Of Grammatology
by Jacques Derrida
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 397)
recommended to David by:
Juice Newton
recommends it for: mega-ultra-weirdos
recommends it for: mega-ultra-weirdos
Three things from the get-go about Monsieur Derrida: he is, in no order of significance, (1) controversial, (2) allegedly passe, and (3) dead. The latter two points deal specifically with fashion and biology and shall not be presently addressed, except to note that Derrida expired as recently as 2004, purportedly of cancer but more likely of malignant obscurantism, which--untreated--often proves deadly. Let this serve as a delicious threat to Frederic Jameson, who somehow still endures.
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yes, i have read this insufferable text. granted, i could deconstruct it and give it five stars as a brilliant coming-of-age story, but i won't resort to such petty criticism (that is, of course, if you consider inconsistency and contradiction petty, which i take most deconstructionists would indeed consider)
truthfully, Derrida was not an idiot. his programme is insightful and it does attend to real concerns in literary analysis. the problem with deconstructionism is found in it's willingnes...more
truthfully, Derrida was not an idiot. his programme is insightful and it does attend to real concerns in literary analysis. the problem with deconstructionism is found in it's willingnes...more
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Read in January, 1990
I need a bucket. This is the a-hole through which there has flowed a river of anemic pretentious francophilic crap for three decades. Derrida seems to have little of Foucault's erudition and a strange compulsion to make the same empty gestures over and over again. Everything Schopenhauer said about Hegel applies here (that the guy is a charlatan selling his own image in the guise of a new philosophical language). Maybe other books by Derrida are wonderful; I've only read "Of Spirit,&quo...more
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The best way to read this is by skipping Gayatri Spivak's useless and ponderous foreword. The rest is a pretty banal but I guess unique observation on the supplementarity of writing to the spoken word wrapped up in a ton of hackwork. Compared to Limited Inc, this, and Writing and Difference, Derrida's later works are generally more easily comprehended, like Work of Mourning, Acts of Religion, etc. Like Foucault, Derrida enjoyed a late but breathtaking conversion to something like liberalism, and...more
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Read in December, 2005
Well, I made my way through most of this thing, but it's definitely something I'll come back to, again and again and again. Frankly, I think that it would have been better to start elsewhere, perhaps with Writing and Difference, or, better yet, Speech and Phenomena. I've found that the more I've learned about the roots of Derrida's though (mainly in phenomenology), the easier it is to understand what he's getting at.
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This was, amazingly enough, my introduction to Derrida. He's still little-read and littler-understood, but the more I read this, the more I think that the implications of his incredibly thoughtful worldview have yet to be fully appreciated. Hard going, but well worth it.
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Read in April, 1919
recommends it for:
Brock Walker
Sirs and Madams,
I once saw a man read this book in the back seat of a car making its way to Red Lobster. Then again, he's one of the smartest people I ever met. Then again, he was reading one of the smartest books I've ever read.
O,
V
I once saw a man read this book in the back seat of a car making its way to Red Lobster. Then again, he's one of the smartest people I ever met. Then again, he was reading one of the smartest books I've ever read.
O,
V
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well, i read the first chapter, but i have almost no idea what it said even though i tried very hard to know what it was saying. then i went back to read the translator's preface. thanks for nothing, spivak. i'll keep trying.
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This book is a freakin' hard read...it holds no real interest for me other than how it will apply to my studies in Literature...gosh...someone please explain this book to me?
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Read in January, 2005
Derrida is difficult. I read this to write a paper on Aretxaga's Shattering Silence and found it to be quite illuminating once I read every sentence four times.
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My copy's in French (as it should be) and I am having a hard time understanding it. Perhaps I should read it in English, but then I would lose the content of intent.
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If I could just get through the Introduction..
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Oh Jacques, you rocked my world when I read this back in the day. Structuralism! Phenomenology! Deconstruction! Booyah! Yes, I said Booyah!
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Read in February, 2007
I shouldn't be reading it on the subway, but I am. Nonetheless, it should be required reading for anyone with aspirations to smartypantshood.
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recommends it for:
masochists
This is a very difficult book to understand which is why I have decided to give myself the challenge of reading it. Language is a prison!
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i had to teach a class once and make sense of this difficult theoretical mastermind. it was tough and i didn't enjoy it. bad memories.
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I'm very excited about this one. Picked it up the other day, but I think I'll wait until I've got plenty of time to read it.
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ok so i only got thru about half of it, but i had something akin to an out-of-body experience once while thinking about it.
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I was beguiled by this book as an undergrad. Now I despise it for the license it gave people to write incoherent nonsense.
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
humanities graduate students
In the beginning, there was the word. And then there was Derrida to deconstruct the word. All else follows.
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