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El 16 de noviembre de 1980, Louis Althusser, el célebre filósofo marxista y estructuralista francés, maître à penser de todo una generación, estranguló a su mujer, Hélène, con la que había convivido más de treinta años. Fue declarado irresponsable de sus propios actos e inmediatamente recluido en el sanatorio de Sainte Anne, abocado a un obligado silencio. Para comprender ese desenlace monstruoso, Althusser pasa revista a su existencia.
Inicia el texto con la descripción, casi periodística, del propio homicidio. Después se suceden los recuerdos. Su infancia, con un padre indiferente y una madre que negaba todo lo relacionado con el sexo. Luego la adolescencia y el descubrimiento de inclinaciones homosexuales y de una avidez intelectual que marcará toda su vida. Su relación con Hélène, padre/madre/esposa al mismo tiempo; su turbulenta vinculación con el Partido Comunista; sus observaciones sobre otros filósofos – Sartre, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty o Derrida -; los elementos recurrentes de sus depresiones; las inseguridades y los aciertos de uno de los intelectuales más influyentes de nuestra época.
El texto se completa con Los Hechos, un esbozo autobiográfico fechado en 1975, que contrasta tanto por el estilo como por la introducción deliberada de elementos fantásticos con la desesperada confesión que le precede. Ambos textos sirven para recrear el trágico combate entre la razón y la locura a través de las heridas, los fantasmas, los deseos y las carencias.
Inicia el texto con la descripción, casi periodística, del propio homicidio. Después se suceden los recuerdos. Su infancia, con un padre indiferente y una madre que negaba todo lo relacionado con el sexo. Luego la adolescencia y el descubrimiento de inclinaciones homosexuales y de una avidez intelectual que marcará toda su vida. Su relación con Hélène, padre/madre/esposa al mismo tiempo; su turbulenta vinculación con el Partido Comunista; sus observaciones sobre otros filósofos – Sartre, Foucault, Merleau-Ponty o Derrida -; los elementos recurrentes de sus depresiones; las inseguridades y los aciertos de uno de los intelectuales más influyentes de nuestra época.
El texto se completa con Los Hechos, un esbozo autobiográfico fechado en 1975, que contrasta tanto por el estilo como por la introducción deliberada de elementos fantásticos con la desesperada confesión que le precede. Ambos textos sirven para recrear el trágico combate entre la razón y la locura a través de las heridas, los fantasmas, los deseos y las carencias.
38 pages
First published January 1, 1992
31 people are currently reading
1119 people want to read
About the author
Louis Althusser
182 books517 followersLouis Pierre Althusser (1918–1990) was one of the most influential Marxist philosophers of the 20th Century. As they seemed to offer a renewal of Marxist thought as well as to render Marxism philosophically respectable, the claims he advanced in the 1960s about Marxist philosophy were discussed and debated worldwide. Due to apparent reversals in his theoretical positions, to the ill-fated facts of his life, and to the historical fortunes of Marxism in the late twentieth century, this intense interest in Althusser's reading of Marx did not survive the 1970s. Despite the comparative indifference shown to his work as a whole after these events, the theory of ideology Althusser developed within it has been broadly deployed in the social sciences and humanities and has provided a foundation for much “post-Marxist” philosophy. In addition, aspects of Althusser's project have served as inspiration for Analytic Marxism as well as for Critical Realism. Though this influence is not always explicit, Althusser's work and that of his students continues to inform the research programs of literary studies, political philosophy, history, economics, and sociology. In addition, his autobiography has been subject to much critical attention over the last decade. At present, Althusser's philosophy as a whole is undergoing a critical reevaluation by scholars who have benefited from the anthologization of hard-to-find and previously unpublished texts and who have begun to engage with the great mass of writings that remain in his archives.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
December 19, 2021
Honesty is the best policy, it is said, but when you style yourself an intellectual who writes in earnest, and you are not only a fraud, but also have severe mental health problems, there is an argument for keeping silent. This autobiography, which reminds one of Rousseau's Confessions (albeit without the charm), is perhaps Althusser's finest piece of writing—although less because of its literary qualities or the insights it offers into his contemporaries than because it will completely prevent anyone who reads it from ever taking him seriously again. Althusser documents his troubled relationship with his father; his creepy relationship with his mother; his deep insecurity; his recurrent struggles with depression; his broken marriage (the wife was also disturbed); and his struggles with mental illness, thanks to which he spent much of his adult life in and out of psychiatric hospitals and eventually resulted in his murdering his wife during a psychotic episode. A committed, dues-paying communist, his writing was ideological and primarily concerned with the politics and divisions within the Communist Party. To the horror of his admirers, he openly admits to having been poorly read, an academic fraud, and a coward. His life was grim—grey, miserable, joyless, humourless, and spent in bad company. A very instructive volume, but I was glad when it was over.
February 15, 2014
In 1980 the philosopher strangled his wife. After a lifetime of mental illness, he was found unfit to plead and sent once more to an asylum. This autobiography gives his side of things. I am 200 or so pages in, and promise you it's a fascinating read.
By this stage of his book he is discussing his philosophy. Many of the details I have to ignore - such as many references to names and publications around the 1968 Paris events - but the general thrust of his relationship with Marxism and theory is accessible.
Even if you read this only for the quality of its writing, the author's beautiful and profound contemplation of his self as a psychological entity, with its heavy freudian/Lacanian envelope, you will love it.
By this stage of his book he is discussing his philosophy. Many of the details I have to ignore - such as many references to names and publications around the 1968 Paris events - but the general thrust of his relationship with Marxism and theory is accessible.
