5 ‘Merleau-Ponty and the “Backward Flow” of Time: ‘The Reversibility of Temporality and the ‘Temporality of Reversibility Glen A. Mazis 1 onder tose in refstion weretive decd reonsrucin of pat {ought which was nat pega ini and which et vl pars ‘ular it, bees i lone Frnsheus wi san of od ‘cane the past in ta iso ur a hed move borat wold ‘be neesary To develop an ition of tine to which tho Medue ‘Gon en onaln ait allusion. (PAP 4) ‘The work of Merlenu-Ponty isnot only an attempt to articulate a ‘new understanding ofthe way in which we are embodied being, to ffi the ambiguity of «nondualstie philusophy, to inaugurate an indteet ontology that uncovers “the flesh ofthe worl? within which the appositions of being and nonbeing, the one andthe many, identity ‘and difference are seen to be intertwinings ad o decrbe te pace of language within an expressive eatext of ereepton, but iis also primarily an attempt to thik through seriously the primerdialty of time as itself an ongoing becoming and not metely the containing structure of becoming. In this task, Merleaw-Ponty carried further the projet of his predecessor Henri Bergson in artiulating the “within- ‘imenese” of things. The notion of reversibility, which Merleaw Ponty articulated towards the end of his life en only be fly understand if ‘ne understands its founding an Merieau-Pontys radical understand ing of time, Merlesu-Ponty came to realize that it was the rafal ‘enmeshment of perception within temporality that was st the Beart ‘ofthe reversibility of pereaption, a theme imbedded within his work ‘but not easily appreciated" Merleau-Ponty also realized that Une“ (en A Masi steel? was chiasma, was reversible, and it was only a uch that it ‘asthe hoot ofthe reversibility of porception. This insight, however, ‘had been haunting the pages of Marleaa-Ponty’s text throughout his ‘work, The notion of Fundierang whichis central t» Merlens-Poatys dasciption of perception and its possibilities for expression in the Phenomenology seeady coneaing within it, the seeds of the nation of reversibility Not surprisingly i also already east a radial reconid- tration of time that Merioau-Ponty i will working out even fn his lat yoring note gather and published in The Vahl and she Ir Tn the passage cited fiom the Phenomenolagy of Peryption, Merlxu-Ponty suggosts that Deacartes' thought thatthe omnipotent ecrver could never make it be the case that Descartes had nover cxsted at this moment when his pronouneement makes him certain ofhis existence, contains an allusion to anton of ine that Descartas ‘vtded exploring. I is thet intuition of experince within time that Provides the certainty that Descartes experiences i the engi, but {san intimation of @ diferent sort of certainty than that which Descartes mit, As Merieau-Ponty pute i, "Relaction isnot abso. lately transparent fr itsel i i always given to ite in an expert fence" (PhP 42), Ts that experience which provides ur certsinty as ven hy time: “The experience ofthe present is that of bing assured af his existeno once and forall (PhP 44), Descartes interpreta this certainty a lying in the “precentnessof the present, which post i Indvance as an indobitableormer present inthe series of Fedlee- tions" PAP 42). In other words, fr Descartes, there is projected a ‘fective wrestng of an essence from the angoing temporal existence ‘return fom a vantage autsde time ta the lived experience that will, ‘eld the moment as a static and certain being, Erom the standpoint of mental substance, thee is an intelligibility that can be rescued from the chaos of becoming that provides certainty. In quite tho oppo- site manner, Merleau-Ponty discovers an understanding of time in hich we fnd a certainty in the enveloping richness and indeterm- ‘cy af ongoing becoming, The mament gives staelf as having-twen- rgtnating in the unfolding of te, aa continually becoming an t= ceratiable souree of later unfoldings and transformations, and this ‘experince of temporality sat the heart of what Merle Pont called “peroptnal fat” an on eto resis ely an allan tan “inition of "an intimation ofa diferent type ofeorniny, singe it sone of| ‘hoe instents in which Descartas is describing an experience tha his own theoretical interpretation ofthis experience invalidates, Tbe ex. [Marlena Ponty andthe Backward Flow ef Time 65 perience is ofthe “lived coring” of perception in the beewning of ‘me. TE ib tis cortanty that is the founding of a diferent sore of truth than Descartes sought, but whichis Mericaw-Pontys starting ‘and end point "We are inthe realm of truth and i is ‘the experience of truth’ ‘which is