This was an amazing read. Despite having a master’s in philosophy curled up somewhere in a cupboard, I learned a great deal from this book.
Kant had asThis was an amazing read. Despite having a master’s in philosophy curled up somewhere in a cupboard, I learned a great deal from this book.
Kant had asked: What can we know? He cast humans as metaphysical beings, driven to ask questions they cannot answer, while insisting that those questions lie beyond the limits of human knowledge. With Kant, philosophy turned decisively toward epistemology.
Yet, in the wake of WWI, metaphysics made a surprising return, this time as a kind of metaphysics of absence. It circled around the groundlessness of being itself. This groundlessness became, paradoxically, a new ground. The theme echoes through all four thinkers. Heidegger revealed Dasein as a being thrown into finitude, defined by its confrontation with death. Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus, traced the limits of language only to find that what matters most—ethics, value, meaning—lies beyond it. Cassirer responded differently. He saw in our symbolic activity—language, myth, science, art—a way of veiling the void and shaping the world into meaning. Benjamin is more elusive. Like the others, he criticised the reduction of philosophy to epistemology. Yet he returned to an older metaphysical impulse: the belief in an essence of being that could reveal itself through pure language. For Benjamin, art and nature had become mute. The task of philosophy was to make them speak again, not through system, but through remembrance, through the allegorical image, the fragment, the Denkbild, the dialectical flash.
I read this book mainly out of interest in Benjamin and came away richly rewarded. The clarity with which the author elucidates Benjamin’s postdoctoral thesis On the Origin of the German Tragic Drama is a real boon. I am now moving on to Eilenberger's The Visionaries, four female thinkers writing amidst the fascist firestorm....more
An invaluable resource for the aspiring haiku writer. I was genuinely surprised by the freedom with which the form is codified here for a Western audiAn invaluable resource for the aspiring haiku writer. I was genuinely surprised by the freedom with which the form is codified here for a Western audience. The familiar 5–7–5 syllable guideline is abandoned entirely in favour of a much looser approach: as long as the verse is terse — 17 syllables is considered to be an upper limit — and captures something fleeting yet essential about the human–nature relationship, it qualifies. Van den Heuvel’s introduction is particularly enlightening in this respect. His points are institutionally echoed and validated by the definitions proposed by The Haiku Society of America, included at the back. It will take me some time to wean myself from the standard template. I’ve grown accustomed to its stringency and even come to enjoy it. Now I’m eager to find a comparable collection to broaden my horizon in haibun writing. ...more
Een meeslepend verhaal waarin het Dyonisische, het Apollinische en het thymotische elkaar aanvullen op een queeste naar lotsvervulling. De polytheïstiEen meeslepend verhaal waarin het Dyonisische, het Apollinische en het thymotische elkaar aanvullen op een queeste naar lotsvervulling. De polytheïstische kosmologie wordt zo weer echt sexy (Hillman zou het geweldig vinden). De tekeningen zijn prachtig uitgewerkt in een mix van realisme, art nouveau-stilisering en Van Goghiaans en Dixiaans expressionisme.
Upon a second reading, I found this slim volume more compelling than I had initially. The current geopolitical context — with Gaza standing as one of Upon a second reading, I found this slim volume more compelling than I had initially. The current geopolitical context — with Gaza standing as one of the most shattering loci delicti — invites unsettling comparisons. The portrait of Alfred Andersch in the concluding essay is particularly intriguing, prompting reflection not only on how we dissimulate under totalitarian systems, but also on the subtler evasions woven into our daily dealings with fellow citizens and partners.
Still, there remains something in Sebald’s approach that leaves me ambivalent. A tendency toward dramaturgical overreach persists. The main essay is densely littered with gruelling vignettes detailing the impact of saturation bombing. In contrast to the polished and poised prose, they erupt all the more violently. But does this accumulation truly strengthen the argument? Honestly, I doubt it. At times, it feels more like a display of gratuitous morbidity than a deepening of insight....more
I don’t recall who first introduced me to the work of Goliarda Sapienza. Two years ago, I purchased a French translation of her Carnets, but it remainI don’t recall who first introduced me to the work of Goliarda Sapienza. Two years ago, I purchased a French translation of her Carnets, but it remained untouched on my shelf. Last year, however, Francesca Todde released a remarkable photobook titled Iuzza, named after the lifelong nickname Sapienza used for herself. Todde’s work unfolds Sapienza’s life as it shifts between the mythical Mediterranean past and the upheavals of the 20th century.
