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Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles/Eperons: Les Styles de Nietzsche

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This slim text on Nietzsche and Heidegger caused a storm in European Nietzsche circles when it was first released in 1978, and it is often cited today as evidence of Derrida's apparent command of Nietzsche's philosophy. In the text, Derrida primarily deals with the issue of women in Nietzsche, and brings his misogyny back to the problem of truth itself. This is a very rich and dense text, with issues as broad as Mauss' 'The Gift,' madness, and a very tight hermeneutic reading of Heidegger's Nietzsche work. Nevertheless, I am still left wondering what all the excitement is really about.

One might wonder why Derrida focuses on Nietzsche's statements concerning women in this work. That focus only makes sense in light of Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche.
Derrida finds that even Heidegger's supposed totalizing reading of Nietzsche elides the word woman. What is at stake in this elision? That is the point of this work.
Precisely because that elision exists there can be no final philosophy. Philosophy is forever contingent. If you read this book for nothing else, it should be for the final 15 pages where Derrida discuses Nietzsche's umbrella, and the ridiculous loops hermeneuticians go through to understand this enigmatic philosopher.

Get ready for a new kind of book where there's use of new styles not only of linguistics, but ideas as well. Derrida tempts the reader to try to "crack the code" of this text then taunts the reader by proclaiming the non-existence of such a thing. But be careful, that may be a deception in itself.

My approach to the fame which Derrida enjoys is his daring in playing with the danger of disrupting what people think that they know. In his discussion of the final topic in this book, a note which Nietzsche wrote that said, "I have forgotten my umbrella," he openly expresses his philosophical doubt about its significance with what must be considered his standard stance, "The meaning and the signature that appropriates it remain in principle inaccessible." (p. 125) Offering an interpretation is like guessing what Nietzsche's umbrella might have been metaphorically, as one might consider the significance of religion, social thought, conscience, or morality as it relates to a person's place in the world. The interest in Derrida's examination of Nietzsche's style, "Hence the heterogeneity of the text," (p. 95) seems to be greatest in the consideration of alternative positions which Nietzsche offers regarding women, truth, etc. "It is not that it is necessary to choose sides with the heterogeneous or the parody (which would only reduce them once again). Nor, given that the master sense, the sole inviolate sense, is irretrievable, does it necessarily follow that Nietzsche's mastery is infinite, his power impregnable, or his manipulation of the snare impeccable." (p. 99) This stuff is only obvious to those whose ludicrous embrace of comic material does not exceed their grasp of what a comic society consists of, the fools that mortals be. Don't get back to me on this: ask anybody.

What is 'Truth' anyhow? In Spurs, this question is rigorously explored using Nietzsche's aphoristic writing style as an example of honesty in literature/philosophy. The reader weaves through the maze that is Spurs, searching for answers ('Truth') but only finding style and utterly visual metaphors created by Nietzsche and polished by Derrida. Is 'Truth' a "veiled woman" or is it "Nietzsche's umbrella"? Bring your interpretive seeds and sow them in the weave of Spurs--perhaps you'll find an answer that will suit your, well....ahh....nevermind...

In having forgotten what I've read and read what I've forgotten, I am pleasantly bemused. Where to begin where this is no beginning but <<from>> and no end but <<essence>> (and as I write these words of Derrida the endless possibilties of ideas spur forth, from nothing, from being, from woman essence, the essence of woman - and in these phrases the kernel of a metaphysical enquiry). Perhaps at a distance from the text, can any thoughts be produced. this was some of the most pleasant reading I've done in a while. I don't know how much I <<understood>> and <<remember>>, but it was fun. I think, though, reading Derrida is like reading poetry. So much is packed into a dense space and such play of words, philosophies and language are at work that at point I can only enjoy the literary quality of his writing.