solfevident” (PRP xv). This experience is one in hich the open indeterminacy of the moment as its own kind of Cartains, its distinctive solPovidence, in its undeniable eld upon us fs inseparable from its enrichment and transformation in tine. This {why inthis passage Morieno-Ponty calls reiotion a "erste dad itiae working with the unfolding of sens within the bocoming of time ‘which calls forth an understanding “which was not peefigured in it ‘2nd which yet validly particuarizes it" (PRP 44). The “reflec” was rot simply “there” af sate, but within time become with reflection. For Descartes, who sought « mathematical cortainty that was clear and dlatinet or in ether words, determinate and trangparent, this lived eartinty within experience was discounted. Desearias sought to find weortaint outsdoof time, to wrench experience int agraspable urexperience "baneath’ or “autede” the flow of tine, the flow of experience, that would provide a im foundation. However, Merieao- Ponty saw there was no indubitable source of experience “neath” teperienc, Experience has its own oartainty: an indeterminate, open, volving “Usickness" Uhatis undeniable in ils ensnarement and re Ientleas development ad transformation ‘The certainty ofthis moment for Mevleau-Ponty isin the fast ‘Hat the future wil return tn this moment indi i was and yet ‘it nover had boon wil that moment, Meclean-Ponty wants to ‘explicate the thickness of temporality in which significant exper ‘ences, in their open indeterminacy, are fated to eontinsally retarn fo ‘hemselves in a neverending unfolding and enflding, This temporal surge and retum is the becoming of these significant experiences, ‘wie, from within the palpable presence ofa haunting yet eliptea Tuture, they never wee and yet had always been. This isthe sen ofa ‘perceptual ie within a perceptible word in which the flux and flow Funfoing meaning derives from the tensporalisy ofthe body, whith Itclf participates in tho samo fox and ow eo tha it eannot com pletely show ite gathered into a point of intallighilty. The working ‘ut, whichis always retrograde es well as progrossive, isthe flesh Saagurating & depth of weavings and returinge, eo that tho can ‘inoous movernent pense cele ofthe touched andthe touching cf ‘the visbleand the seing” (VI 142) This encrelement of perenption 1 hope to show is the play of timo, the circularity of timo, reburning to ‘ts depths. Equally significant, and perhaps more s, are the rare6 (tan A Masi “momants in which the chiaem of time jolt fort, palpably transfigar” ‘Bovrhie semen ory of description as being the over pitch of Fray operative moveron i en hike whet oentepeonpion coal bo thought of as revere that no is ten In coving and that inthis doubled move Tat les the nasznoe of on eoing, and equal the tho sen sin “le sense seumng in Belng sen one tends to ink te see fis ‘Sponsion in opal torts aa vectors or dietionalitis going one Say thou another, Not only tha, but the snao of pace that on Tinta to eon is that of odo pontine within a neutral contain: Inert hosing discret determinate “objecta Cartesian space. If Ip hinlong though Mereau-ont’s pilsophy, one sis into his ‘ayof tasking, then the notion of overs i either nonsensical rat bont“poaealy metapbore" Osly within he Becoming of pox Sept, Uno, and speed, within Uwe worlds cosas “coming Poe the ene of eversbity emerge. = “every on achisverintwtin time, Reversi san isiarea ehevement.Gartesitn renal sanee ns outade space tl ne cold never be “enght win reverts. Whoa Cozzane pani ta beghtened sense of revereiityemorging between i, Tr pele, and Mount St Vidoie, he pai, in which he is now Poising the mmostain paatng ol hrmigh him, ssi him as he foes it and sexing ite rough his sexing it there ding bck on iif of an unig encour within Umno, Reverb is the Aenpoaly ofthe by sea working though oft egogement with ‘tht ie presi within an enveloping world. Watts the temporal {kes of ba of perception and expression a span nealzed where {ere had ben gaps span which reaches backward to transform the messing of post pa whi ll ean, but are now eid vse cargo Interconnection. Corti, dung ten years of Jrinting that mountain, Uhre are moments when Cosanne i st 1 Fineelf tec more mountain than man, hs shri win a ‘range rsonanos in which the peroier i called as potentially per ‘ple nthe sane omy asthe peresved. Such mement, and er ttoments of deplacront that we wl explore, bese pata te eral thickest which alters boty previa and lster moments of xprinted dissection, that othervise might emerge as stanky ‘tonceverble bt wil instead reso with sc deeper natants of Teeonant doenteredneseexeenal