As someone intrigued by the interplay between photography and literature, I felt compelled to dive into Sapienza’s The Art of Joy. It was an intense experience. Over two weeks, I read it nightly before bed. Some nights, I slept fitfully; other nights, I dreamed vividly, often of trains - an odd recurrence given their merely fleeting presence in the text as heralds of a superficial, mechanical age.
The book seemed to burrow under my skin. That surprised me given that it belongs to genres I rarely explore—a family saga or the portrait of a life’s full arc. Yet, at its core, The Art of Joy is a philosophical novel. Across its 700 pages, it paints the portrait of Modesta, a free spirit of austere beauty. This is a woman who fights fascism both within and beyond herself, building a life unburdened by the constraints of social mores, religion, sex, class, talent, political ideology, and scientific dogma. And all that without turning into a misanthrope or a self-flagellant. She embodies a living philosophy - through action, rebellion, and an unapologetic embrace of life in all its contradictions. She stands as a role model, perhaps more vital now than ever since Goliarda Sapienza first brought her to life.
[image] Photo by Francesca Todde, from 'IUZZA'
"One must surrender to life, always without fear … Even now, between train whistles and the slamming of compartment doors, life calls me, and I must go." -- G.S.
The title of this collection of essays on Michel Serres—whether interpreted as mapping out his thinking or presenting the philosopher as a cartographiThe title of this collection of essays on Michel Serres—whether interpreted as mapping out his thinking or presenting the philosopher as a cartographic agent—feels almost paradoxical. The map, typically a static, synoptic artifact designed to objectify, control, and serve systems of conquest and colonization, seems antithetical to Serres’ fluid, anti-codified way of thinking. Yet, in her introduction, Niran Abbas intriguingly reframes the map as an active agent that reveals “realities previously unseen or unimagined.” Let it be so.
Picture Michel Serres, then, as a wayfarer, conjuring a 21st-century intellectual and visceral landscape through his performative style of philosophizing. His work is less about description or theory than about attuning readers to a sensitivity—a sense of life’s drama, the immanent, wedded to the mixed (the métis) that harbors the nonlinear, chaotic aspects of life. Rather than a map, I would venture theater—as both space and process of performance—as a metaphor for Serres’ oeuvre. This is not a proscenium for passive spectators, but a crucible, a dynamic topological space where extremes meet. It is populated by a kaleidoscopic cast of conceptual personas (Hermes, Harlequin, the Third, the Angel, the Parasite, Little Thumbelina...) who engage with a dazzling array of motives (noise, the knot, the river, the sea, the bifurcation, the archipelago...). The play is not a rigid script but a dynamic triangulation between these personas and motives. Serres’ thought is rigorous and mystical, coming close, as a gesture, to the Platonic khôra (Valerie Burrus, in her Ancient Christian Ecopoetics: Cosmologies, Saints, Things, refers to it as "ever-changing, swarming, and accessible only through oblique allusion (...) it opens time, unfolding and enfolding dissonant and looping temporalities. Constantly in motion, it is always in the middle—in the midst of becoming."
The secondary literature on Serres is relatively scant, so this collection, now already fifteen years old, is still very much worth our time. It brings Serres into resonance with his intellectual predecessors (Leibniz and Lucretius) and contemporaries (René Girard, Ilya Prigogine, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida). William Paulson’s chapter, for instance, is a highlight, offering insights from one of Serres’ key translators into English. However, Kindle readers should note that the chapters by Marjorie Perloff and Marcel Hénaff are blank, with a puzzling referral to the print version.
