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Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche
Published in France in 1980, Marine Lover is the first in a trilogy in which Luce Irigaray links the interrogation of the feminine in post-Hegelian philosophy with a pre-Socratic investigation of the elements. Irigaray undertakes to interrogate Nietzche, the grandfather of poststructuralist philosophy, from the point of view of water.
According to Irigaray, water is the element Nietzsche fears most. She uses this element in her narrative because for her there is a complex relationship between the feminine and the fluid. Irigaray's method is to engage in an amorous dialogue with the male philosopher. In this dialogue, she ruptures conventional discourse and writes in a lyrical style that defies distinction between theory, fiction, and philosophy.
According to Irigaray, water is the element Nietzsche fears most. She uses this element in her narrative because for her there is a complex relationship between the feminine and the fluid. Irigaray's method is to engage in an amorous dialogue with the male philosopher. In this dialogue, she ruptures conventional discourse and writes in a lyrical style that defies distinction between theory, fiction, and philosophy.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
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About the author
Luce Irigaray
66 books361 followersLuce Irigaray is a Belgian-born French feminist, philosopher, linguist, psycholinguist, psychoanalyst and cultural theorist. She is best known for her works Speculum of the Other Woman and This Sex Which Is Not One. Presently, she is active in the Women's Movements in both France and Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
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July 28, 2023phenomenal. I know i'm going to botch this description. It's not technically wrong to call this a feminist critique of nietzsche's work - I think that's easily said, esp with Irigaray's reputation. But that seems to conjure something dryer (we are marine).
this is not an academic Thing. It's not an essay.
Irigaray's in the second person here, addressing nietzsche as a lover, in a sense, but a lover that's incredibly pissed off. I kind of want to call it an insolent critique, which I love. Most importantly, this book is radiant, it's beautiful. I think Lispector is my closest mark, stylistically. real castigation of the doctrine of the eternal return, which I take or leave, but I think Irigaray's best in elucidating the conservative residues of Zarathustra. again, I'm making this sound much dryer than it is. If I have a qualm it's that LI's marine voice wears away through the book (though she never loses it entirely)
How I should love you if to speak to you were possible
For every hour in its firstness, its uniqueness, pleases me
Are you truly afraid of falling back into man? Or into the sea?
Drop by drop (I) do not care to live my time. For whole and entire (I) want myself at every instant
this is not an academic Thing. It's not an essay.
Irigaray's in the second person here, addressing nietzsche as a lover, in a sense, but a lover that's incredibly pissed off. I kind of want to call it an insolent critique, which I love. Most importantly, this book is radiant, it's beautiful. I think Lispector is my closest mark, stylistically. real castigation of the doctrine of the eternal return, which I take or leave, but I think Irigaray's best in elucidating the conservative residues of Zarathustra. again, I'm making this sound much dryer than it is. If I have a qualm it's that LI's marine voice wears away through the book (though she never loses it entirely)
How I should love you if to speak to you were possible
For every hour in its firstness, its uniqueness, pleases me
Are you truly afraid of falling back into man? Or into the sea?
Drop by drop (I) do not care to live my time. For whole and entire (I) want myself at every instant
November 7, 2007
Irigaray writes a love letter to Nietzsche. She gently engages his philosophy in a feminist critique arguing that "woman" does not exist in the symbollic order and that Nietzsche's writing maintains this distinction. If you are a woman who loves Nietzsche but feel he doesn't quite understand you, this is an excellent read. Her style is poetic, performative, heavily metaphorical, and difficult, but entirely worth the effort. A working knowledge of Lacanian psycho-analysis is also helpful.
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March 26, 2025One of those books where I need to read more Lacan and Nietzsche (Irigaray relies heavily on Daybreak and the Gay Science in the second part, neither of which I've read), as well as re-read my Greeks - the final section was incredibly interesting mostly because of directly tracing the Apollonian/Dionysian with a critical eye to two's relationship to Woman (Other), but also explicitly relied on the pre-Socratics (notably, Thales/Heraclitus/Parmenides) and the move to Socrates, mirroring Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy; it's for this lack of knowledge I got the most out of the last part - on the birth of Christ. The use of the figural Marine Lover in the first and second section, as a riposte to Nietzsche's Zarathustra, was beautiful but a bit dense, and I fear a lot of this went over my head too - the transformation of the tu to the vous to refer to Nietzsche in the text is probably something also really appreciated in the original, and shows Irigaray's commitment to an internal critique of him in his own lyrical (and French) style.
"After all, it is surely essential to keep what one loves - at a distance?"
"After all, it is surely essential to keep what one loves - at a distance?"
December 4, 2025
third last page, “To enter into autistic madness.” ⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️⚰️
gonna be taking that one to the grave
gonna be taking that one to the grave
July 28, 2024
a couple of the sections got tedious since i couldn't find much to hold onto, but 5 stars only because it's totally unlike anything i've read or really even thought possible within the realm of ""philosophy"". i definitely would have caught it at more and different registers if i was, say, deeply familiar with Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but reading more than a few pages of that book makes me want to kill myself for entirely non-philosophical reasons, so i'll just go on interpreting this one more or less impressionistically
July 1, 2018
But endless rapture awaits whoever trusts the sea.
For there is no higher call than the sea’s. The man who can no longer hear it, has already lost his hearing to her spell. And hears only the sea, and hears no longer. But moves blindly in search of its source.
To think of the sea from afar, to eye her from a distance, to use her to fashion his highest reveries, to weave his dreams of her, and spread his sails while remaining safe in port, that is the delirium of the sea lover.
