He's real and solid, but we still don't know the guy?

“Nanson thus discovers that “things and facts” can only come from within, and that his search for knowledge of a concrete nature has ultimately led to his own self.” Reading this line from James’ blog, I thought about the “Idea of Order at Key West.” I was thinking how disconnected (disembodied) Nanson is at the beginning of the book. I think he is that way, because his mind is stuck in abstract, bodiless theories (like Lacan). He doesn’t know how to live, but he knows how to think about living. That changes when he changes to facts, to words.

Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

The more words he gets out, the more solid he becomes, the more he reveals his identity. I think we talked a little bit about that in class, but I cannot remember if we talked about how Nanson (even though a lot of the book is about his scholarly search and not so scholarly adventures) doesn’t really show much of who he is. I am still re-reading the beginning, but it just occurred to me that, like DS, Nanson is revealing bits of himself but not who he is. Here’s what I know (or remember at this point) of Nanson:
- He is a little man “small but perfectly formed” pg 6
- His family name is Latin for dwarf (funny) pg 6
- His mom is dead pg 3
- His dad disappeared pg 6
- He used to live in a red brick “box” pg 39
- He slept with (at least) two women in his life
- He was sexually harassed by a creeper
- He can be animalistic pg 236
This narrative might have included many “I”s (Nanson), but I don’t know that I know him much more than that. I guess Breanna has got a point when she says that, “there is no end in the acquirement of knowledge, just as it is impossible to fully know and understand one’s true self”