Introducing Walter Benjamin

Introducing Graphic Guides

by Howard Caygill, Alex Coles, Andrzej Klimowski (Illustrator)

This book follows the life and work of this prominent critical theorist, tracing his influence on modern aesthetics and cultural history as well as his particular focus on the tension between Marxism and Zionism, and between word and image in modern art.

Genres: Philosophy, Biography, Comics, Nonfiction, Theory, History, Politics

176 pages, Paperback

First published March 16, 1994

Reviews

[Lance Eaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're not familiar with the Graphic Guides (also known as Introducing...), then you may be in for a treat. They often take complex people or theory and break it down into meaningful chunks using a mixture of images, quotes, and text. Caygill's treatment of Walter Benjamin was enjoyable if not sometimes a big challenging. Benjamin was a strange mixture of historian, art critic, and wandering scholar. Though for me, I always knew him for his most popular work, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Caygill illustrates (pun intended) how this was a later work to a range of works that focused on sensemaking of artistic endeavors and their relation to the modern world (of the mid-twentieth century), an unstable world of shifting ideologies and the horrors of war. Benjamin lived in Europe throughout the first half of the 20th century and was both Marxist and Jewish, which meant his existence in Germany would prove increasingly challenging. The most fascinating aspect I found in this work was the wondering nature Benjamin who was never able to find a stable academic home; I tend to think that is the challenge of a great many scholars today. The art was useful at times, illustrating the artworks or the major historical people that Benjamin interacted with. Yet, sometimes, the images didn't serve to enhance the narrative but just seemed plopped in without explanation.

[Alicja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seria "A Graphic Guide" to takie "X for dummies" dla humanistów. Dobrze pomyślane, ładnie zilustrowane, wzbogacające wiedzę. Wcześniej czytałam o Freudzie i było OK, ale tomik o Benjaminie jest po prostu świetny.

[Eitan]

I like to think Benjamin would’ve found this book pretty funny conceptually

[SDestinie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what a thinker, and what a tragic death. His warning, that "not even the dead will be safe," did not seem to show up in this book, as I recall, except for the last line on the second to last page saying that Benjamin was a "passionate rescuer of a history in danger of extinction," which makes perfect sense given his work on history, through many different lenses. Excellent introduction, I think, to Benjamin's works, which I will now begin to seek out.
As and when I have the energy.

[Amanda Lemes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Simplesmente insuportável!!! Sinto que não aprendi nada além do que eu já sabia sobre o Benjamin, que pode ser resumido em: quase nada. A leitura conseguiu ser extremamente cansativa, mesmo se tratando de um livro bem pequeno e todo ilustrado. As coisas foram faladas de um jeito tão chato e confuso, que eu não tava me aguentando de vontade que chegasse logo na parte da morte dele - e não vou mentir, acabei pulando umas boas páginas pra conseguir isso mais rápido.
Antes desse livro, eu tava muito animada pra ler umas coisinhas do Benjamin e me aprofundar mais na obra dele, até porque gostei do que li na faculdade, mas agora essa vontade minguou demaaaaais, e eu não tenho a menor ideia de quando (ou se) darei essa chance.
Provavelmente o pior trabalho de introdução à obra de qualquer pessoa já feito até hoje!!!

[Alexandra Niţă · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prima dată când am trăit experiența istorică a altcuiva atât de clar, a.k.a bântuiala timpului și raportarea la prezent-trecut și viitor atât de complex descrisă. Impresionat cum Walter Benjamin a tot extras// căutat în viața de zi cu zi înțelesuri. Oricum, rămâne de cercetat...

[شريف مراد · Rating 1 out of 5]

اول كتاب من السلسلة دي وللأسف غير مرضية خالص
مظنش ان الفلسفة والعلوم الإجتماعية قابلة للتبسيط بالشكل ده خالص .. الكتاب ما رواش فضولي نهائي

[Castles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering the scattered works of Walter Benjamin and the need for understanding him properly, this book is a good introduction and even though I’m familiar with his works, I did learn some new things I didn’t know before.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hastily signed up to write a final paper for a course on critical theory, where we looked at Walter Benjamin's theses on history. After doing some research, I realized my eyes were bigger than my stomach...but I had already begun, and did not want this to be another unrealized, fragmentary project. So I go to the used bookstore and find tucked away in the philosophy section this little text. Initially I thought nothing of it, but when I saw the name I took a look. I had heard of the 'introducing' series before and initially did not like the concept. How dare they reduce these great minds to a series of comic strips! But then I put my prejudice aside with the rationale 'there are other modes of explication...' and 'perhaps this new medium will broaden the horizon of exploration' and so on. So I read the book and I was very surprised. This piece does not fall short, however hard you may look to criticize it because of the seemingly blasphemous premise. I think the editors of "Introducing" realize that readers might be reluctant to read a comic book, and so really try make their work of quality - not out of compensation, but to prove a point. Anyway...

