So I guess we’re all just sitting here, thinking about apophatic theology…
Nestled between his book tour updates, Brandon Taylor recently linked to a review of his new book by Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness. I finished Cleanness exactly one year ago while semi-languishing in Colorado Springs. The book was beautiful and brutal and so formally weird to me. It has one of the most stunning opening chapters I have ever read followed by one of the most disturbing.
I didn’t know Greenwell had a newsletter. Reading through it I was surprised to learn that Cleanness was Greenwell’s debut novel, pleased to learn he’s just finished a draft of his next, and tickled when I read that he is offering a course this summer that opens with a unit on mysticism “from Augustine’s vision at Ostia to Simone Weil,” to examine apophatic theology’s influence on 20th and 21st century literature. Greenwell writes:
I have an intuition that for the affirmation literature offers to be meaningful—for it to be convincing, and so helpful to us—it has to have passed through negation: that art offers us a Yes that has passed through No, that carries No with it.
What does that mean? That’s what I’ve been trying to think about, and I suspect that a discipline that might offer meaningful tools is theology…Apophatic theology begins with a conundrum: God is infinite, language is finite, so how can we use language to think about God? (This is, it seems to me, analogous to the dilemma of art, which tries to compress infinities of experience and meaning to a painting or a page; as Pierre Bonnard said, “nature is infinite / the work is finite.”) One thing that happens in negative or apophatic discourse is a twisting or deformation of language in an attempt to stretch it, to make it accommodate things beyond its reach. This, too, is something familiar to many artists who use language as their medium.
I have thought about this notion, far less eloquently, with respect to how I think about who and how I am. I wrote over the summer that I could only conceive of myself apophatically—that is, I could tell when I didn’t feel like me and try to work backwards. Of course now I am here to refute myself.
It has been a week since the show I worked on for a month, but anticipated for six, closed. I am not a method actor by any means; like many of my peers I cobble—I test out an off-hand remark from a professor, I steal from people I admire, I journal, I generally try to stay out of my own way. Working on cityscrape disrupted my usual approach. It was too close to reality to create meaningful boundaries between myself and the character. The opening circumstances of the play are pretty much identical to my life: a mid-twenties aspiring artist tries to make it in New York with very little money and a fluctuating conviction that she is good at what she does. In order to create Kitt, I think I engaged in a sort of unmaking. By removing some foundational Mia blocks, we unearthed Kitt: apophatic. She is not happy. She is not physically comfortable. She isn’t confrontational. She’s never had an orgasm. She’s not optimistic, content, activated, impulsive, forgetful. It was self-cannibalizing, which is not to say that it was hard or painful. In fact, I think it is a huge testament to the generosity of the whole team and the brilliant and compassionate direction of Nina Goodheart that I am only now thinking about what that work may have entailed. The show was well-received (yay!) and I think much of the appeal is that the target audience can’t help but be intoxicated by the story. Kitt and Kat are so familiar—they share so much musculature, the same skeletal anomalies as the rest of us who are thrilled and terrified to be working in this city—hopefully, we are all a little better adjusted.
In the wake of an intensely generative six weeks, I am gently building myself up again. The Monday after closing, I told my friend Evangeline I was giving myself a week of imposed solitude. She pointed out that I was proclaiming this to her in my kitchen after asking her to get coffee and hang out. The rest of the week went about the same. I only spent one day alone in my room, the original plan, and I was so unmoored that I FaceTimed Nina for two hours. Every time I considered being alone I had a little burst of panic: okay, I’m by myself now what am I supposed to do? The solution was, and isn’t it always, I just needed unscheduled time with people I love.
I mistakenly thought that rest required solitude. But I was depleted, and should know by now that I find replenishment in other people. Instead of removing myself further, I had to affirm my life, a completely additive practice: cataphatic. Coffee with Vange. Reading with Charlie. Dinner during a storm. The bookstore. Making out. Child’s pose. Ice cream. It is June in New York and I just finished a play, what’s more ecstatic than that?
All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning, see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was—that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how every instant…
Mrs. Dalloway
xx
Mia
A great reflective piece, Mia. I realize the play was an inspiration, but also maybe the movie we saw with your best childhood friend too. You are moving on with your life so enjoy every day and new adventure fully!
Love💕