Customer Reviews

The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech

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

 

 

NOT FOR BEGINNERS OR THE FAINT OF HEART! A must read for anyone wishing to understand the strange convergences that have made up American technology, literature, and culture over the last century. Other commentaries notwithstanding, I believe this is an original and philosophically important text. 'Tis true that its language is bizzare, disjointed, "jarring". Yet, its themes and investigative technique represent important ways of examining tangled (post)modern literature and culture. Many will find its decentering of scientificity disturbing, but a careful examination of its passages reveals intricate and subtle arguments not easily dismissed -- and too often ignored by proponents of "truth" and rigorous "method". The style is reminiscent of other (post)modern literatures (Acker and Burroughs come to mind) and is a refreshing departure from standard critical language. Ignore detractors and forge your own opinions about this difficult text! Ms. Ronell has deservedly held many teaching positions at important universities and has been, in my opinion, instrumental in getting students to reevaluate their interpretive models of literature, language, and culture.

This book is a playful, yet serious look at technology and its relation to the philosophy that defines our 20th-century thinking and the metaphysical breakdown it embodies. Ronell's writing is often beautiful, and the typeset of the book is highly original and interesting. Addressing Heidegger, Graham Bell, psychoanalytic thinking and other such topics, all via telephonics, this book challenges its readers in a creative, critical way.

This book is a masterpiece of typography. This is not mentioned enough on the amazon page here. As the book delves further into the schizophrenic/paranoid meditation on the concept of telephones, the text parallels the writing's insanity in the form of angled passages, strangely uncomfortable size variations, and some truly mind-bending blurred words. I was very intrigued by the notions of the telephone and its place in our world. It truly is an insane machine that we all take for granted. The book is very verbose, but anything less would undermine its authority and its lingual nature. I have to emphasize again how much value this book holds as a physical object. It is tall and narrow, black with subtle raised squares on the cover. The masterful use of text inside amplifies the sense of mystery and dread relating to its subject. It's like a tome, containing the untold secrets of our docile little telephones.

those who want to protect the "integrity" of academia would not enjoy this book, but what can I say? Avital is a punk. She does not ask you to love her. Yet I find her writings generous; those who always feel to be orphans of society can understand what is going on in this book as well as her "Crack Wars" and recent "Stupidity." She is very much interested in transforming the world. I am contiually inspired by her writings. Aside from Nietzsche, she is the only one who has shown me that philosophy can be rock n roll.

This work is a deeply depressing, albeit necessary reading for all those concerned about the decline and fall of the American Academy today. Its "thesis" is scarcely original, and in Ms. Ronell's hands, is nothing more than a hackneyed metaphor standing in for reasoned analysis; it is abysmally organized, losing even its main threads of discussion along the way. Most depressing of all is that in an attempt to mask her lack of critical substance, Ms. Ronell makes continuous and absurd resort to obscurantist rhetoric and sheer, unmitigated jargon. If nothing else, the book is a sign of the times, exemplifying the arrogant disregard for even minimal scholarly standards that so prevails in American literature departments (she is apparently on the German faculty at NYU: can this be true?), and leading to the sad realization that such individuals are taking the place of legitimate, accomplished scholars, and are teaching our students how to think and write. For all these reasons this is a truly demoralizing book, though a must read for any parent contemplating sending his/her child to university for training in literary and cultural studies.

It is rare to encounter work so devoid of analysis coupled with boundless arrogance, and, literally, an attack on the reader's intelligence in advance of any argumentation. It's a bad, telling sign that the first words of the volume announce to the reader that the book "is going to resist you": even Miss Ronell knows all too well the weaknesses of the text she has produced! Why not responsibly address critical objections to the substance of the text, which her opening remarks indicate she's obviously had, instead of claiming on an a priori basis intellectual brilliance no dissenting critic could possibly possess? This is a sad inaugural maneuver, one that fails to be masked by even the most elaborate typographical games. "Jarring" is not the word for this book.

Ronell is the new scholarship. Praised be. Her style is innovative and she actually has something new to say about dead white guys. It's high time professors on respirators retired anyway. PS: She's the CHAIR of German Lit., Dr. Geezer.

It is rare to encounter work so devoid of analysis coupled with boundless arrogance, and, literally, an attack on the reader's intelligence in advance of any argumentation. It's a bad, telling sign that the first words of the volume announce to the reader that the book "is going to resist you": even Miss Ronell knows all too well the weaknesses of the text she has produced! Why not responsibly address critical objections to the substance of the text, which her opening remarks indicate she's obviously had, instead of claiming on an a priori basis intellectual brilliance no dissenting critic could possibly possess? This is a sad inaugural maneuver, one that fails to be masked by even the most elaborate typographical games. "Jarring" is not the word for this book.