This is a great introduction to the life, times, and ideas of an elusive and misunderstood thinker. It discusses the movement of his life and its relation to the evolution of his ideas. Benjamin is a very unique thinker, and completely bypasses traditional forms of philosophical expression. That is probably one of the key takeaways for me. Philosophy does not have to be a series of premises and conclusion, packaged together in a clean paper with all the appropriate footnotes and headings.

Lastly, the ideas themselves, I think, are wonderful and worth pursuing. There is so much to this thinker, that it feels like studying Walter is going to be an ongoing project. And those are the best kind!

[Hatem Mohyeldin · Rating 3 out of 5]

التنوع والثراء الموجود في اسهامات وآراء بنيامين، كفيلة انها تتكتب في كتاب اكبر من كونه مقدمة، وده اخل بشكل كبير بالمراد من المقدمة نفسها وإن كنت كسبت حب لبنيامين من ناحية وتقدير لما كان واضح من اسهاماته، وخجل كبيير من جهلي الكبير باهم النظريات النقدية، في الأدب. لكن تبقى المقدمة شيء مختزل للغاية، ومخل للغاية في مادته العلمية، وإن كان التقديم فائدته فقط حصر النقاط المهمة فقط.
حقيقة لا اعلم ما هي وجهة نظر القائمين على سلسلة أقدم لك! لإن السلسلة ليست تقديم في حقيقة الأمر للقارئ العادي، وإنما مينافيستو للقارئ الجيد، والمحيط بالموضوع، لتذكيره بالنقاط الأساسية.

[it is syd · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an introductory text I found this lacking? I dont feel any more like I understand Benjamin, although I'm given to understanding he's difficult to summarise. There's also a presupposition of knowledge in a few places, references to Kant and Weber that I think assume familiarity with their writings which, er, I do not have.

There's quite a few Further Reading suggestions though and I'm happy to go back and familiarise myself with the aforementioned, but, eh. Not what I wanted, I suppose!

[Islam · Rating 3 out of 5]

قرأت أعداد كتيرة م السلسلة دي، ورغم رداءة الإخراج وضعف المحتوى وسوء الترجمة، لكن الكتابين عن كافكا وفالتر بنيامين أفضلهم، وآخر كتاب كنت بقرأ فيه وما خلصتوش، هوا الكتاب عن ستيفن هوكينج. طبعا الترجمة داخل نطاق المواضيع الأدبية والفسفية سيئة فما بالك بالعلمية

[José Oroño · Rating 3 out of 5]

Notes and highlights:

"Contemporary releveance", as Benjamin announced in his plan for the abortive journal, Angelus Novus, in 1922. "... according to a legend in the Talmud, the angels –who are born anew every instant in countless numbers – are created in order to perish and to vanish into the void, once they have sung their hymn in the presence of God."

What does Benjamin mean by "aura"? It refers to the customary historical role played by works of art – their "ritual function" – in the legitimation of traditional social formations.

Benjamin paid Moscow a visti from 6 December 1926 to 1 February 1927. He wished to experience at first hand Russia's "socialist exit" from capitalist modernity. He arrived at a critical turning-point in the Soviet Union. Lenin (1870-1924) had introduced his New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, a temporary "coexistence" of Communism and capitalism, or "State Capitalism", which partly liberalized the market. What Benjamin observed was state corruption with privileged Party officials, the instant millionare "Nepmen" as mass poverty in the streets.

Phantasmagoria, a term used in Marx's Das Kapital, were optical devices for rapidly shifting the size of objects on a screen.

Reification is the major concern of Lukacs: that which in the capitalist phase of history transforms social beings into res, "things" in Latin, and empties the world of sense. Everything is reified into merchandise, so that the world as a human production becomes hostile and strange. Hegel named it "alienation", analyzed by Marx as "commodity fetishism".

Patterns of vegetal ornament from ancient Egyptian to Greek, Roman and Byzantine styles and their legacy in the "arabesque" of Islamic Culture.

