Deconstructive Criticism: 1st (First) Edition

by Vincent B. Leitch

In Deconstructive An Advanced Introduction, Vincent B. Leitch provides the as-yet-uninitiated reader with a lucid and comprehensive understanding of established thought and the work currently being done in the field.

Genres: 20th Century

Paperback

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s 2 a.m. and Scotland Yard is wide awake. Someone has pulled off one of the most daring literary heists of all time, a brazen theft if ever there was one. It’s happened at the Archives of Poststructural Thought, 1966 Johns Hopkins Way. “Orders come down to round up all the nearby wandering crazies,” says Vincent Leitch. “Out of the paddy wagon and into the interrogation room come Barthes, de Man, Derrida, Heidegger, Husserl, Lacan, Levi-Strauss, Miller, Riddel, Saussure, and Spanos. And a blind man—Hector. Or is it Homer?” The bobbies have but a single task: to figure out who stole the referent. A thorough investigation is going to require a meticulous deconstruction of the crime. But not to worry, Leitch, the ace literary detective, is on the scene. He’s eying each of the suspects through that scratchitied one-way mirror, already examining the forensic history of the case.

If you’re reading this review, you probably already know the culprit. Leitch’s book Deconstructive Criticism: An Advanced Introduction was, after all, published in 1983. Then again, for many people, like myself, who’ve not made a career out of trying to understand postmodern thought, poststructuralism and deconstruction being but two varieties of the larger phenomena, the answer may not be so clear. If that’s you, but you’re still willing to invest the mental energy into learning more about stolen referents and their slippery byproducts, the sliding and floating signifiers, then you could do worse than to start with this text. The last chapter, in particular, is a very nice summation of the book's earlier contents. Then again, you can probably do better, likely with something a little more current, something that doesn't refer to the contemporary times as "the early space-age period."

That said, a small portion of the entertainment I got from slogging through this often frustratingly dry book was ‘following up’, so to speak; that is, going back to find out what happened to some of the main suspects. Riddel, one of Leitch’s favorites, dies at the tragically young age of 60 in 1991. (Hint: Not while serving a life sentence.) Derrida, not long after Leitch’s retainer had been exhausted, takes what some critics called “a moral turn.” (Coincidence? Read the book.) As for de Man, whom Leitch accuses of collaboration… well, that’s a long closed case by this late date. (See: Belgium 1941). In short, if you’re willing to schlep through dusty stacks of case files that contain traces of obscure intellectual genealogy and you are not easily rattled by decadent linguistic crimes, you’ll probably appreciate learning more about the case of the stolen referent-- and what a referent is, for that matter! © Jeffrey L. Otto, July 17, 2015

[Ahmed]

I want to read this book but I do not have it. can you help me, please.