Finally, I was intrigued to learn that Niran Abbas, the editor of this collection, has since left academia to establish Scrumptious Bites, a California-based initiative teaching families and youth how to create healthy, budget-friendly meals. This lateral move feels deeply resonant with Serres’ ethos of fluid, interdisciplinary engagement. One imagines he would have applauded such a creative leap....more
This novella abounds in striking scenes. Aerial warfare, poison gas, and sustained artillery barrages were new elements in combat. In fact, the paradiThis novella abounds in striking scenes. Aerial warfare, poison gas, and sustained artillery barrages were new elements in combat. In fact, the paradigm of 'total war,' involving a total mobilization of all resources in the economy and society, was novel. The huge effort to control flows of men and materials is crisscrossed by the inevitable, unpredictable, and ineradicable hazards of fate in the form of pieces of shrapnel, spermatozoids, and human aspirations. ...more
The book would have been better titled ‘The hummingbird and the eagle’. For the author contrasts two temperaments and fuses them into a loving archetyThe book would have been better titled ‘The hummingbird and the eagle’. For the author contrasts two temperaments and fuses them into a loving archetype: the hummingbird, which uses an awful lot of energy to stay in the same place, and the eagle, which flies to great heights in a thermal column quasi without a wingbeat. Protagonist Marco embodies the frenetic static pole, in Hillmanian terms 'the senescent'. His granddaughter Miraijin (and to some extent his daughter Adele) represent youthful movement along a vertical axis. What the story shows, firstly, is that they - the senex as guardian, and the ‘new human’ as unfolder of life's generative potential - need each other to establish a real developmental dynamics. Second, Veronesi filters the static, guardian element through a kaleidoscopic lens of dramatic life events. It is the ‘eternal youth’ who brings in the ‘calm chaos’ that I feel is the mysterious heart of Veronesi's novels. It is reminiscent of what the Taoists call ‘wu wei’. Third, the author also suggests that this ‘effortless action’ is not quietist and does not preclude an overt activist agenda. Veronesi's genius lies in his ability to infuse these profound questions into the reader’s consciousness with cinematic immediacy. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and its thought-provoking exploration of love, resilience, and transformation....more
All in all, this was a very good and informative read. Although, like many other readers of the Dutch edition, I was a little dismayed to find that thAll in all, this was a very good and informative read. Although, like many other readers of the Dutch edition, I was a little dismayed to find that the Benjamin-related episode is merely a vignette in the broader narrative. My wife and I walked the Chemin Walter Benjamin last year, so it was easy to imagine the setting in which Fittko's clandestine activities to guide refugees out of Vichy France took place. What is striking about this story is the amazing resourcefulness of the people who put their lives on the line against the fascist forces that were so destructively sweeping across Europe. Something to ponder in the current context.
[image] Photo taken along the Chemin WB, 2023...more
The stars roam, But no one grants this book its highest rating. I do. I don't need to understand it all. Maybe I don't get any of it. But for once, it's notThe stars roam, But no one grants this book its highest rating. I do. I don't need to understand it all. Maybe I don't get any of it. But for once, it's not about knowing— it's about movement, about being moved by something that, almost successfully, eludes our comprehension.
PS. De vertalingen van Peter Nijmeijer (1947-2016) zijn heel goed....more
This is a sober publication from the hand of W.C., by which is meant Wim Cuyvers. He is nowhere directly identified as the author of the publication (This is a sober publication from the hand of W.C., by which is meant Wim Cuyvers. He is nowhere directly identified as the author of the publication (only his initials are used), but it is easy to identify him thanks to the many clues given in the introductory text. Cuyvers is a Belgian architect, conceptual artist and forester who lives and works on the flanks of a mountain, Le Montavoix, in the French Jura. What exactly Cuyvers does there is an interesting source of speculation. A cursory glance might suggest that he manages his estate and makes his living by selling wood. But there is more. Somewhere on the mountain there is a simple hut, run as a 'refuge'. For Cuyvers, this is the manifestation of a radical concept of public space. The public character of any place is determined by the extent to which people are able to bear witness to their state of need. The Refuge is also the setting for the story, in the form of a play, contained between the covers of this booklet. The text on the inside covers, reproduced above on this GR page, provides some context. It basically recounts how a small group of drug addicts ended up at Montavoix. In addition to the introductory text, there is an extra element of context: an image is included in the booklet. It is a landscape picture, cut in the middle, with the left and right sides swapped, and printed on the title page and the end page respectively. It shows the refuge at Le Montavoix, seen from the same height on the opposite side of the valley. It looks like a tightly composed telephoto image. We see only the hut in its wedge-shaped clearing, surrounded by seemingly endless woods. Remarkably, the picture was taken in winter after a fresh snowfall. One can't help thinking about Caspar David Friedrich's 'Der Chasseur im Walde'. However, these were not the conditions experienced by the guests featured in the booklet, as their visit began just before the summer solstice in 2010.
This introduction and setting may raise more questions than they answer. What begins as an idea framed as a scientific experiment - let's see if a change of context affects the way poor people think and act - turns into a parody - let's pretend we're making a film, but without the intention of making a film. The guests play themselves as actors. But where is the crew? Who is the director (tentatively even in the plural)? Why does Cuyvers remains hiding behind his initials while it is easy enough to find out who is in charge here? What about the romantic tropes that suddenly appear in the second paragraph? Should we take them seriously after the soapbox tenor of the first paragraph, with its vernacular staging in a 'brown' Brussels café, its (ironic?) references to publications elsewhere discussing (we would almost add 'the most learned doctor') Cuyvers's ideas about public space? And then this potentially dubious manoeuvre of W.C. eavesdropping on the conversations of his guests, pondering over these fragments for three months before committing himself to writing (no, rather collating) a story which, surprisingly, revives the original intention of making a film, as it can be read as a script with dialogue and detailed descriptions of the setting and props in the dining room of the refuge. And then there's the typical Cuyversian ploy of "writing against his hand": as a Limburgian, he doesn't speak the Antwerp dialect, but he decides to phonetically transcribe the fragments that have been floating around in his head anyway. Just as he would later make a film about the Winterslag terril ('DodeNberg', see below), when he explicitly professed not to have a mastery of the cinematic medium (although, clearly, he had been thinking about it for more than ten years). Finally, the suggestion of a wintery setting, which does not correspond to the actual circumstances of the week-long visit of the guests from Antwerp's Sint-Jansplein. As readers, we are confronted here with shifting perspectives and undeclared intentions. Are we dealing here with an innovative format for social work? A subpolitical stratagem? A vernacular and performative art work? Or all at the same time? ...more
Is this Baricco's last novel? It may well be. It strikes me as the literary equivalent of Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration, in which the coIs this Baricco's last novel? It may well be. It strikes me as the literary equivalent of Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration, in which the composer, as a farewell to the genre, flashes themes from all his other tone poems. (He would return to it, with entrepreneurial flair, after the failure of his first opera.) In Abel, too, we encounter themes, images and protagonists from many earlier books. The metaphysical chasm between groundless chaos and pure perfection is once again the dark heart of the story. It has been said many times and it is true: you either love or hate Baricco. I remain faithful, despite the obvious flaws. The guy knows something. Something deep and mysterious. And he is able to capture that feeling of mystery and enchantment in vivid characters and scenes. As a well-crafted story this one doesn't really add up. But as an allegory it is perhaps more convincing. In any case, I read Abel with enthusiasm and will read it again soon. The book was a gift from a trusted GR friend, for which I am most grateful. ...more
I would like to see this essay republished, in larger type, with double spaced lines and blank pages in between, and a few colouring plates (particulaI would like to see this essay republished, in larger type, with double spaced lines and blank pages in between, and a few colouring plates (particularly of Modigliani faces) here and there....more
This was my first substantial Knausgaard reading, after the relatively appetising essays on Munch (So Much Longing in So Little Space) and on his own This was my first substantial Knausgaard reading, after the relatively appetising essays on Munch (So Much Longing in So Little Space) and on his own writerly ethos (Inadvertent).
Immersing myself in this novel was a very pleasurable experience. The author's talent to get into the minds of ordinary people and conjure up the texture of their thoughts and actions is very beguiling. I'm still less convinced, however, by his ability to weave these lives into a convincing plot. (I can't help contrasting Knausgaard with Richard Powers, who is especially skillful in getting into the minds of extraordinary people and in projecting their striking abilities onto a coherent narrative canvas of dazzling complexity.)
Having said that, my point is not to unleash an 'hermeneutics of suspicion' on this book. As said, I was spellbound by the story and it offered me a lot of food for thought. Should we look for a deeper meaning? John Fowles once wrote (in the foreword to The Magus) that "... novels are not like crossword puzzles, with one unique set of correct answers behind the clues." He went on to say that if a novel has any ‘real significance’, "it is no more than that of the Rorschach test in psychology. Its meaning is whatever reaction it provokes in the reader, and so far as I am concerned there is no given ‘right’ reaction."
This thesis is reinforced by Knausgaard's testimonial about his writing methods. He is not the kind of writer who starts from a panoptic, bird's eye view of a plot or argument. For him, writing is what James Hillman would call 'soul work', centred on the therapeutic exercise of an active imagination.