Hyper-inflation was the most serious of the Weimar Republic's persistent social and political crises. One German mark on the price index of 1912 equalled 1,261 thousand millon marks by 1923

The concept of the soul, for example, is transcendent: it is an unobservable substance, and as such, unknowable by our minds which depend on the raw material of sense-data

[Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zoals ik zojuist ook las bij andere Goodreads-lezers, vond ik dit boekje niet super geslaagd als introducerende tekst.

De illustraties ondersteunden de tekst niet en waren juist verwarrend door hoe willekeurig en cryptisch ze zijn. Daarnaast legde de tekst de filosofische ontwikkeling van Benjamin veel te snel uit. Zoals vertelt in de tekst is Benjamin niet in één school te vangen en liet hij zich beïnvloeden door Husserl, neo-kantianen, Hegel, joods gnosticisme, zionisme, (neo-)marxisme (Bloch, Brecht, Lukácz, Adorno), romantiek, structuralisme en meer. De meeste van deze invloeden worden niet goed uitgelegd. Vervolgens gaat Benjamin ermee aan de haal en mengt hij allerlei invloeden waarmee hij reflecteert op Grieks theater, Shakespeare, Goethe en Edgar Allan Poe, en Van Gogh en Rembrandt, fascisme, ideologie, politiek en economie, arcades en verdere architectuur en stedenbouw en (media-)technologie, protestantisme, barok en surrealisme en fetisjisme. De nadruk ligt op al deze casussen, maar als de basis niet goed wordt uitgelegd, dan is het vooral moeilijk volgbaar. Daarnaast krijgen we ook nog Benjamins liefdesleven, vriendschappen en vlucht uit Nazi-Duitsland mee.

Ik zou zeggen: te veel hooi op je vork, schrijver.

[Sofia Lozano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dang what a confusing book. Like, seriously. I know this guide is meant to give you a "beginner" understanding about Walter Benjamin, but his life and philosophy were SO complex (like, Morphine OD, traveling all around, studying at 3 different universities, not ever being financially stable) that even this book was a challenge. I do think I relate a lot to some parts and quotes in his writing. He was everything, but no one at the same time: a frustrated academic struggling to get published because few people understood his writing. His hybrid philosophy-art critic-Marxist/stalinist-Zionist writing spanned many disciplines, and the authors say his writing has been "abused" by many scholars. I think they mean that people shape it to what's convenient for them, because some parts are really poetic and deep. He talks about materialism, industrialization, the value of art, the city experience and many political points of view. It only makes me believe that no matter who you were, living in the end of the 19th century made you think. SO much.

[Hamza Razzak · Rating 4 out of 5]

يقدم الكتاب لمحة عن حياة الناقد الشهير بنيامين الذي اغنى بمقالاته وكتبه العديد من المجالات المختلفة كالموسيقى والمعمار والفلسفة والنقد والترجمة. اتسمت حياته الشخصية والاكاديمية على حد سواء بعدم الاستقرار. فقد ادى استغراقه الدائم في البحث الاكاديمي الى فتور زواجه قبل ان ينتهي بالطلاق. كما ان ترحاله الدائم بين مختلف تلك المجالات الفكرية والفنية لم يفتح له افاق التدريس الذي كان يطمح له كثيرا. ناهيك عن ان خلفتيه الماركسية واليهودية كانت السبب وراء مأساته، حيث انتحر بعد فشله في الهروب من الجستابو الى امريكا عبر اسبانيا.

الكتاب جميل لكن، كجل كتب سلسلة اقدم لك، يحتوي على كم هائل من الصور التي تطغى على الافكار المختزلة جدا وتحول بينها وبين القارئ. اعتقد انه كان من الافضل لو تم تناول مواضيع السلسلة بشكل اكثر تفصيلا لتقريبها من المتلقي.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

The illustrations for these Graphic Guides were finally restored when I checked on them today, the same day that I finished Will Durant's overwhelming account of Napoleon and his descendants rule throughout Europe, which was mentioned numerous times in this book and, also, it was the very same day that I received Adorno's Prisms in the mail. The synchronicity continues, as I am slated to begin reading Thomas Hardy's novel The Dynasts, a novelistic treatment of the Napoleonic Wars. starting tomorrow, April 30th 2021.