to rovers The reversal of Yeverailiy are temporal and opata, or rather euch a distinction sais undermined ny reveratit. Only when the sonso of spac is “understood on tho bai of radial temporality in the ay Merloau: on Moriau-Ponty end the Backward low aime §] Ponty understood i, and ont when time itself i wen a reversible ie the reversibility of porception, ofthe dosh of the world, understand. able, ‘The Reversibility of Temporality In Morleau-Ponty’ early deseriptions of porception, he uncov- red different senso of depth that increasingly ocame the Key to his understanding of his new “indict ontalogy” as eventually ex rested in The Visible and the Invisible and “Eye and Mind” AS “rtculatod in the Phenomenology of Pereption, depth i ‘This bing simultaneously rosnt in expences which ae never ‘holes mutually ean, thin pleaton of on nthe oer te entracva ita one pereptoal act of whole pombe rece ‘ena the eignliy of depth 1 inthe dimension In waieh ‘Hinge or elements of tings eavelop each other, hares bead fd height are the dimensions i wth hey are Jatapoed OP 284-5) [Experiences which are mutually exclusive, which should open gape ia fur experience, which considered logically should cause spaces and times tobe jurtaposed in their separateness, are inataed enveloping, cnjambing, of one another in the thickness of a presen (of depth). ‘This “going gether” of Incmposaibes ie the mul envelopment Aespitediference in ime and space which gives perception a primary depth ont of which other dimensions emerge. By the time of the ‘ting ofthe The Visible andthe Invisible, Merieny-Ponty has come to ace the perelver as persiving “by debiscence of Baio of ts mn race" (VI 146); furthermore, the peresivod “i nota chunk of shoo Tutely hard, indivisible being bu is rather a sort of straits between exterior horizons and interar horizms ever gaping open (VI 152). "Tho perccivor and peresived are “two vortexes... the one slightly centered with respect tthe other” (VI 138). Rather then being destructive to sense, ths dispersion of pereciver and perceived a ‘open and enveloping is senses depth a2 reversible and chiaematc Like the strands of a chromosome that eotitute is being in thele encircling chasm, thir folding over one another, the centering of the perceiver within the world and Uae world within the perciver lnaves both as "turning sbout one another” (VI 264), "hie depth of ‘perception in which peresiver and paresived are both gaping open, ‘ol totalizale, means one is seen in secing and the seen eames to ‘see. Dopth, for Merleau-Pants, arses within dehisoenes,cotelegallyGlen A Mecie acoes gaps and thee lings are not merely epatia, they are eaualy SSS Mean Pony of hn of 190 where by under tne a chins? (VU 267) comes to se une a8 having a song is nines cette ante to the oer hoot otinuty without toner Catent "(1 20), ‘These feshings of tine hn which ove moment Comes to otter “without etna” euggect how moments of ime {ln tronform spar cose gape "en reveralen” Ta add ‘on oa tamporty of revert in which te past keeps boom ingiaethrowgh snildinge which Wana the twee fw {thas on an even reste dep ints own canna revere, ngs Thc, which age oa more wi or brote tore. Huser sense of Now ff ine eteiouess tht unblds im ii unity af prlotianal sz ‘etntond syncs is Titel for ne mare chante more Ete more uted” When time in cen to found within the un fing ofthe toe pereeptal exporting, ae ses Ue Wage i ‘hic, held within the Iandsapes, there are depts wich ease the Yerzivers ime a burst, to revere, to be rasa into the “stats fring open" within things landscape, het hld usin olng ther. MrlonrPonty has moved from Huser analysis of progressive tne {oe "wihowSttious apport in the pea (VI 207), to ae ledge within th world in savag or ble bing ‘Meroa- Pony pening Ue dap dmoason of time, points to part the phenomena of tne in whic overall fo a rantxed fd transiomed, iedated fom witin by lps ad Iatralzing ashes of ene which emerge at tat moment in manne diflecent than the development whieh emerge frm the consrwe retentional Snifcanes ints continual unflding Thing pant of natn fa new meaning is ne which anf the entire previo deve. pment unfolding unl his ponte a cst one ia whieh ie Sten laps up rnaformation, bu alo reverses its Bow This the temporality thst Neslens Pont has saghtthroghowt his werk, ini hy Bergson ut eorastng him, a teporait that fncions scnding lo what he now els the "barbaric prince’ Xi qn of lading athe pean tha of weld (and {otin tpt) an vt ce a an vapn eta at a {Sneek Bere naman rst, ever few and ttvaye eae. Th ein, Naar, ans the as pee Sistine, reo fem wit» pasa fom