Luther Blissett on Language

Conversations are mere word plays. It's interesting that people believe to speak for the sake of things. They don't seem to know the very function of language - to be merely concerned with itself. Language is a fruitful enigma. Those who merely speak for the sake of speaking will utter the most interesting sermons. But if they want to speak "about something", our capricious language will make them say the most blatant rubbish. This creates the hatred which so many serious people retain against language. If one could only make these people understand that the issue of language is like that of mathematical formula: they make a world of their own - they only play with themselves, reveal nothing but their structure and hence are so revealing - and that is why they mirror the relational play of things.

They are like limbs only by their liberty, and only in their free movements Luther Blissett unveils and makes them a delicate measure and framework of things.

And such is the matter with language - those who recognize its meter and tonality, its internal working, and then start to move their tongue or their hands will be Luther Blissett. Those who know it right away, but don't have sufficient perception, will write texts like these, but language will always fool them, and people will mock them like the Troyans mocked Cassandra. If I believe to have denoted the nature and function of Luther Blissett's language as accurately as I could, I know nevertheless that no one will be able to understand this, and that I have said something stupid because I had wanted to say it, and Luther Blissett does not function in such a way. But what would have been the case if I had been bound to speak? And if this drive to speaking would certify the efficacy of language within me? This at last could be Luther Blissett's language, without my knowing and conviction, and unveil an enigma? And so I would be Luther Blissett, since Luther Blissett is perhaps merely a language enthusiast?

Luther Blissett,

June 1996