Customer Reviews

Jacques Derrida: A Biography

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Usually I appreciate Continuum's editorial line, but in this case they really messed it up. They went for the easy sales.

The biggest problems of this book are:
1. It does not add anything new to what it was already know about Derrida
2. It fails to mention the secret of Derrida's life, i.e. that he had a son with Sylvane Agacinski that was later adopted by Jospin when he marrid Sylvane
3. When it tries to move beyond Derrida's life and talk about his work, it messes up big time
4. It's badly written

I may be entitled to say a word about it. I am the author of it. I was personally attracted to Derrida's writing because, while growing up I was dominated by ideas deriving from emotional attachments to the politics of Western Civilisation and universal true religion. Jacques Derrida seemed to me to have attained to a superhuman position beyond Right and Left in politics. He had a keen mind, and an aversion to belonging. He appeared to me like Nietzsche's 'blonde beast', a mix of many elements of various cultures. He knew too much, and he found it hard to settle for any position. He loved the future, and he was prone to strange images and phrases like the transitional Black Lodge sequences of David Lynch's films which, while having no distinct meaning in conceptual form, seem to lie at the heart of existence for human beings.

I myself wanted to be at the heart of being, to know the truth, to hear the voice of God. Derrida longs for these things too. He discredits those who claim to have the truth because he still seeks. Who cares for his biography, really? Like him, I seek myself really, and hope to find myself in an other. The superman listens out for the voice of the other. And sees signs of a glimpse of something which is truly new and original. If the full presence of this divine truth does not come, then let us at least be honest about that. Derrida's works meant this desire and disappointment at once.

To be honest, I wrote his biography because I also wanted, with a desire which was relatively pointless since I only sought myself, to know the details of his 74 years.

Now, in my view, what negative views there are about my book are justified in many ways. But the shame for voicing them and accepting them should be felt by those who do that negative work. You might be right to say that 'there is not enough biographical information'. Yes. That is right. Leonardo Da Vinci, Hegel, Beethoven and our other heroes exceed their biography. Derrida implied that there will have to be a new type of biography. My book is not a biography... I wrote against you scholars and teachers, you who earn a salary for reading and teaching what is utterly free, secret, beyond good and evil, beyond Right and Left, and beyond the calculated lifestyle of the average man or woman. I was never at home at our inflated and redundant universities, and neither is this book at home there.

If there is anything which will profit you when reading this, it is my image of a philosopher who belongs with all his intellect and his heart to a new coming order of thought which will, actually, outlast our times, and lead into a new age. I only hope that there are people in coming times with the intellect to be able to read this man's work in French or in English translation. From the outset, from the Introduction, I was only concerned with the future of our culture, and in finding out how Derrida, like Nietzsche, was concerned with the same thing. Naturally, this coming world should have some of the kindness, greatness, and desire for the absolute truth which Derrida represents for me.

Derrida's biography may not only face scorn from those who do not admire him, but also from those who expect a biography to mimic Derrida's so difficult books. Given the hatred Derrida's work faces in his life and death, a half-way step towards reconciliation with resistance to deconstruction, such as this book is, is of supreme benefit.



To my mind, this biography offers a good introduction to Derrida's thought and life. It gives to the uninitiated the first step toward Derrida. It consistently invites the reader to actually read Derrida's works, and therefore, even where its own readings are partial and too brief, they point to the importance and the meaning of Derrida's works.



If there are readers who wish to learn about Derrida and modern philosophy, and about much besides, including the question of what the meaning of life is, and what thinking is, then I do not know of a better book with which to begin. I also think it will be a good antidote to the over-enthusiasm of those who think that Derrida's revolution has already happened, and that it needs no further efforts. Derrida's work requires those willing to go their own way, and not simply to mimic Derrida's style and his frame of mind.



The more widely this book is read, the more it will be possible to see and hear philosophy being done in the present day in a relevant way.

Badly written: "Derrida was never restrained in print about what he saw as the shortcomings of his contemporaries in the efforts they made to embody their ideals." (p. 35).
Not a biography as much as a sketchy summary of Derrida's works. The "biographer" didn't have access to Derrida's private papers (correspondence, etc).

For anyone interested in Derrida, the man; for anyone new to Derrida's thinking and finding it difficult (this book will help clear things up for you); for anyone who wishes to read an interesting biography about a philosopher with an a strong impact academic institutions during his own life time - this is book is it. I found Powell's monograph well-written, interesting and insightful.

I enjoyed this book, a good clear introduction to Derrida's life and work.
A good insite into Philosophy.