eo note tar eae ‘thought, Merlest-Ponty realized that there wore time, or fchiasimatc eaps” these “reversings” outside unfolding are Aierng dimensionalitis within the upsurge of time, Time, ieee, of another possibilty of time held within Ue landscepe: Morleau-Ponty and tha Backyard Plow o ne 50 ‘was not unitary in its internal structurations, but rather its unity as oe tobe the presumptive unity of perceptual ath "Thi the “nity in depth of incompossbles which nevertheows “yo together ‘The gest laf penny nt just thug the ht eatin reverberatons or the protential reach, but also asa bursting ‘of tio world in tufts fen doufe outside the real of intentonaities and si Tho preentitelfeld be sent be located win 9 pst ining, Hlshing reversals that are part of the veriality of ‘Being, the "passages from ane into the other” between temporal czsaces Ut are leaps, “barbure,” and aside foun the eidetie lawn af ‘uniolding phenemens. For Merleau-Ponts, part ofthe understanding o how the secing- ‘soon, touching touched, pereiving-perceved dichotomies bad to ke ‘vercime in en autochthony in which "activity = passivity” (VL 265) ‘se thatthe reversibility of the les is the reversibly of past ad resent: “Then past and present ere Ininander, each enveloping” ‘xveloped—and thet felt is the flesh” (VI 268) Although tte se. ‘quential unfolding and resonating of time as articulated by earlier Dhenomenalgies expressed part ofthe sens of the pereoptual world 88 temporal, hese characteristics were nat exhaustive Time, as the unfolding within one another ofthe peroiverperocived, itt fold ‘nak, across itself, both in sudden enfaldngs, conflagrating “rover, sas" and within larger temporal shythme ofthe bocoming of becom: ings{which we wil explare in the next section), ‘These moments when past and present lash forth in transfrmae {ig bart ofenvtapa enveloping, ae momen when what Mere the Phenomenofagy PhP 7) through the The Visible ‘andthe visible (VI 194 called the “Memary ofthe World" comes to remaember us, taking us into its body as our body. opening depts af time. Isa heightened coming forth ofthe reversbity of the ety ‘Thai atthe things have oad Ut ts at we who ave the {ings "hot the being which us boon eannat op having bo, "The"Memery of he World 194) Wo are brought back to oursolves, to the depths of our past, through, ‘being eaught up inthe sease of perception, tae bodys wenae a9 fd in the flesh ofthe world. The landseep, te things, are not mute: ‘memory i “lodged” there held, housed, kept, nd in the “memnbering” bpenness of peoeiving- perceived, where the landscepe and its tings become anes limbs or elongations, one is suddenly re-membered through the landscape to upheavals in ime, These “bursting” ofGen A Mes tn what eens the vill andoape andor my eyes i not exterior {o,and bund synthetic t..ohee momeats of tine and the po but bee thom lly Behind Wel in smultanalty inside sl et iean thay sd by sion time V1 207. ‘The dep ofthe landscape, its things and horizon, hold chiasmatic possible for sudden reversals which short-dreut the usual tempo- ralunising?* “Weean find some help in understanding Merenu-Ponty’s ence tion ofthe reversibility of temporality in a fictive variation, If we lok at Margaret Atwood's novel, Surfacing we flow the jouray af be- ‘uming of th narrator a she enters her abandoned childhood Csna- tian wilderese landscape in rearch ofthe senve of her life. From the frst line of the novel, when she slate, “I cant believe Tim on this rad again, twisting slong past the lake where the white Birches are ying”, in search of her missing father, until one of the last Ines, after she has encountered wit he has baedme for her and she water, “Tam part of the landscape, 1 could be anything, @ tre, a deer ‘Skeleton, a rock” (218), there isan exploration of embodied self refining is depths in the perceptual world. The entire narrative hinges upon certain key instants of poreeption in which time erossos ‘ek upon tel to become something transformed with “new depths ‘ofboth past nd presont emerging from sudden reverses of per ‘ception within these chasms of termporality a held bythe Inndseape, ‘These fevered moments occur es the narator moves awards a elght- ened sense of being caught up in “the Hesh of the work of this (Canadian landscape:"I ai not an animal orn tree, am the thing in ‘which the tos and animals move and grow, [am a place’ (213), “Tae navel stor cten the casual reader with ite intense sense of the bodily depths of thought, memory and imagination; it explore tion of how the body is inseparable from its landscape; and its star- ting collapses of our sense