The Petriverse of Pierre Jardin: by Paul A. Harris Main Menu Paul A. Harris

The Petrification of Pierre Jardin

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Pierre Jardin spends an inordinate amount of time absorbed in stones: collecting them, arranging them, photographing them, writing about them. Seldom seen in the Petriverse, Jardin, when spotted, is usually standing stock still, staring at stones. While he appears to be lost in thought, or absent-minded, something more mysterious, if not mystical, may be occurring. Jardin has spent so many hours absorbed in wondering about absorbed by rocks, that one has to wonder whether he may have begun absorbing stone himself.  
 
Petrification occurs in organic material like wood,
when the original pore spaces fill with minerals and become stony. 
The process has never been observed in living humans and
scientists remain skeptical about Jardin's reported transformation. 
But in The Third Policeman, Irish author Flann O'Brien advanced the theory that
"people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles
get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle
as a result of the inter-changing of the atoms of each of them."  

A similar molecular exchange, called the "osmosis diagnosis," may explain Jardin's petrification. Jardin's fixed gaze induces a confusion psychologists call "boundary dissolution." Utterly engrossed in the textures, forms, and sheer beauty of stones, Jardin enters a "deep thought" state. When deep thought becomes immersed in the deep time of stones, a porous membrane between matter and mind forms. A petriverse would appear to suggest that Jardin is able to "slow the flow" of time and thus enable petrification to occur.

An alternative explanation of petrification lies in Bachelard's theory of "dialectical animism." Perhaps stones and homo sapiens actually seep into and absorb each other. This would seem to sign a decline in Jardin's health, but another petric message, authenticated as the hand of Jardin, seems to testify to the contrary. 

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  1. The Path of Animaterialism Paul A. Harris

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