Cover Page

Black

The brilliance of a noncolor

Alain Badiou

Translated by Susan Spitzer











Translator’s note

In Le Noir, the original French edition of this book, the adjective noir and the noun le noir are, as might be expected, ubiquitous. But their cumulative impact on readers of this translation will no doubt be somewhat attenuated owing to the simple fact that English uses not just one but a variety of terms to convey their meanings. Thus, the adjective is often rendered as “dark” rather than “black.” Similarly, the noun offers the translator a range of choices, depending on the context: “black,” “the black,” “blackness,” “black person,” “darkness,” “the dark,” etc. Alain Badiou is well aware of the pitfalls of the translation of noir/le noir. He claimed, for example, in his 1988–89 seminar on Beckett and Mallarmé, that the phrase “in the dark” in Beckett’s prose poem Company was much weaker than its counterpart dans le noir in the author’s own translation of that work into French. The French language, Badiou concluded, “radicalized” Beckett’s thought. In this book, he again highlights, as it were, the “black” vs. “dark” problem from an ontological point of view when he comments on the English translations of “trou noir” – “black hole” – and “matière noire” – “dark matter” – in the chapter entitled “The metaphorical black of the Cosmos.”

Childhood and youth

Military black

I was a senior airman – one of my many incarnations – back in the day. The 3rd Air Region band. Dark blue uniform, cap, white gaiters, piccolo, my fingers and lips accustomed to the shrill high notes of our old warhorse, the chorus of La Marseillaise, which was played on every occasion. Nothing black, in other words, except the winter nights. The regulation stipulated that at 9 pm we had to put out the coal stove – aha! a touch of black in the décor (let’s make a note of that), with the bucket full of coal and the pervasive, sticky coal dust everywhere – which gave off heavy smoke amid our neatly aligned beds.

Our very lives were at stake. If the regulation wasn’t enforced, said the staff sergeant, a firstrate trombonist, the carbon monoxide would quickly kill a sleeping soldier, even if he was a member of the band. The black coal couldn’t have cared less that, without us, the 3rd Air Region would be deprived, and for a long time to come, of the chorus of La Marseillaise. And who was responsible for making sure that the abovementioned regulation was enforced? The senior airman, who, by reason of his rank, was appointed Barracks Chief, with no resistance possible. Thus, coaxing, bargaining, coercing, bringing extra blankets, browbeating the trumpeters, cracking down on the clarinetists, being easy on the flutists and tough on the drummers, I ruled over the coming of the freezing dark. Putting out the stove, putting out the lights, ensuring that, no matter what, the bitter cold and the vast night descended on all these young men bundled up like sausages in countless layers of scratchy military blankets – that was my duty, my mission.

So, when I’d overcome the last resistances and we were all freezing together in the musical, patriotic night, my friend the oboist, in a soft yet strong voice, would start singing (or might have started singing, later on) the famous Johnny Hallyday song “Noir c’est noir, il n’y a plus d’espoir”1 [Black is black, there’s no hope anymore], like one of those melancholy lullabies he was a great connoisseur of, or like a hymn of resignation. And we’d all join in, the way we did with the lullabies, keeping the evil powers of the night and the cold at bay this way, since singing of black despair is some consolation for having to endure it.