ofthe sequential unfolding of time. The ove ovokos @ sande in which the menning of tho narratnr’s under standing of her Iie and her body ta “held” or “buried” within the Jbuckvoods Canadian landscape, the abandoned cabin, the haunted ‘arden, the darclakes an the biosted corpse. Alan within the real ‘ranco of things, even ol Indian thing, like rock paintings, thre ia Yay toa deeper time thst ssfore oblivion by the signifying power of fhe flow of evens in a more progressive tne. The temporal depths, sill present within the layer of meaning ofthe landscape and within ancient and nataral objects, are repressed by the sense of sequential time. However, the body opens a colagration Uhat undermines this tiling fw. Deop underwater, beneath her cance, the narestr ie [erleauPonty andthe Backward FowefTime gh shattered ty the open-eyed vision of death that is her father’s corpse, ‘hat instantaneously is also the ded fetus seraped out of her womb ‘years before, that sinultancousy is also the death in the eyes a her mother in a Canadian wilderness in this worehing moment time leaps, becomes lightening, past flares in overwbiliting preentness ‘and into oer promiecuties,presoat fees out into a past tthe heart of moments long gone ut but alway fated to bur in this instant of passing, agonzed slippage. Time past, present and future will always ‘ve diferent forthe narrator, ot these transforming reversal trail ‘hei own fragility, wil Unemseves keep becoming for her Although such moments, such "tus" of sens are rary they are Dart ofthe power of the reversibility with the landscape, within tan: poral. The narrator describes how sho imagines at for her father ‘and now for he, there were things within tis perceptual fd, thore ‘were landscape, that could suddenly alter the ante of ones world, nes history: i had laser now places, new orale, they were things be “was cing the way Thad sea tec afar the falare ee Wien it happenod the fet tine he mast have tea arid ‘ould be lite teping though e usual door and fling youself in Act gg, pple eran rl ton ae ¢ on San ‘We may keep such heightened instants of ehaten end transformation st bay, but the barbarse print is an originating depth within land ‘scapes. The reader of Mericau-Ponty who then read Atwoed is not ‘surprised that in the novel a temporal slippage is entwined with « ‘slippage in perception and being between the narrator and a forbid. ‘ing Canadian landscape, At such openings of the sense of one fenmeshment, whic is time, the revert of the landscape docs Decame palpable, and the narrator sees thatthe fest leaps upward, ‘enormous... everything is made of water, even the rocks, 1 Tea ‘aginst tee, Tama tree leaning” (212) a tach shattering trae figurations ts reversing and lateralizing, the sense ofthe wold that ‘the narrator sees, has eeome seen through the narrator's breaming seen within her depths. These depths had long been rendered invis ‘ble Ladgod within the night of her repression, she was not a woman ‘who had ever sullered an abortion, nor was she the stadent cat aside by hor professor-seducer She had ben the divorced wornen wo had Jef a child somewhere, somehow. In this moment of vision, she be- tomes what she had altvays been in the depths of those past (r- pressed) moments, which might have never come to be without the ower ofthe landscape to blage this instant of time chine. Caughten A Masts up with the fabric ofthis world, the narratar has een aspects of ae ese wet oe me ao a Seo Te ee Se rai oe stn Arcane Bei pr ore See eh ern ea sh oe Heder trop one heel eee te Sa ae gprs see ical anual i tno Se sate ane ee at es ee creas acne ceca te Sarina noses cues uence mn! ee ed rani fede Fe Senta penne a oft mde seteinemet em Marintinimnane i e o Pint Sought arcsec Mei Came roommate wih Oe rl aU fl aro bya aes ee or eee ec a Tce aay htc Satie immense oe sod ae el eet ae Ney ce ae ie wo 8 fo a gain a ee gu Scimenaren crate ae in cing ns ‘The Temporality of Reversibility ‘Within tho wold soe in i verti, there isnot wn exh tive mace oa dine tab spread ot bere us and bebind us, bt "athe we things which spent, wih ouch owe seat to becom vise fat a= we ae ton ithin an interplay af ves fees and deincenes,jonings and eoplingy whic aay Pls Us ino the depts of what the things in our word have eon ‘po cl T yb Gp yin he ten i ow {het patel sain be, brokenegzl, pte, puns hes became particular manifestation ofthe fallure ofa teatonsy zy if wel as my naive hopes which were ts space al in Te sens ofthis consttstion ot hope, flue and pain sl only tual ‘etet init sefconenicory moments of est tmeuinge sed ‘as away becoming soln