In Your Name, I Hold The Transition

Fukouara (In Your Name, I Write, 2014) presents a new volume of mystic philosophy.

While the author’s previous book was a series of brief, koanlike passages on the subject of transmission and healing through words, this second offering, in her words, “appears as a barely open and abstract nebula that will require everyone to take the time to observe, to think and to re-read until they find the right path.” The volume is broken into three clearly demarcated essays, each pursuing its own thesis. “Suprematism In The Very Idea” deals peripherally with the eponymous Russian avant-garde visual-art movement (and is dedicated to the Suprematist artist Kazimir Malevich), but it focuses more on the difficulty of human perception. The author muses on the shifting, illuminating, and deceiving qualities of light, space, and color (“White is an unmixed and puritanical fragrance in all its written and uttered meanings”) as stand-ins for the entirety of perceived reality. “The Ultimate” is a meditation on an idealized, multifaceted state of interconnection and a call for “the benevolence of everyone, in their own intimate self.” “The Origin” discusses the limiting qualities of the notion of an origin, which she characterizes as “a firewall to the idea of creation.” As in her previous book, these essays are written in a highly abstract, semantically fluid style. Readers trying to pick out a coherent throughline will find it to be guesswork at best, but perhaps the author isn’t trying to provoke traditional reading strategies. The author praises Suprematism, for example, because its abstraction allows for “neutrality of thought.” In this idea lies a possible key to Fukouara’s own writing, as immersion in this book will clear one’s mind and make one a temporary hostage from the world. However, readers may not come away with anything to show for his or her time off.

A tremendously esoteric work of philosophical mysticism that may or may not yield fruit for its readers.