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Jacques Derida

On this page:  {Richard Kostelanetz' advante guardes entry on derrida}
               {Readings list}


Richard K. sez...
In his superb book "Dictionary of the Avante Guardes", Richard
Kostelanetz sez:

"A Frenchman from North Africa, Derida has become some academic
literary circles the most influential critical theorist since Northrop Frye.
His books seem designed for the classroom, which means that 
they are most successfully read with a guide, in concert with other
seekers. Where they are comprehensible, at least in my experience,
the ideas are obvious; where they are in-comprehensible, Derrida's
theories of deconstruction offers the cognoscenti
rich opportunities for the kinds of one-ups-man-ship endemic to
such hierarchical societies as the military and most universities.

"To my mind, Derrida's originality comes from his way of thinking,
which I discovered not from reading his works, but from hearing
him speak. In Jerusalem, several years ago, I witnessed a question/
answer performance before a mostly academic audience, mostly
speaking, as he, non-native English. Whenever Derrida took a
question, you could see him fumble for the beginnings of an answer,
but once he got on track, an elaborate digression followe, at once 
elegant and idiosyncratic, until he reached a pause. Having followed
him so far, you wondered whether he would then turn to the left
or to the right, each direction seeming equally vaid, only to admire
the next verbal flight that led to another roadstop, with similarly 
arbitrary choices before continuing or concluding. In response to 
the next question, Derrida improvised structurally similar rhetorical
gymnnastics.

"What separates Derrida from tradtional literary theorists is this
commitment to improvisitory thinking with all of its possibilities 
and limitations. Shoul you have a taste for high-flown intellectual
gymnastics, consider Marshall McLuhan, whose
similarly improvised perceptions were sociologically more substantial.

"If you think improvisation is "no way to play music", you might judge
that Derrida's example is no way to think."

[Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes", P.58.]


btw: I typed this in while listening to Frank Zappa's "Hot Rats" alb,
a subj btw which Kostz. cvers in his bk; ie, F.Z.

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Readings

"Points...; interviews, 1974-1994", edited by Elisabeth Weber,
translated by Peggy Kamuf & others. (here is *exactly* where
an excelent 'et al' could have been used!).
ISBN 0.8047.2488.1 (California, 1992).  (Yes, i know that
the dates '1994' and '1992' "don't match"; go figure).