pst at cue tobe what waged = Merlen-Ponty andthe Backward Flow efTime 63 cartain moments flared up and forward through the present and ite ‘new projections into the past to become that histor although even ‘hen sill nevor quite being ro determinate. ‘The recognition ofthe perceptual ely e this jsting, basting ‘summons to see, touch, peresive tho see of one lf, asthe voces af these many things, seducing one's body into their vortices of ‘Significance, coming together in the mids ofthe dilferenee its the becoming ofthe play uf time, and leas Merloeu-Ponty ts replace “Huser diagram of texporalty. ‘The structure ofthe visual eld, with ts near bye its fara, its hors, is indapensable or thereto be transcendence, Ue ne of ‘very Uanscendenoe. Apply tothe pereption of see what Led ‘bout the perception of tne Gn Huse) Hussars ingame Posist projection ofthe vortex of tenporal ifirentsin, Ad the intentional snalgss thet tie to ermpose the Gl with intr tional dreads doee not see tht th thnesde are emanetins and ‘Nealon te fabs difrentinons fe br V1 23) ‘We are in the world in which both, myself and world, ar a¢ depths, at interplay, which come tgether in thelr incompessbility in the enlacement of time. I eume back to myself fram the word, whether ffom the river outside my window; the biue eafa, the Bich violin oncarto filing the space of my apartment: "That, that the have us, and that itis not we who fave the things” CVT 194) As held within the depths of things, one finds one's past in ols and flings, ‘weavings and tears, that rendor time @ tuted, ehismatic innplosion ‘nd interlacing, a8 well as am unflding. I sin thinking of how radically one is within the ed of Being “doted with lacunae and the imaginary” Instead of within a fx of unfolding experiences that Meriean Ponty takes up Hassel notion frays of time and ofthe worl” (VI 240), Ho realzas, however this tore radical sense of depth dictates more radial approsey "The ‘ay of the word doos not admit ofa ngeata-noess analysis" (VI 242), How and what we are towards things can shift and jostle, explode or implode so dehisconty, yo sill be fated to burrow into te heart ef ‘what has been so inexorably, thatthe redvality of the senso emer ‘gent time must be savored in its tufted, reversing transfrmative ebbing as well as ints larger progressive flow, For Merlesu-Ponty, there is no present in time, aa we have com- monly represented it: the new poset i ial transcendent: ne kas that ie no ‘hers tht was just there, one never cinder whit ntlen A Mass sient of time with dfn contours that would come and et ‘Hein place Iie «gle dtned by a contrl and dominant gon ed wade cnzure «(VT 180) “The enoo ofthe present is that chor are ele, creularties turing towards themselves in Uni elongation: tie tho shythm of reap tion, and itis the movement of time. My body isin things, at their depths. Things do not rend themselves open 08 unfuling announce rents of transparent formulae signifcations. They do not transform themselves av frictionless, weightless, diaphanowe meanings. They ‘old me, haunt me, hunt me, as the ene who may slowly yield parts oftheir meaning always heard in echo and endlessly improvising an their ovgins. For this reason, Merieau-Ponty mist recat Huswess ens ofthe present: the potatoe ungeaepele fom clos, the fps of Soni steam encompassing. Sty ey te flange he presen the danger ofthis metaphor females we think hat tere ‘Ea cortain vid tot hast wn treo si that eed by & eked quent of the pra (V1 195-8). ‘The present never fills what was somehow “massing” but impending {in time The past was aways Uhre ar itself indeterminate, a8 eylie. 1 dances sway fram ise in ether rhythms that echo and blend, distend and distort, as what was to come in the next lep of the “improvised jez line. Tho present isn’ necessarily hed to w debt of ime; is nt enslaved to past promises; renders notte pasts de, ‘but gives the past the present of ite allowing tho past to beenme ststfin new depths One ongoing metaphor fr the reversibility of perception that runs throughout The Visible and the Tasaile isthe example of two Jnands touching, Sartre hd also used this metaphor forthe impos Diy ofever bridging tho ontological gmp ofthe frill and in tel, ‘ofthe subject confronting an objet. Por Merleaw-Ponty, is true that ‘there ia a divergence st any one instant between the hand touching and the hand touched reversibility does not moan caincidence: ‘Tobegin with, we epoko summarily af a revert ofthe sesing ‘and the vis the touching an the taut. ne to siz at so reveal always imminent ad ever vol ‘Wed in fc. My int hand is alvage onthe verge of