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Double Agent

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J.P. Nicholas

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“De tous les êtres que nous connaissons, nous possédons un double. Mais, habituellement situé à l'horizon de notre imagination, de notre mémoire, il nous reste relativement extérieur, et ce qu'il a fait ou pu faire ne comporte pas plus pour nous d'élément douloureux qu'un objet placé à quelque distance et qui ne nous procure que les sensations indolores de la vue. Ce qui affecte ces êtres-là, nous le percevons d'une façon contemplative, nous pouvons le déplorer en termes appropriés qui donnent aux autres l'idée de notre bon coeur, nous ne le ressentons pas. Mais depuis ma blessure de Balbec, c'était dans mon coeur, à une grande profondeur, difficile à extraire, qu'était le double d'Albertine. Ce que je voyais d'elle me lésait comme un malade dont les sens seraient si fâcheusement transposés que la vue d'une couleur serait intérieurement éprouvée par lui comme une incision en pleine chair.”

Double
Author:Marcel Proust
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“In other words, the double's imaginary power and resonance - the level upon which the subject's simultaneous estrangement from himself and intimacy with himself are played out - depends upon its lack of material being, upon the fact that the double is and remains a phantasy. Everyone may dream - and everyone no doubt does dream all his life long - of a perfect duplicate, or perfect multiple copies, of his own being; but the strength of such copies lies precisely in their dream quality, and is lost as soon as any attempt is made to force dream into reality. The same is true of the (primal) scene of seduction, which is effective only so long as it is a phantasy, something re-remembered - so long as it is never real. Ours is the only period ever to have sought to exorcize this phantasy (along with others) - that is, to turn it into flesh and blood, to transform the operation of the double from a subtle interplay involving death and the Other into the bland eternity of the Same.”

DoubleDoppelgangerLiteralness
Book:The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
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“For one can no more live without leaving tracks than one can without casting a shadow. S., as his eminence grise, is stealing his tracks, and he cannot fail to sense the magic to which he is being subjected. He is being photographed incessantly. The photograph here has neither a voyeuristic nor an archival function. Its simple message has the form: at this location, at such and such a time, in this particular light, someone was present. But at the same time it conveys the following: there was no point in being here, in such and such a place, and at such and such a time - and in fact no one was here; I was the one who followed him, and I can assure you that no one was here. It is of no interest to know that someone is leading a double life. It is the tailing itself that supplies the other with a double life. The most ordinary of lives may be transfigured in this way; likewise, the most extraordinary of lives may be rendered trite. In any case, life thus succumbs to a strange attraction.”

PhotographyDisappearanceDoubleEminence Grise
Author:Jean Baudrillard
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