The Benjamin Files

by Fredric Jameson

Jameson’s first full-length engagement with Walter Benjamin’s work. The Benjamin Files offers a comprehensive new reading of all of Benjamin's major works and a great number of his shorter book reviews, notes and letters. Its premise is that Benjamin was an anti-philosophical, anti-systematic thinker whose conceptual interests also felt the gravitational pull of his vocation as a writer. What resulted was a coexistence or variety of language fields and thematic codes which overlapped and often seemed to contradict each a view which will allow us to clarify the much-debated tension in his works between the mystical or theological side of Benjamin and his political or historical inclination.  The three-way tug of war over his heritage between adherents of his friends Scholem, Adorno and Brecht, can also be better grasped from this position, which gives the Brechtian standpoint more due than most influential academic studies.  Benjamin’s corpus is an anticipation of contemporary theory in the priority it gives language and representation over philosophical or conceptual unity; and its political motivations are clarified by attention to the omnipresence of History throughout his writing, from the shortest articles to the most ambitious projects. His explicit program—“to transfer the crisis into the heart of language” or, in other words, to detect class struggle at work in the most minute literary phenomena—requires the reader to translate the linguistic or representational literary issues that concerned him back into the omnipresent but often only implicitly political ones. But the latter are those of another era, to which we must gain access, to use one of Benjamin’s favorite expressions.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2016

About the author

Fredric Jameson was an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He was best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. Jameson's best-known books include Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991) and The Political Unconscious (1981).

Reviews

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful exploration of the constellations of Benjamin's thought.

"Mass politics, however—for which the whole issue of representative democracy has by now become a rhetorical convention, less a cause than a form of corruption in its own right—now once again seems on the point of reinventing a fascism whose name it had forgotten. Perhaps, if we want to learn to read Benjamin correctly and to draw new energies from his prophecies—“weakly messianic” as they may have been—we should once again begin to distinguish the forces of communism and fascism at work beneath the surface of world politics and self-consciously rearticulate a struggle in which he had his word to say. Mass politics lies at the very center of Benjamin’s thought: in Max Horkheimer’s memorable formula, 'He has nothing useful to say about fascism who is unwilling to mention capitalism.'"

[Robert T Bowie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Overview

Walter Benjamin wrote a great deal more than typical readers can get through. Benjamin comes across in his own prose as largely a straight forward observer. Jameson both points out key texts to read and where philosophical analysis reveals Benjamin to be more complex or paradoxical than appears at first glance. Use this book to read or go back and reread the original works of Benjamin referenced. Cheap ebook complete collections are available in German. Illumination and Reflections are good ebook companions in English.

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[Randy Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last year I read Benjamin’s ‘One-Way Street’ and understood only a fraction of it. I had read Jameson’s ‘Postmodernism’ which while stimulating was a difficult slog and when I saw ‘The Benjamin Files’ I grabbed it. I’m not sure what made me turn to a difficult writer to explain and edify me about another difficult writer. The outcome was predictable. I barely understood either Jameson or what he was saying about Benjamin.

And yet….somehow I made it through the book and enjoyed the act of reading even if I can’t adequately explain what Jameson’s interpretation of Benjamin is. Now I want to reread ‘One-Way Street’ and perhaps other Benjamin essays that Jameson discusses. It’s like slowly translating a text from a language I barely comprehend. If I keep at it, over time, in time, I will gain deep and meaningful insights. Or not!

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jameson reinvigorates the Flaneur in such interesting ways

[michal k-c · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty decent summary reading of Benjamin’s work and thought, with much appreciated attention to Benjamin’s style and peculiar theology. reeeeaaaallllly made me wish Jameson would write something long about Deleuze. i do not ask for much

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work turned out to be one of my favorites I've read from Jameson in some time. It was a pleasure to read, particularly after having recently finished One-Way Street: And Other Writings (called "Benjamin's only book"), which, along with that work's other essays (in its currently published configuration), Jameson extensively discusses here.

Jameson starts by describing Benjamin's work in what I think your could call a somewhat characteristically lyrical way:

This skiff is moving, but not only under the momentum of the wind of history; he has no control of the current—it is by way of setting the sail and catching that wind that we can control our own destiny. It is an image that can only multiply our questions, not settle them; and in any case, the shift takes place within the first sentence itself, which problematizes the very notion of history and shifts our attention from the question of whether history has a direction to that of how to register that direction (assuming it exists).

He then proceeds to interrogate Benjamin's work with his equally characteristically free-range-roaming discourse, for instance shuttling between André Malraux:

For Malraux, the instant of the bet marks a suspension of reality in time, in which both wealth and poverty are momentarily abolished: gambling, in other words, offers the satisfaction (if not the excitement) of a unique temporal moment in which neither riches nor poverty exist, and a present of time which risks destroying temporality altogether.

And this guy named Morgan:

Marxism has its own tradition of such mixed feelings, which are to be found in Frederick Lewis Morgan, the grandfather of anthropology (according to Lévi-Strauss) as well as the father of Marxist anthropology as such.

(I think there was a problem with the book's editing here; surely he meant Lewis Henry Morgan).

At any rate, if you are a fan of Benjamin's essay, this book will likely be of interest. Jameson does here what he does best: dissect Benjamin's unique vocabulary—terms such as aura and dialectical image---much of which you might take for granted while reading One-Way Street or one of his other collections, and traces their meaning throughout Benjamin's work. Personally I have by no means read all of Benjamin's work, but when I come back to him again my experience will definitely be enriched.

[Goatboy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benjamin was notoriously gnomic in his writings and so any second source review is always welcome to me. Jameson obviously has the Marxist background to cover that aspect of Benjamin's project, and he does quite well with the other aspects as well. A few places where I felt I wasn't quite understanding Jameson's (or Benjamin's) points, but overall a very clear and easy to understand treatment. Much like Lacan and Lacanian secondary writings, I gain something new with each read or re-read within this terrain, much like a grand park you can't see at all at once from any angle but only learn by physically traversing every nook and cranny, eventually building up a better and better understanding of the land by experiencing it from many angles of engagement.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Benjamin had many interesting interests, and wrote about them artfully. He was no party ideologue. Neither is Jameson, though Jameson had intellectually internalized the euphemisms and bad faith of petty bourgeois academic "Marxism." Still, a clear and provocative explainer.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Comprehensive deep-dive into Benjamin’s thought by one of the all-time great deep-divers (RIP king). Final chapter (“History and the Messianic”) is, in an appropriate instance of Benjaminian redemption, the real highlight.

[David Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depends on knowing Benjamin a lot better than I do Got about 60% but worth it for the periodic Jamesonian nuggets.

[Kit · Rating 2 out of 5]

honestly? disappointingly generic. maybe if you haven't read Benjamin you'll get more out of it. But in that case, just read him instead! Sorry Jameson--I love some of your other books.