touching ay ‘gh and outing thing, bt Inevor reach coisidene VI 1 ‘This nevor quite overispping is itself tho base far reversibility. Thece 's always a ap, but one which is shifting, whichis almost evereome st moments, whic eaves a veetor inserbod, whichis ite reversal is Meriesu-Punty ae the Backward Flow ol Time 65 slipping now to one side then v9 another, which, in the besaming of ‘me, becomes ite “shifting” a “spreading"'8 “spanning” which itslt is tho “tisaue ofthe “Ren of the wor.” The elmo” the divergences, the blurring, the many variates ofthe Indetenminaces of even such simple instants have themosves a positive sguficane, 1 weight, a force, a sens, which tokens reversibility within. the "wvorsibility of time. Whit comes back in time tothe past a trans forming power itself is @ geping openness, which nevertbeless has this transformative power-vorteeseiaing one another, Te eae ‘moments arrived at deeper moaning in that Ue aways had ia thea salves to be through the later moments which led hack to them de- site their open shifting. The later instants found themselves ren: dared in being shifted with the ash uf easier mosnents now come ‘ound to rnd off hese later meanings ‘The body Is alway a “taking back into” no mater how far it reaches out as isthe word as a larger body of which we let oarselvos be in this touching-toushed. ime and ineaning as emerging within the body, time as itself of the bod aneam that gaps are the wiving to ‘ime its play of reversibility in order for there tobe manifestation, nit ‘8 laying out progressively, bat a= reversing back fo continually be- fsme. Gaps do not indiate the damming break in a totality: the “ts between ray righthand touched and my’ eht hand oucing ‘ot an ontological vod,» non-being iis spanned bythe tal being of my body and hy that of io world." (VI148). Within the world so a becoming, thore is the movement around vortons of significances, ‘one of which is complete, but rather in its open face of inampete ‘ess hasan expressivity taken up int the Inger interplay. Th rss ig and ersserossing are not between solids i & space that would be removed from time, bu are the ebbs snd pulestans of passage of an Ingoing verticality of time, comprised of ticles meoting within the tracking of other circles, meandering about in thei windings. Retrograde Temporality within the Cireularity of Becoming: {nits reversibility, time circes inside of itself and eons what it now had to always have been in order to produce this new mean ‘ng. In the polut of reversibility in which time iaelf Incomes cht ‘am, there flares up the sense that “things are the prolongation of my body and my body the prolangation ofthe world” (V1 25) This ‘ens i always there fooding the ody and the werd. However, there fare momanta in which spocalfxrings become emblematie ad fund ‘deeper senso of the dimensionalitie of reversblity, yet ax alwaysGlen A. Mase having ben there, whl fl asthe new gift of the rovesbity of ‘ie, a moment, le us ener the feof a concinsness rearing to agi duucol and lnastod went tat ave once opened in a {Eihtgbte fre such profngations and reverses and now are rng too avin a Tarthorchianmat lou of te stteen years Intern the anal hours of an iagined June 16, 104 in a bedroom Gn Fades eet in Dulin, rland. Moly Bloom, the character wie ‘Suerdoyer' Uijces in ts Inst chapta in such away as vo make the ‘itr reeperiene the sense of ll he preceding chaptors in ight of {his fol, ch intemal mnnlogu, les i bed and alo within the Iamdicae of hor chdhoad environs of Gibraltar 0 that sw duepiws tat O and teste eins satin ot th lon want and the gees in tho ‘Smee een or an the quer tc and the pik SEV Sotyaow tue and th remgurdan and te amine ‘qui and cactues tnd ar an get wire as ove ofthe ansntan ys when po th roe my ik he [eds gl ec sal wet ed es td bon he Kose ‘fier elon land Tough well tell i 68 ‘lhr sa aed fn wth ny peta agln o nd hen Seine would ys ta my yo my ountsn Power [As Molly Blom lie sleepless, he tthe landscape of Gibraltay, its fowery, ll streets and ons se i careasd hy thern ao she farecrd thei either handy with er eyes, ai wilh her body folng oa later with Leopola Blom, fr ba those times and tthe have woud int a time for Mlle a which the yes soe ‘ck aad ft, shatelike fr Mall to landoape, frm Bloom to Moly from now to Gilley, to anoter time ona il and frtber ino cher inelocings of things nd Molly, within a tive itself Siasm, Her is a fever pich ofthe manifestation of reversiiy ut that is Malye genius. Here, aR more then ton yars of estange- ten rom Poy hse get oer tel dead so, aay In ging to ted wilt Blazer Boylan, an in tie