ABSTRACT
Truly, as I quoted in my 'Proem', 'ce vieillard est un carrefour.' I have read everything by and on Brisset that I could lay my eyes on, but my reading of him must have been, in both senses, partial. If Steiner is right, and all that we can at best say of language is 'momentarily the case', then all I have said about Brisset is, to put the best gloss on it, fragmentarily the case. Much of his output is not (re-)usable; and there are limits, often quickly reached, to my powers of understanding and commenting. Having come at him, and spun away from him, at all sorts of angles, I do not honestly know where I stand in relation to him. I hope, at least, to have shown him the right kind of respect, which embraces a readiness to laugh at his absurdities while listening courteously to them. Brisset is a trampoline: to take off from and to come back to. We always exploit others in some way. All commentators on Brisset appropriate and profiteer from him, like Jules Romains and his ill-intentioned boon companions.
