowledge, the knowledge of some truth, is a phantasm and it is inherited, indeed, it is the phantasm of inheritance. The tradition of com-mentary is shaped by the supposed truth of inheritance: that the heir — the commentator? — comes after that which or that from which it inherits or claims to inherit.