Customer Reviews

A Derrida Dictionary

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The previous reviewer seems not to have read Derrida. This dictionary is actually quite wonderful. It describes, dances, inverts, re-inscribes and gathers in ways that are very much of the same spirit and practices of Derrida's own writing and writings. If you want something useful as an invitation/introduction to Derrida, at least through a certain period, this is a fantastic book.

First, read the effusive praises by Kamuf and Caputo-- theirs are located right below the book title. If that's enough for you, by all means buy the book. Obviously, I see things a bit differently.

Once something becomes big enough, popular enough (and in poor Derrida's case, solely by reputation of sheer impenetrability it would seem!!) to warrant a dictionary, it has probably already been abducted by, or inducted into, or infiltrated by the forces of, the Dark Side. 'Vaderized'.

This ain't your dad's dictionary. And that's not necessarily good news -- unless you are one of those super unconventional, artistically groovy people who understand that an understanding of anything only comes from the thing's textually deconstructed action in some sooon-to-be-decon'd context by way of some disavowed third thing. So, no definitions here. See Caputo's praise above.

Alrighty then. I'll tell you what, let me just take a sample. Here is an "entry" under 'W' on WRITING:

"As I start this sentence I am not absolutely sure how it will end. The only way I could have known exactly where I was going with that sentence (or any sentence) would be if I had a crystal ball, if somehow I could see into the future. Since I don't believe in clairvoyance, I don't believe anyone can see what hasn't happened yet. And every time anyone sits down to write a sentence (or to compose one mentally), the end remains to come; whatever 'happens' happens later, even if the interval between the beginning and the end lasts only for a split second."

Jee~~Zuss.

The entire book is more or less like this, with certain words -- that Derrida used often, such as EVENT, PRESENCE, IDENTITY, etc -- printed in BOLD (again, with no definition) so you can "trace" the word and cross reference the same in some other... con-text, that is.
Or,if you like, CON T ex(i)T.

If all this sounds good to you, by all means get it.
Personally, when I buy something I expect the thing to be what it claims to be. In this case, this thing claims to be a dictionary. But it's something else... something entirely unpalatable.
Well, I don't know about you, but I don't particularly relish the "radical" idea that a box of cereal could just as easily turn out to be a rectilinearly rigid sack of dried sh_it.

I am just glad dentists don't (mis)read Derrida. "By ROOT CANAL, we mean the bite marks you left on your toast this morning so we can (dis)locate the KHORA of MAN-dibular mastication by which your tongue re-enacts the geometry of speech without actually speaking."

Excessively hip people who love books like this, seem to thrive on some very bad misconstrual of Derrida's notion of HOSPITALITY -- they allow themselves so generously to put out bad books, and abuse good Jacques' name AND hospitality. Poor Jacky.