Conversation with Spinoza: A Cobweb Novel (Writings from an Unbound Europe) [Paperback]

Goce Smilevski (Author), Filip Korzenski (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the deathbed of 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, "you," a kind of theoretical interlocutor, notices a teardrop on the dead man's cheek—of which his spirit then denies the existence. Thus begins Macedonian novelist Smilevski's fourth novel (his first translated into English), which uses Spinoza's work as a way into his scantily documented life. In order "[t]o understand my contempt for tears," Spinoza goes on to tell his life story: the early death of his mother, his rejection of all romance, the books he wrote and the ideas he cultivated—it's a life free from emotion or desire, lived according to his ideals. At the end, the interlocutor demands a retelling, one told by the Spinoza "who knew what despair and sorrow really meant"—and gets it. Not only does Smilevski fulfill the difficult task of explaining Spinoza's dense ideas, dropping sly references to Darwin and Kundera into 17th-century Dutch life but he makes a hidden life wonderfully manifest. (May)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Northwestern University Press; 1 edition (May 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810123762
• ISBN-13: 978-0810123762
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,898,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

www.gocesmilevski.com

"A young heir to Gunter Grass and Jose Saramago, Smilevski might be the newest of a rare thing -- a living European novelist with a message for the future of his continent." - Joshua Cohen, Forward.

Goce Smilevski was born in Skopje, in 1975. For his novel SIGMUND FREUD'S SISTER he won EUROPEAN UNION PRIZE FOR LITERATURE.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars INTERESTING, CHALLENGING TEXT ON SPINOZA, September 7, 2006

By 

Denis Benchimol Minev "Amazonia" (Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Conversation with Spinoza: A Cobweb Novel (Writings from an Unbound Europe) (Paperback)

Baruch Spinoza is one of the best known 17th century thinkers, as his philosophy of secularism was far ahead of his time. This book aims to create the world at the time through conversations with Baruch and through depiction of the meanders of his life.

His community was of Spanish/Portuguese Jews who fled to Holland. There we know that Baruch was excomungated from the Jewish community, but it is not clear why. Baruch's philophy empashized pure reason as a way to achieve salvation, and not the major religions of the time. His questioning of the existence of a deity were too much for his time, and the book presents such occurences by imagining such a situation.

This is an interesting book, but I am not sure this would be a good intro duction to Spinoza. There is too much that the book takes for granted that the reader knows; this book is recommended to those familiar with Spinoza's philosophy and wanting a better feel for what it must have been like at the time to hold such thoughts. Not for the beginner.

5.0 out of 5 stars And a fine conversation indeed, July 28, 2010

By 

Matko Vladanovic (Zagreb, Croatia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conversation with Spinoza: A Cobweb Novel (Writings from an Unbound Europe) (Paperback)

When a publisher of Croatian edition told me: They don't make them like this anymore." I nodded politely while at the same time automatically disregarding that comment. You know, publisher talk. According to them, every new book is just another masterpiece waiting to be discovered. Sometime after that I actually started to read Conversations..." and now I can second that opinion - they really don't make them like this anymore, at least not in Croatia. So, naturally, you ask yourself why? what's so special about that one? And, slowly processing the information, you realize that this here is uncompromising book, which doesn't treat its readers nicely i.e. it doesn't provide them with cheap pleasures but instead forces them to think, to collaborate on the novel. While many of the books out there are just telling the story, providing you with everything you need, this one is really just showing...showing possibilities, re-imagining the life of a secluded philosopher which was banished from Jewish community in 17th century most probably because of nature of his teachings. Smilevski writes with passion. He weaves an intimate conversation in which we hear from ultra-rationalist Spinoza, one obsessed with his teachings, one who leads a life of the mind and on the other hand, in second part of the book, we hear from more humane Spinoza, Spinoza filled with fears, passions, regrets and loneliness. Smilevski doesn't write about 17th century Netherlands, he uses that setting just for the background, his main interest lies in discovery of a character. He writes about struggle of the mind and the body, of living according to one's own teachings and living as a civilized animal. Warm empathy and cold ratio. Between them, constant struggle for truth. But question remains, what do we do after we have found the truth. After glimpsing on infinity, what else remains?

This book isn't a philosophy book though there is philosophy inside its covers. This is the book for those who remember what great fiction, great writing, looks like. It is slow, full of melancholy, as Smilevski himself said, full of that romanticist sentiment that has been banished from books in our time. And yet, it is not pathetic, it is not difficult to grasp, it is not modernistic experiment that boggles your mind. It almost looks like that you're actually there, conversing with Spinoza, sharing your thoughts and listening to thoughts of the Other. It builds a world full of words, it builds it out of words and doesn't stop to look if this will bore its reader. You know, there's a cliché, picture that has been used over and over again in which we see the reader sitting in his study, laid back and comfy, reading the book while snow falls outside. Maybe it's a cliché but it perfectly describes ideal environment for this book. This isn't the book you read on public transport or on the beach somewhere, this is it the book to which you have to give some of your own time, give it some of your own thoughts, and it'll give back to you accordingly. And what more can we ask from literature?