242 chapter six
the notion of a unity need only apply to whatever parts of the poem
cohere. This, however, doesn’t detract from the contrast of coherence
on the one hand, and consequence + consistency (the original has
consequentie, which can mean both) on the other. If we consider how
Krol’s a ≈ b and a → b manifest themselves in concrete literary texts,
and think, for instance, of metaphor for a ≈ b, and of plot or character
development for a → b, both «Salute» and «File 0» reflect the former
mechanism much more than the latter.
At the same time, on this count there emerges another appre-
ciable difference between the two texts. In the line-up of the Books
(birth, growing up, romantic love, daily life, forms), there is a socio-
chronological side to «File 0» which «Salute» lacks altogether. This
chronology, however, doesn’t build toward a resolution of any kind
and none of its stages are presented as the consequences of earlier ones.
Rather, its parts appear alongside one another, almost as arbitrary ac-
cumulation rather than a meaningful composition toward the de scrip-
tion of a life: in fact, one of the points that «File 0» makes is precisely
that of the absence of meaningful order in this life. Just like the file is
in many ways no more than a heap of words thrown together, so the
life it contains is but a blind exercise in the piling up of unconnected
situations that will not result in any overall direction. This makes it
possible to start reading, and certainly to start re-reading, more or less
anywhere. The same is true, by and large, for «Salute». This is not
to say, however, that the series’ constituent texts can be reshuffled
with impunity. Especially the first and the last, «Night» and «Winter»,
are anchored in their positions, and there is a development of the
atmosphere in the series that would be affected by rearranging its parts.
As elsewhere, we find that in Krol’s scheme of things neither text
can be immediately classified as poetry. At the same time, according
to Krol, the ability to enter both texts at various places and enjoy a
fruitful, partial (re)reading invalidates a classification as prose. About
novels, he writes:
The order on a page is constituted in two ways: horizontally (words →
line) and vertically (lines → page). Since a poem consists of no more
than one page, these are the only two principles of order. In a story,
they are joined by a third (pages → book)... Of the threefold ordering
made possible by novels, only one type is used: the order of the words,
as determined by the author. A novel is in fact one long line... What
puts me off in almost every novel is the need to start reading on the first
page. Like a painting that would only be visible if you started looking in