After all, it is surely essential to keep what one loves—at a distance? That is what voyagers through eternity claim.
To turn their loves into thought is their highest desire. And gather them all (toutes) together in a single moment. Enclose them in a ring so as to keep them—at a distance. Hold off their end in their return—at a distance. And become, yes, become everything (le tout)—but at a distance.
(...)
So get away from the sea. She is far too disturbing. She blurs faces and memories. Her depth is too great. Even when she is limpid, her bed never comes to light. And she is too constantly rained on to become the transparence of dreams. Too restless to be a true mirror.
At a distance: that is where to keep her so as to bind her to his rhythm and to the measure of his will, without his coming back too near to test the reliability of such footbridges. And anything reminiscent of the sea must also be held in the night of sleep.
But the evil begins at birth. He who mistakes his skin when coming into the world will indefinitely seek the arrival in port.
Is this the way with love that has overcome hatred? When a body becomes a barrier that cannot be crossed, something closed off inside its own skin, or place, or world, isn’t this the work of hatred? Doesn’t Christianity forget this? Remain the prisoner of hate? With its Distance and Difference, its Heaven and its hell, its good men and sinners, its last judgement, its morality of retribution and punishment, its inquisitions and persecutions, its charity...
For there is no higher call than the sea’s. The man who can no longer hear it, has already lost his hearing to her spell. And hears only the sea, and hears no longer. But moves blindly in search of its source.
To think of the sea from afar, to eye her from a distance, to use her to fashion his highest reveries, to weave his dreams of her, and spread his sails while remaining safe in port, that is the delirium of the sea lover.
After all, it is surely essential to keep what one loves—at a distance? That is what voyagers through eternity claim.
To turn their loves into thought is their highest desire. And gather them all (toutes) together in a single moment. Enclose them in a ring so as to keep them—at a distance. Hold off their end in their return—at a distance. And become, yes, become everything (le tout)—but at a distance.
(...)
So get away from the sea. She is far too disturbing. She blurs faces and memories. Her depth is too great. Even when she is limpid, her bed never comes to light. And she is too constantly rained on to become the transparence of dreams. Too restless to be a true mirror.
At a distance: that is where to keep her so as to bind her to his rhythm and to the measure of his will, without his coming back too near to test the reliability of such footbridges. And anything reminiscent of the sea must also be held in the night of sleep.
But the evil begins at birth. He who mistakes his skin when coming into the world will indefinitely seek the arrival in port.
Is this the way with love that has overcome hatred? When a body becomes a barrier that cannot be crossed, something closed off inside its own skin, or place, or world, isn’t this the work of hatred? Doesn’t Christianity forget this? Remain the prisoner of hate? With its Distance and Difference, its Heaven and its hell, its good men and sinners, its last judgement, its morality of retribution and punishment, its inquisitions and persecutions, its charity...
March 23, 2023
I can say that the most interesting of the books with theory and analysis content created by going through Nietzsche is for this book by luce irigaray. it was really quite a different assessment, but I can say that both a lot of coercion and a lot of erroneous theories were created for nietzsche readers.
According to the outlines of the book, water is considered the source of life in the world by using an imagination based on the acceptance of water with a feminine discourse and Nietzsche's ideas about women, Nietzsche's fear of women, although he did not directly say the natural domination of women, he accepted it with his ideas. because according to the French feminist theorist irigaray, Nietzsche's übermensch is the woman herself. here, I find it useful to draw your attention to the part about what are the characteristics of the übermensch mentioned by Nietzsche and remind you what he actually said without too much ado about the article. I can also say that the essence of the übermensch woman phenomenon, which has emerged in Europe over the past century, came out of this book.
In the evaluation made through water, there is an analogy, a situation of feminization through the "creative", "life-giving" quality of water. as well as this feature of referring to fertility, there is actually a discourse and analysis that deals with the definite superiority of women in art, music and every field of life in which a person realizes himself, and attributes Nietzsche's theories to femininity. it's a very interesting book. I have also seen too many erroneous theoretical inferences, I have also seen the point of view that I neglected to look at too much. that's why it's worth reading.
According to the outlines of the book, water is considered the source of life in the world by using an imagination based on the acceptance of water with a feminine discourse and Nietzsche's ideas about women, Nietzsche's fear of women, although he did not directly say the natural domination of women, he accepted it with his ideas. because according to the French feminist theorist irigaray, Nietzsche's übermensch is the woman herself. here, I find it useful to draw your attention to the part about what are the characteristics of the übermensch mentioned by Nietzsche and remind you what he actually said without too much ado about the article. I can also say that the essence of the übermensch woman phenomenon, which has emerged in Europe over the past century, came out of this book.
In the evaluation made through water, there is an analogy, a situation of feminization through the "creative", "life-giving" quality of water. as well as this feature of referring to fertility, there is actually a discourse and analysis that deals with the definite superiority of women in art, music and every field of life in which a person realizes himself, and attributes Nietzsche's theories to femininity. it's a very interesting book. I have also seen too many erroneous theoretical inferences, I have also seen the point of view that I neglected to look at too much. that's why it's worth reading.
October 15, 2020
a noble condemnation of "feminine" anthropoids. an uneven read, but still good.
December 3, 2024
Questo libro è per tutte noi che abbiamo amato Nietzsche ma che abbiamo sempre pensato che ignori un altro sguardo possibile, il nostro.
November 18, 2018
Life-altaring
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April 10, 2020a read surprisingly rich and deep, rewarding closer reading as does Nietzsche's own writing.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews