“High Stakes” in the Symbolic Order: John Banville’s Love in the Wars Read through Jean Baudrillard / “Alto Risco” na Ordem Simbólica: Love in the Wars, de John Banville Lido Através de Jean Baudrillard

Abstract

Abstract: John Banville’s shrouded fictional territory suggests a Nietzschean world in which the notions of truth and reality are questioned and in the center of which humanity might find “an infinite nothing.” From Nietzsche’s bleak vision, the mind readily moves to Jean Baudrillard’s envisioned universe – even bleaker, perhaps – in which simulation is a “dominant mode of perception.” Baudrillard’s ideas are in dialogue with John Banville’s textual explorations of a territory of radical uncertainty. Elements of what can be seen as Baudrillardean third-order simulation are readily discernible in Banville’s late work, but in his play Love in the Wars , at focus in this article, it is Baudrillard’s notion of a pre-Renaissance symbolic order – an age of “the rule,” not of “the roll of the dice” – that has proved a superior analytical tool. Resumo: O territorio ficticio e obscuro de John Banville sugere um mundo nietzschiano no qual as nocoes de verdade e realidade sao questionadas e em cujo centro a humanidade pode encontrar “um nada infinito”. Da visao sombria de Nietzsche, a mente se move rapidamente para o universo imaginado de Jean Baudrillard – talvez ainda mais sombrio – em que a simulacao e um “modo dominante de percepcao”. As ideias de Baudrillard estao em dialogo com as exploracoes textuais de John Banville acerca de um territorio de incerteza radical. Instâncias daquilo que pode ser reconhecido como simulacao da terceira ordem baudrillardiana sao facilmente discerniveis no trabalho tardio de Banville; contudo, em sua peca Love in the Wars , foco deste artigo, a nocao de Baudrillard sobre uma ordem simbolica pre-renascentista – uma era da “ordem”, nao do “acaso” – provou ser uma ferramenta analitica superior.