14 June 2016

The Creation of the World, or Globalization, by Jean-Luc Nancy

This is the kind of book that people talk about "thinking with." One of these things that you see cited a few times and think "oh, I should read that," and then you do, and it's nothing like what you had expected. It's not that people project their own ideas onto philosophical works like this, it's more that everyone has their own unique encounter with it, and will probably get something else out of it. It has an argument, though it's a tricky one to pin down, and it's so deeply philosophical in nature that it's hard to translate into more accessible terms. I did not read the book as carefully as I think I should have -- I more just let it wash over me, rather than struggling with it and forcibly trying to get a grip on what it was doing. But I did find myself caught by many of the sentences and individual ideas, and I mostly enjoyed the experience.

It is somewhat astonishing to discover that people still write things like this. I'm glad they do. I'm glad I read this one.