On the Commerce of Thinking: Of Books and Bookstores [Paperback]

Jean-Luc Nancy (Author), David Wills (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0823230376 | ISBN-13: 978-0823230372 | Edition: 4

Jean-Luc Nancy's On the Commerce of Thinking concerns the particular communication of thoughts that takes place by means of the business of writing, producing, and selling books. His reflection is born out of his relation to the bookstore, in the first place his neighborhood one, but beyond that any such perfumery, rotisserie, patisserie,as he calls them, dispensaries of scents and flavors through which something like a fragrance or bouquet of the book is divined, presumed, sensed.On the Commerce of Thinking is thus not only something of a semiology of the specific cultural practice that begins with the unique character of the writer's voice and culminates in a customer crossing the bookstore threshold, package under arm, on the way home to a comfortable chair, but also an understated yet persuasive plea in favor of an endangered species. In evoking the peddler who, in times past, plied the streets with books and pamphlets literally hanging off him, Nancy emphasizes the sensuality of this commerce and reminds us that this form of consumerism is like no other, one that ends in an experience-reading-that is the beginning of a limitless dispersion, metamorphosis, and dissemination of ideas. Making, selling, and buying books has all the elements of the exchange economy that Marx analyzed--from commodification to fetishism--yet each book retains throughout an absolute and unique value, that of its subject. With reading, it gets repeatedly reprinted and rebound. For Nancy, the book thus functions only if it remains at the same time open and shut, like some Moebius strip. Closed, it represents the Idea and takes its place in a canon by means of its monumental form and the title and author's name displayed on its spine. But it also opens itself to us, indeed consents to being shaken to its core, in being read each time anew.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Opening this little 'Aleph' of a book is a most extraordinary adventure; the universe and how we know it unfolds in startling profundity. I thought I knew what a book was until I read this, but Nancy has set me off again in search of the million things a book can be.-Lewis Buzbee

More than an loge to books and bookstores, or to the book or the bookstore, Jean-Luc Nancy's evocative essay reminds us of the crucial link between reading and politics that keeps open the possibility of enlightenment. Nancy touches suggestively on the book as what Stphane Mallarm called 'a spiritual instrument,' illuminating the epochal philosophical and religious developments for which books have been the indispensable material support. Nancy's book contains the philosophical weight and literary flair that has made him one of the most important thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. As David Wills helpfully points out in the preface to his excellent translation, Nancy's thoughts on books and bookstores extend his reflection on the possibility of the truly singular plurality of community.-Kevin McLaughlin

Delights the mind with its turns of phrase, its creative reinterpretations of ordinary concepts, and its remarkable rigor.-Sander van Maas

About the Author

Jean-Luc Nancy is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Universit Marc Bloch,Strasbourg. Among the most recent of his many books to be published in English are Corpus; The Ground of the Image; Listening; Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity; Noli me tangere: On the Raising of the Body; On the Commerce of Thinking: Of Books and Bookstores; and The Truth of Democracy (all Fordham).

DAVID WILLS is Professor of French and English at the University at Albany, SUNY. His most recent book is Dorsality: Thinking Back Through Technology and Politics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 84 pages
• Publisher: Fordham University Press; 4 edition (June 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823230376
• ISBN-13: 978-0823230372
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 4.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars au contraire, August 28, 2011

By 

o dubhthaigh (north rustico, pei, canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: On the Commerce of Thinking: Of Books and Bookstores (Paperback)

O cantankerous, for the other review. This is a charming and provocative little essay on what it is that is a book, its impact on thinking and what commerce might mean to it. It is a bit ahead of its time as it pre-dates ereaders, but, alas for my colleague, it was never meant to be about a bookstore or the mundane elemants of merchandising. Not to worry, dear fellow, surely Walmart will come up with an e-reader for you.

3 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing, November 21, 2009

By 

Paul A. Ranogajec "p.r." (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On the Commerce of Thinking: Of Books and Bookstores (Paperback)

Indecipherable. If you can wade through French critical theory texts, then *maybe* you will appreciate this book. It has little to say, however, about the actual mechanisms of bookselling and bookstores, or about, as the title promises, the "commerce of thinking." It is written in the most convoluted language imaginable, not helped by what is surely a poor translation from the French. A big disappointment.