Here the narrative obviously revolves around the key symbol of the morning star. An 'ascensional' symbol if ever there was one, resonating with the elemental givens of light, birth and revelation. The novel unfolds along a vertical axis between this luminous presence above and the tenebrous depths of primitivism and satanism. In between a handful of individuals, all locked into a thoroughly secularised world, try to make sense of their lives precariously perched on an inflection point between meaning and madness. By extension, the story invites us, as contemporaneous readers, also to reflect on questions of life and death, against the background of an expanded conception of imagination and rationality. One could hardly ask for more in a novel. ...more
A faithful traveling companion, this light and compact volume. Never fails to reinforce resonances of heart and mind when rambling over peaks and valeA faithful traveling companion, this light and compact volume. Never fails to reinforce resonances of heart and mind when rambling over peaks and vales. Bly’s translations strike me as very idiomatic. Thank you Tomas, Robert and Penguin....more
I really enjoyed this somewhat random collection of essays on the fluid genealogy that links the mortal Hermes Trismegistus and the god of Olympus. SpI really enjoyed this somewhat random collection of essays on the fluid genealogy that links the mortal Hermes Trismegistus and the god of Olympus. Sprinkled throughout the text are many small and striking factoids that I found helpful for my research. But the author's impressive scholarship also shines in the big ideas. He elucidates the link between hermeticism and hermeneutics with fine aplomb: "The universe, conceived as a system of analogical and dynamic relationships, like a text to be read, decoded, is obviously one of the biggest common denominators within this vast current of thought." Also revealing the foregrounding of the Hermetic's taste for the particular, reflected in a penchant for both symbolism and experimentation. Another important idea discussed is the central importance of the myths of Fall and regeneration. Indeed, here is a possible basis for an ecology founded on myth and metaphysics. In the closing paragraphs of Chapter 2 Faivre reflects on the possible meaning of Hermes for our Promethean times. Again here is a fascinating hint towards a 'systemic' and plural practice of hermeneutics:
"If Hermeticism today has a role to play, it is that of demystifying, so as to remythify. To regain the sense of myth, whether within the framework of a constituted religion or outside it, is also to learn or relearn how to 'read'. What a beautiful lesson so many of the thinkers of the Renaissance teach us, those who knew how to read the book of the world, of Man and of theophanies! They had understood that language starts with reading and passes through it—the reading of myths, of anthropos and of the cosmos. Is not the art of memory, so well studied by Frances A. Yates, first of all a means of reading the world so as to interiorize it and, in some sense, to rewrite it within the self? (...) And Hermesian reading is an open, in-depth reading, one that lays bare the metalanguages for us, that is to say, the structures of signs and correspondences that only symbolism and myth make it possible to conserve and transmit. To read, to find the depth of things—by looking in the right place."
This hints at an epistemology and ethics that is utterly contemporary and resonates with the ideas of pragmatists, cyberneticians and postcolonial thinkers.
"Is this a new ratio, opposed to the one that has held sway until now in our Promethean and triumphant civilization? Rather, it is a different but nonetheless complementary ratio, which integrates without excluding, which dynamizes without reducing. (...) This 'ratio hermetica' means saying first of all that nature is pluralistic and that these pluralities are concrete things. (...) Unification is brought about by the mediation of an energy principle that is seen to assure order in the cosmos and unification of the subject. This is to show how much Hermeticism can today facilitate comprehension of a multiple reality which, far from limiting itself to a project of flat rationality, would associate the flesh and the flame ..."
Altogether a very rich and rewarding source of insights on the hermeticist current in our Western intellectual history. ...more
To be honest I liked The Miner much more. Kokoro is a fine read drenched in sepia and crimson. But it lacks the oppressive, penetrating, surreal mood To be honest I liked The Miner much more. Kokoro is a fine read drenched in sepia and crimson. But it lacks the oppressive, penetrating, surreal mood of the earlier book. ...more
A collection of four sensitive stories - three of which are autobiographical - chronicling life in close company with people in very old age. I think A collection of four sensitive stories - three of which are autobiographical - chronicling life in close company with people in very old age. I think I will read more of this author. ...more
Strindberg's Inferno set off an interesting train of thought. One can shrug it off as a somewhat overwrought account by a quasi-schizophrenic persisteStrindberg's Inferno set off an interesting train of thought. One can shrug it off as a somewhat overwrought account by a quasi-schizophrenic persistently haunted by apophenia and hallucinations. The author's histrionics indeed make it hard to take him entirely seriously. The dilettantism displayed in his alchemical experiments reinforces the perplexingly comical side of this biographical report. Yet, at one point deep in the narrative I was startled. Strindberg recounts a walk he made in a gorge somewhere in Upper Austria. It is a somewhat sinister scene, laced with atavistic images. The passage uncannily reminded me of a journal entry I penned two years ago when I was on a solo writing retreat in the winterly Alps. What I committed to paper there was not something that actually happened. I simply mixed mental images of actual experiences with pure invention. The result was a rather fantastical story of me losing my way in an alpine setting. Perhaps all this was triggered by my experience of silence and isolation. So, thinking back on this episode led me to question what Inferno actually represented. Is it really a biographical narrative or did Strindberg, in his usual solipsistic existence, just went along meshing real events with invented ones? Does it being fact or fiction make a difference at all? How thin is the line between normal and eccentric when it comes to mental health and psychological symptoms?
