Customer Reviews

Words of Light

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A challenging, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately satisfying interaction with the works of Walter Benjamin. Sifting through the "flashes," "stars," "lightning" and "ghosts" that ignite, light and haunt Benjamin's disjointed philosophies, Cadava has penned a highly respectful tome reflecting and furthering the thoughts of this enigmatic, doomed thinker.

While Cadava has some interesting insights into Benjamin's thought and the terms in which he couched his conception of history, the text leaves a lot to be desired. The writing style is high academic by way of Derrida, and by focusing exclusively on photography as a Benjamin's vehicle of history, Cadava elides over much of the near-mystical "flashes" of insight that characterize Benjamin's later work. Read the "Arcades Project" first and come to your own conclusions before reading this book.

Cadava's Theses are illuminious! But It was, as I remember, once seen in the reading of Derrida's "Differance". However similiar it may be, history captured by photography has given insights for me. In fact I was confused with the difference between J. Baudrillard and Derrida. Reading Cadava's theses, particular the 'between either ... or', I could percieve the meaning of Derrida's 'quasi-transcendantal' and 'survie'. Of course, J. Derrida not identical with Cadava, but I think the spacing and temporization of differance was behind historicity of photography. Finally, between light and darkness, there is points. That it!