new developmants with Leopold, ‘ost neta his demand hat in reversing their dca casa ho Thea bring him bala, chat ight further develop, Molly has ‘ean ed bck torte or rater ead to sine that was the timo? Gibraltar, Te tine of Gibraltar of er youth bas been made to he come agin what twas ote nth night a era and promise ‘MereaPontys sicher decripin afte allows us to under stand how ene phenomena right not besa) unflingwe grad Aly resting in te panage of ne, Many sep of the waldo Merieou-Ponty and the Barkward Flow o(Time 67 ‘appear and take thai place within the background ofthe world and ‘our personal lives, However, thore are also quantum leaps in tines Passage: rendings.riftings, that are alse radiea shifting, icing ‘cansformations. They are not upsuzges of ereation ex nil, Time doesn't only *movo ahead” in ite low It exes back Ths low i & ‘sk of timo, ts play wih itself that isa gamble as wel se gambol In going back, tim wil surely lose itself nd become something eloe. ‘Tho present not only transforms, but the past enters the dre af becoming. Molly is a woman able to giva voice to haltings, Aiscotinuties, to circlaritie, tothe urgings and openings of the body alive tothe world and itsle At least on his night, when the reader gets to know her thoughts, Molly is able to enter and attieu- late what Merleau-Ponty calle in ye and Mind the "Sofingraton of Being” idetgration d Bere) (Pe? 180). Time burns tet up in the phoenix fre ofits renewal and becoming. Its kindling 1 che bodily fnmashient in things inthe landscape, in the ie ived with otners as gestural, embodied boings. Molly, the renowned singer, on this right of June 16, 1904, takes up language to exorcise Its power to Sing the works being, as Merleau-Ponty had pub st* In her fine sttunement to her body and the body af her mater coun seis able { sing times rondean: its circular chorus that always retums to Dogin later vefains, at new but always found inthe ld and a ol ‘echoes but always transformed. "Molly's time of the past which in crisis has become her future promise, which she has alresdy started to become on this eventfal ‘ay is lodged within Gibraltar, but only what Gibraltar coms to be. Gibraltar ever unfolds the rich oversipenest of ite caressing offer to ‘Molly inher then young bod, which abe now comes to bo after many years of dormant waiting. This Gibralter ie notin Cartesian space a2 ‘eaalectin of objects which could be ttalzed. Gibaltar for Moly has ‘always bon a rogion of pain and abandonment, by an sbaent other, A distant father, and a place of af, enveloping smalls and clr that race with promise and sensuality and beauty and the spi of reson ‘gene, andthe longing regard for which Molly has been magnet in her lush body and powerful voise and overowrng thought peterns, her way of savoring the nuance. Those lash qualities of Moly inthe ‘meaning and style, ae the meaning and style of « Gibraltar in its Soft night air and scent, ite Sgtren-ed, flowered, winding, sunset: ‘ahed, interlaced strets that insinuate the body's textured aliration ‘of flowering, of Molly, the flower, and Bloom, the flower, and their ‘coming together, Yes, The time of nos hae now become a Tater path fated to return tothe earliest time of Yes of yes fickering, backomed, ‘one, but always possible as where he goes, Yes.Gen A Mois Notes 1h ‘conmon wos" ceading fin espoused that Heider wa erence setng panera fem the prep of time anf Meret retetin sip epe weve ths ea maeeading of Mrlest-Putss projet, Prom the ftrucaryparugraph an ths section about the mature of ne dine Seng, apentang oven Uanng (wit coxa rwervations, or ieee genni Unugit fom speaking altel wear alrondy ER Svc), ae epesonces of his kid, bth recuabe nd acre Ty havea hae inal lange, Do «nae whieh cere Pata eke of proper meanings an gurtive moaning, eet chm af ames ot one o thes names aries hy atibt- AUNEC is named « ceorsesied signieation, Hater, hey are 87 see ade tn mitt ronda of wntory x Sin i nes crn fe ight whic, dminatg th ret verains abi source in ‘heey 18D, 13, quoted peonge ie in the “working noes ight for he nn: cin nS arts pape time nth the es ofthe word and ‘SBhcbefre Meron Paty speaks of wnieratanding"tmo ws chins." “4, Margaret Abwong Surfacing (New York: Popular Library 975) 5 196.8 Vos ratrona win the omny to thi tat wl be adiabd by ‘he page number paced Win parents ‘5. dares Joes, Uae (New Yoke Random Hose, 1986) pr 49-4 6+. ifwe tok up the emiionaleostnt af the word, which wwe called stove sora eenee, wtuch i allnportan in poetry fore cae ould ten be ound the th word, vowelr and phones are 20 Siany nayncsingng the world.» "PHP 187),