Another element that put me on an interesting trail, and led me to take this weird tale more seriously, is the figure of Emanuel Swedenborg. Somewhere halfway the story Strindberg gets under the spell of this 17th century hermeticist. I didn't know anything about Swedenborg, just assumed him being some kind of occultist crackpot similar to Madame Blavatsky and some of the protagonists in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. I read the chapter on Swedenborg in Goodrick-Clarke's The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction and found that really captivating. Indeed, there was a striking parallelism between Swedenborg's experiences in 1744 and Strindberg's 1896 'infernal' sojourn in Paris. Beyond that, Swedenborg appears as a most fascinating personality on the cusp between the early modern period and Enlightenment. I was reminded here of Giordano Bruno who had taken a similar position, it seems, about 200 years earlier when Renaissance tilted into the early modern age. At first sight it seems that Swedenborg's life can be neatly divided into two phases, pre- and post-revelation so to speak. But Goodrick-Clarke points out that scholars such as Martin Lamm have convincingly argued for the continuity between Swedenborg's scientific and mystical ideas. Interestingly, Swedenborg was in many areas of scientific research, notably in brain physiology, ahead of his time. Allegedly he was the first to articulate the concept of a neuron. A cursory online search on 'Swedenborg' and 'cybernetics' led me to what seems to be a most interesting publication, namely John Lardas Modern Neuromatic: Or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain, which establishes the connection between these two at first sight very unlikely bedfellows. So now I feel myself compelled to read Lardas Modern's book as well as Pickering's The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future (has been on my shelves for ages) to find out more about a possible link between 20th century systems science and an ancient hermetic tradition.
[image] August Strindberg in 1912 (source: unknown)...more
This book thoroughly knocked me of my feet. It goes to the heart of the matter in making our existence on Earth fathomable and it does so with such a This book thoroughly knocked me of my feet. It goes to the heart of the matter in making our existence on Earth fathomable and it does so with such a grand sweep! The clarity and erudition of Berque's argument are quite simply breathtaking. Although barely 200 pages, this tome has a very high specific weight. It feels like I traversed a really vast intellectual landscape.
I won't try to summarise the argument within the scope of this review. What Berque basically does is to bring our understanding and experience of 'milieu', 'meaning', 'history' and 'evolution' in conceptual alignment. This short online article picks out salient elements of Berque's mesological project in a clear way.
I sense that this work forms a milestone in my personal development in that it seems to offer a synthetic backdrop to, and ontological foundation for the trail of breadcrumbs that I have been following this past decade - with Ingold's Making, Bateson's Mind and Nature, Durham Peters' Marvelous Clouds, Spuybroek's Sympathy of Things, White's Wanderer and his Charts, Hillman's Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World, Rajagopalan's Immersive Systemic Knowing, Weber's Enlivenment and Jullien's Silent Transformations as some of the key reference points. The experience is in a way diametrically opposed to the sense of disorientation I experienced when I started to read Nietzsche as an adolescent. Then it felt like bulldozers were making a giant clearing in my brain. Berque's work, on the other hand, feels like it allows me to knit together the rubble that has gradually accumulated in my ganglia. It's exhilarating. But also intimidating. Because I really don't know whether I am up to the challenge.
There is no doubt that Berque's mesology is going to keep me busy for a long time. I also hope to use my doctoral research in urbanism as an opportunity to weave his bio-hermeneutic approach into a coherent and generative action research approach. How to turn that desire into rigorous, lived experience. I don't know. But I sense that behind this challenge there hides a very mundane practice. At bottom, mesology is all about re-concretisation anyway! But how to engage with the territory, its living beings and its non-living things scientifically, but steering clear of both dualism and mysticism? A fascinating question.
By the way, this seems to be the only of Berque's works that is translated in English. I salute Anne Marie Feenberg-Dibon for her heart-warming diligence. This translation is quite obviously a labour of love. Amazingly, I couldn't find any book by Berque in a German translation. It is a mystery why these profound and essential ideas have not gained wider circulation....more