[Samwise Chamberlain · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those interested: The 'Introducing' series is a great series of free publications available to rent on Amazon Prime for Kindle. It's a useful tool for distilling down the main points of ideas and thinkers without diluting the ideas for the sake of simplicity. I use it mainly to see if an author or idea I have heard about warrants a deeper look through what is usually a large tome of in-depth data or if it would be a waste of my time due to either lack of interest or my own failure to grasp the information.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Benjamin was a ner-do-well Jewish philosopher who studied in Germany during the 1930s until he was forced to flee to Paris. Walter dabbled in both Marxism and the Kabbalah. He believed art should have a political message but was out done by his contemporaries Charlie Chaplain and Bernolt Brecht. Benjamin eventually escaped the Nazis invasion by traveling to Spain, but was unable to get a letter of transit to leave Spain and committed suicide.

[Scotty · Rating 5 out of 5]

i'd read his essay about art in the age of mechanical reproduction like so many others, but never really knew where to go from there. the arcades project? (jesus what a brick, i'm not leaping into that blind...) this book gave me some ideas how to proceed and then some. this is a dense little primer.

[Daniel Gutiérrez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un gran índice de la obra de Benjamin.

En las ruinas de grandes edificios, la idea del plan se delata con más fuerza que en las de edifcios de menor importancia, aun cuando estén bien conservados.

[Abdelrahman Nabil Hussein · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب جيد كمدخل بسيط ببعضاً من العمومية عن فلسفة فالتر بينامين ، يشبه إلي حد ما فيلم وثائقي عن حياة هذا المفكر الذي أحدث جدلاً واسع النطاق في النصف الأول من القرن العشرين وتحديداً في مدرسة فرانكفورت النقدية ، أخيراً الكتاب بسيط كعادة سلسلة أقدم لك ، والترجمة مرضية جداً.

[Dunya Al-bouzidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

"لقد مات شيء لا يمكن تعويضه في الثقافة الأوروبية مع فالتر بنيامين. إنّه ليس فقط ألمعية عقل، بل روح فريدة، المنقذ المتحمس لتاريخ مهدد بالزوال".

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has the best illustrations of any of these "Introducing..."s that I've read. It's like an actual graphic novel, instead of a clip-art textbook.

[Dorrit · Rating 4 out of 5]

💘

[Georgia :-)]

oops I'm back on Goodreads even though I think it's a little freaky because I want to be in connection and community. I unironically enjoyed this book immensely

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part biography and part explanation of Benjamin's philosophical ideas, this illustrated guide offers insight into the strange little man that became known for his ideas on art criticism.

[Updesh Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Unknown Marxist

My current profile picture on Goodreads (or in Feb 2022) is taken from this book when the authors were on the segments about the thoughts of W. Benjamin on Technology but unluckily I have forgotten what he thought about it ,probably pessimistic about it similar to other 20th century philosophers till now i have read about from secondary sources ,but one thing about Benjamin strick me ,he is not like or is completely different from other Marxists theorists , first of all his whole life is not criticising capitalism or Fascisms but he dwindles around concepts like a curious wanderers,he is curious about art, language, photography, political ideologies, Franz Kafka,and he is also a book worm which every intellectual aspire to be ,or is ,he is also similar and contrast to other Marxists is introduced to Marxism by in his 30s and is introduced by a French philosopher ,and the first book he picks up is of lucas the history of class consciousness and after that he fucked with other Marxists heroines called Ajas lacs (i forgot her name) and then began writing about Marxism about the religion of capitalism and so on and so ob…

He died at the age of 48 and was influenced by adorno ,scholem ,riegl.

[Maayan K · Rating 4 out of 5]

An agreeable and diverting way to learn about the complex array of work Benjamin produced in his tragically shortened life. The cartoon illustrations give the philosophical material a light touch, which is very necessary for the likes of me to stick with it. Which I did. I learned many things from the book about his personal life and intellectual and spiritual proclivities. An overall eclectic personality that's easy to admire and even feel affection for, unlike so many critics and philosophers. His indisputable membership in Berlin's intellectual elite during the modern era, his very Germanness, makes his suicide, while fleeing for his life from the Nazis in 1940, all the more galling.

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite being intimately associated with Benjamin, I found this guide to be useful in showing some of the political/philosophical implications of Benjamin's "aesthetic" writings. Now I'm much more motivated to read The Origin of German Tragic Drama, among other pieces.

The one shortcoming of this book is that it does little to flesh out (even in an introductory way) the anarchic traits within Benjamin's more straightforwardly political works.