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Title: The Puppet and the Dwarf : The Perverse Core of Christianity by Slavoj Zizek ISBN: 0-262-74025-7 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 12 October, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: stunning and compact
Comment: This book is a puzzle but also a pleasure to skim. It connects to all the major discourses as a hole in one, as well as vindicating the atrabilious notions of calamity that beset so many thinkers of this or that calibre nowadays. I read it as I was jogging through Southampton with a backpack on my back full of the collected works of VI Lenin (a game I like to play with myself - in fact it is the Moscow Publishing House edition of 1954 that I carry, complete with sepia airbrushed photograph of the author in dashing pose, an edition redolent with memories of summers gone and winters passed, but which is, I have to say, exceptionally heavy). Having got to Zizek's argument about the princess in her Chimay "underwear" - where the princess on learning that she is betrothed to a Hungarian passes for another time, I began to see the point of it - at all. For what Zizek ironically chronicles as the "soiled panties" of the princess, garments that she has otherwise secreted in wooden cabinets all over the palace of learning as it were, and garments that she has metaphorically purloined from the soi disant "fairy godmother," Renata - which passage is a brilliant adaptation of Edwin Barm's thesis on the Bakhtian elements of subconscious asymmetries applied to post Lacanian diasporic antinomies pace Blindhoff on the Kantian paradox in Deleuze, (see, for example, Eduard duCoq, Derrida's Concierge, 2001), having got to this pass the princess herself delivers a memorable discourse on the intertextuality of assignated pronouns in Zizek's own prose - a masterly stab at reflexivity in itself and which may have passed unnoticed had I not been particularly attentive to the details of the philosophical calibrations that - let us say it! - somewhat tarnish the text on pages 33-5 and 211-7. This book overall, however, is without doubt a major contribution to all the debates. Moreover, I had once the pleasure, the very great one, of entertaining the author at a conference I had mounted here at Southampton (which we like to think of as a happening place) - or maybe, I should say, a conference I had positioned in regard to certain currents of connecting-up discourse. Well, Dr Zizek turned out to be an engaging - if a mite unkempt, fellow, who - and this was truly remarkable! every time he spoke issued a volley of spittle so that we all become quite drenched and distinctly shirty. What then, is a Lacanian to make of such saliva prone theorisations? One is reminded perhaps of Baudelaire's famous spleen. Or, perhaps more tragically, of the bile of Aristotle. Or one might perhaps throw up the notion that this fellow is hiding somewhere in the core of this or that an elemental or perhaps unconscious wish to wash away the sins of the son in the waters of the father. Or that he treats the world as (his) spittoon and that the WORD of the FATHER is here WET. In any case, hats off to the old fellow, the pest from Budapest as his wife likes to call him jestingly, or Slav the salivator as he is referred to by certain American-style postgrads - he has done it again, he has pulled it off.
Rating: 5
Summary: The voice of the father?
Comment: This book is a puzzle but also a pleasure to skim. It
connects to all the major discourses as a hole in one,
as well as vindicating the atrabilious notions of
calamity that beset so many thinkers of this or that
calibre nowadays. I read it as I was jogging through
Southampton with a backpack on my back full of the
collected works of VI Lenin (a game I like to play
with myself ' in fact it is the Moscow Publishing
House edition of 1954 that I carry, complete with
sepia airbrushed photograph of the author in dashing
pose, an edition redolent with memories of summers
gone and winters passed, but which is, I have to say,
exceptionally heavy). Having got to Zizek's argument
about the princess in her Chimay 'underwear' ' where
the princess on learning that she is betrothed to a
Hungarian passes for another time, I began to see the
point of it all - at all. For what Zizek ironically
chronicles as the 'soiled panties' of the princess,
garments that she has otherwise secreted in wooden
cabinets all over the palace of "learning,"
and garments that she has metaphorically purloined
from the soi disant 'fairy godmother,' (Renata?) - which
passage is a brilliant adaptation of Edwin Barm's
thesis on the Bakhtian elements of subconscious
asymmetries applied to post Lacanian diasporic
antinomies pace Blindhoff on the Kantian paradox in
Deleuze, (see, for example, Eduard duCoq, Derrida's
Concierge, 2001), having got to this pass, the princess herself
delivers a memorable discourse on the intertextuality
of assignated pronouns in Zizek's own prose ' a
masterly stab at reflexivity in itself and which may
have passed unnoticed had I not been particularly
attentive to the details of the philosophical
calibrations that ' let us say it! ' somewhat tarnish
the text on pages 33-5 and 211-7. This book overall,
however, is without doubt a major contribution to all
the debates. Moreover, I had once the pleasure, the
very great one, of entertaining the author at a
conference I had mounted here at Southampton (which we
like to think of as a happening place) ' or maybe, I
should say, a conference I had positioned in regard to
certain currents of connecting-up discourse. Well, Dr
Zizek turned out to be an engaging ' if a mite
unkempt, fellow, who ' and this was truly remarkable!
every time he spoke issued a volley of spittle so that
we all become quite drenched and distinctly shirty.
What then, is a Lacanian to make of such saliva prone
theorisations? One is reminded perhaps of
Baudelaire's famous spleen. Or, perhaps more
tragically, of the bile of Aristotle. Or one might
perhaps throw up the notion that this fellow is hiding
somewhere in the core of this or that an elemental or
perhaps unconscious wish to wash away the sins of the
son in the waters of the father. Or that he treats
the world as (his) spittoon and that the WORD of the
FATHER is here WET. It is thus a liquified discourse.
In any case, hats off to the old
fellow, the pest from Budapest as his wife likes to
call him jestingly, or Slav the salivator as he is
referred to by certain American-style postgrads - he
has done it again, he has pulled it off.
Rating: 2
Summary: One of Zizek's least compelling works
Comment: Zizek is a remarkable Lacanian cultural theorist, and his work deserves to be taken seriously; unfortunately, it is beginning to appear as if Zizek doesn't even take his own project seriously. How else can one explain the poor organization and endless series of digressions that constitute this book?
Most of Zizek's earlier books (The Sublime Object of Ideology, Looking Awry, etc.) give strong accounts how how Lacanian psychoanalysis can be used to analyze contemporary culture; in these works Zizek is never at a loss to show how pop culture can illustrate difficult concepts. The end result was usually a witty, incisive demystification of conservative capitalist ideology.
Unfortunately, "The Puppet and the Dwarf" falls far short of Zizek's past accomplishments. The anecdotes are still there, but they are piled up in a heap with no coherent thread of argument. There are interesting ideas in here about critical negativity in Christianity, but it is far too difficult to discern how Zizek's scattered insights hang together. In the end the reader winds up feeling more like s/he is the object of an intellectual confidence game than anything else.
Readers who don't already know Zizek's work are advised to start with earlier texts. Readers who do know Zizek's work should wait for something worthwhile.
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Title: Organs Without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences by Slavoj Zizek ISBN: 0415969212 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: December, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (Cultural Memory in the Present) by Alain Badiou, Ray Brassier ISBN: 0804744718 Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Shortest Shadow : Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Two by Alenka Zupancic ISBN: 0262740265 Publisher: Zone Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy by Alain Badiou, Justin Clemens, Oliver Feltham ISBN: 0826467245 Publisher: Continuum Pub Group Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Conversations With Zizek (Conversations) by Slavoj Zizek, Glyn Daly ISBN: 0745628974 Publisher: Polity Pr Pub. Date: December, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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