Matthew McKeever - Coming From Nothing: A Thought Experiment Novella

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Coming from Nothing

A Nabakovian Old World meets New World story, but instead of corruption meets innocence, its pathos and degradation meets more pathos and degradation, as Carries and Juless lives slowly unravel while they fail to bridge the gap between worlds. McKeever brings to the story a Martin Amis like ability to find the moments of humanity, beauty, and redemption in characters struggling and failing (and failing to struggle) to lift themselves out of the muck and mire. Coming from Nothing is a literary beignet sweetened by a rich powdering of philosophical speculation. The metaphysics of gender, the nature of personal identity, the relations among mind, body, information, and society all of these contribute to a central philosophical enigma. Are Carries and Juless driftingly intersecting lives governed by the causal powers of absences, or by the absence of causal powers?

Josh Dever, Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin.

First published by Zero Books, 2018

Zero Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., Laurel House, Station Approach,

Alresford, Hants, SO24 9JH, UK

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Text copyright: Matthew McKeever 2017

ISBN: 978 1 78535 619 3

978 1 78535 620 9 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016961472

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

The rights of Matthew McKeever as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Design: Stuart Davies

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

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Id like to thank Poppy Mankowitz and Caitln Nic omhair for lots of very generous and helpful feedback, and for encouragement. Id also like to thank the Royal Institute of Philosophy for awarding me a Jacobsen Fellowship, during the tenure of which I wrote the first draft, and my PhD supervisor, Professor Herman Cappelen, who employed me during the writing of the second (and third and ) draft(s). Finally, I thank Zero Books, for taking a chance on me.

Load of old fucking bollocks.

Thats an opinion, I guess. So youre a, what, gender essentialist?

Well, I dont know, but like.

He picked up the book beside him and started reading: The feminist appropriation of sexual difference whether in opposition to the phallogocentrism of Lacan blah blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Page 38. Like, what is that?

What? You want it to be easy?

Easier anyway.

Well, dude, life aint easy.

Said Carrie to Jules. She was wearing a green raincoat, the collar of which was popped up and threatened to engulf her head. Her eyes were cool and blue, but there was a sallowness to her complexion that reflected a bad nights sleep and, maybe, a lack of vitamin D. She spoke quickly with a southern American accent.

Its just so theoretical.

Well, its called theory for a reas actually wait!

She hit him on the arm.

I guess for you it is a load of fucking bollocks because youre an essentialist, right? You locate it all in the bollocks or lack thereof.

Well, firstly, its bollocks not ball-ox, and secondly Im not an essentialist. I just want someone I can understand.

Dont we all . Well, whatever, it was a good joke right?

Ill give you that, it was a good joke.

She smiled at him, then rubbed her blue jeans for no clear reason, as if she were wiping her hands off.

Jules was ruddy and short-haired and also wearing an engulfing jacket. His newly grown beard, a source of amusement and/or alarm to friends and/or family was not too impressive, but his face was symmetrical and she thought he was handsome. So she was happy, when she had asked him if she was in the right place for the tutorial (she had been unable to make her regular time this week), with his eager yes, guessing correctly he wanted to chat. And sitting down beside him she noticed gladly that he smelled good, or at least deodorized, which mitigated the fear of the unattractive beard.

They were outside a room on the fifth floor of Trinity College Dublins arts block, sitting on a deep window ledge in front of wet glass, waiting for the tutorial for their class (Em)bodied selves, about feminist theories of literature.

So you like this stuff, is it?

This was Jules, in a bland middle-class Dublin accent.

Yeah man, for sure. It must be right.

It must?

Yeah, it must.

Thats a bold statement.

Well, I mean I dont wanna make this conversation entirely testicle-based, but what if someone cut a personslets say, yourballs off?

Jules laughed, but not very uncomfortably.

No, no, Im making a point. This isnt like some misandrist rant. Point is, that wouldnt make you no longer a man, right?

No.

And say youre paralysed completelythat doesnt make you no longer a person, right?

No.

So there! Your body doesnt define you, so youre an anti-essentialist.

Hmm. I guess, like. Its just why does it have to be so fancy? Why cant they just say that instead of all these words? Just less

Theoretical?

Right. And like I mean where is everybody?

Gesturing toward the empty hallway, he continued:

What time is it? My phones dead.

Quarter after. Is this definitely the place?

Been here last ten weeks, so yes. Did you check your email in the last couple of hours?

Oh, no. Actually, I couldnt work out how to sync it to my phone.

Can you just check in the browser?

She was doing. There was an awkward pause as it loaded, which Jules broke.

I can show you how to sync, its kind of awkward, I think they got the port wrong on the

Oh, cancelled! Uhh oh, Deeurrmid, is that right?

No, thats profoundly unright. Diarmuid.

He said, laughing at her pronunciation, and causing her to laugh in turn.

Well hes sick.

Oh. No Butler for us then I guess. What a tragedy.

And then there was a pause. Jules looked down at his crossed legs, shy, uncertain. Carrie, more normal, asked:

Do you want to get a coffee? We can, uh, have our own seminar, who needs Deeuhhh?

Diarmuid. Sounds like a plan.

Carrie was in Dublin for six months visiting from Louisiana State University. There were no neat comparisons between the programs here and those in her home university, with the result that she took a wide range of courses: a first-year introduction to classical Greek literature, this third-year English course, a second-year metaphysics class and an independent study, also affiliated with the English department. While it was intellectually stimulating, the fact that she went from class to classand, moreover, frequently joined classes among a cohort who all knew each other alreadymade it very difficult to make friends. Now, with Christmas approaching, and nearly half her time gone, shes started to get used to the dull ache that accompanies the empty weekends, where shell generally go to some event alone or stay in her room in the halls, or simply walk around the city, it now more often than not raining and dulled with familiarity, heading over to the north side to the cheap supermarkets and second-hand bookshops, or getting lost around the leafy suburbs near the halls, the green of the leaves, almost overwhelming a few months ago, now gone from the streets.