Even if you read this only for the quality of its writing, the author's beautiful and profound contemplation of his self as a psychological entity, with its heavy freudian/Lacanian envelope, you will love it.
May 8, 2014
"So, despite its dramas, life can still be beautiful. I am sixty-seven, and though it will soon all be over, I feel younger now than I have ever done, never having had any youth since no one love me for myself. Yes, the future lasts a long time."
How is it possible to evoke emotions of awe and disgust at the same time? Written four years after the murder of his wife, Althusser goes on to reflect on the factors that led to him doing it, though he encourage readers to "judge the results for themselves" since he writes the book for his own use, since he realized he was damned either way (as a criminal or a paranoid schizophrenic). Moreover, he reflected on his life vis-a-vis The Communist Party of France, May 68', and his philosophical life. It's bound to offend some as a "justification" for what he's done, but Althusser himself knew this.
How is it possible to evoke emotions of awe and disgust at the same time? Written four years after the murder of his wife, Althusser goes on to reflect on the factors that led to him doing it, though he encourage readers to "judge the results for themselves" since he writes the book for his own use, since he realized he was damned either way (as a criminal or a paranoid schizophrenic). Moreover, he reflected on his life vis-a-vis The Communist Party of France, May 68', and his philosophical life. It's bound to offend some as a "justification" for what he's done, but Althusser himself knew this.
December 7, 2011
The class on Althusser was being offered my first semester of graduate school. I did not know who he was and I could not parse the course description. The course turned out to be quite controversial--I guess cause LA was also controversial.
So twenty years later, after reading Marx and LA's students- Foucault and Ranciere (I did not realize was one of LA's students until I read it in the memoir) I got around to reading the theorist and wife killer. I think that my experience with psychiatry and institutions made my reading of LA's memoir more rich.
Althusser's narrative of himself is authentic. The way he wrote about his wife and what she meant to him was some what beautiful. He always knows that he killed her, but he tells a story that tries he uses to try to explain why he did it. But the narrative is also trying to help him understand his fears and anguish.
LA clearly suffers and many times met the criteria for involuntary treatment, though he always says he wanted to go. He was voluntary and he voluntarily submitted to ECT. He says he found it helpful.
Because LA wrote a memoir in 1975 that is also included with the one he wrote after he murdered his wife, both narratives can be compared. Both narratives have a consistent psychoanalytic interpretation that revolves around his mother and feeling like he really does not exist. Both narrative emphasize his lack of sexual experience until his late 20' or early 30's. Both narrative pay tribute to the role his wife Helene played in his life.
This is why though all narratives of self are ultimately self serving, LA post murder narrative is not so different in content. I think the post murder narrative is more fluid and coherent.
The post murder, LA describes the problems associated with being found incompetent to stand trial and long term institutionalization. He gives a good analysis of the communist party in France and what is has to offer future community organizers. Both narratives describe the people LA knew at the l'Ecole.
So twenty years later, after reading Marx and LA's students- Foucault and Ranciere (I did not realize was one of LA's students until I read it in the memoir) I got around to reading the theorist and wife killer. I think that my experience with psychiatry and institutions made my reading of LA's memoir more rich.
Althusser's narrative of himself is authentic. The way he wrote about his wife and what she meant to him was some what beautiful. He always knows that he killed her, but he tells a story that tries he uses to try to explain why he did it. But the narrative is also trying to help him understand his fears and anguish.
LA clearly suffers and many times met the criteria for involuntary treatment, though he always says he wanted to go. He was voluntary and he voluntarily submitted to ECT. He says he found it helpful.
Because LA wrote a memoir in 1975 that is also included with the one he wrote after he murdered his wife, both narratives can be compared. Both narratives have a consistent psychoanalytic interpretation that revolves around his mother and feeling like he really does not exist. Both narrative emphasize his lack of sexual experience until his late 20' or early 30's. Both narrative pay tribute to the role his wife Helene played in his life.
This is why though all narratives of self are ultimately self serving, LA post murder narrative is not so different in content. I think the post murder narrative is more fluid and coherent.
The post murder, LA describes the problems associated with being found incompetent to stand trial and long term institutionalization. He gives a good analysis of the communist party in France and what is has to offer future community organizers. Both narratives describe the people LA knew at the l'Ecole.
November 4, 2014
This book although quite good really lasts forever
December 8, 2025
Absolutely transfixing
January 27, 2012
I would like to think I’ve heard of this guy before, but it rings no bells.
This is a great memoir. Even if you skip around, it is a good read.
Althusser is a French philosopher who wrote about Marx (yawn, now I know why I never heard of him…). He was ready to go to college right when the war began, and ended up spending five years as a p.o.w., then starting his academic career. He went to college and never left, staying as a teacher and professional until the awful end. He is a provocative, colorful person who has bouts of depression and at times a contentious relationship with his eventual victim, his wife.
In 1980, he strangled her and “got away it” with it because he always was a bit crazy. And, some say, the French government is soft on intellectuals. Most of this book is what he wrote the couple of years he was in a mental hospital after the murder. He was eventually released and lived a few more years more.
If I had married that Philosophy professor (prince of all boyfriends) I might have knowledge of what phrases such as “dialectic of nature” and “notion of praxus” mean. But never mind, there is some good stuff and there is always a minute or two when my mind gets something…And LA does explain things pretty well at points.
In addition to absorbing accounts of his various depressive episodes, he spins long paragraphs describing the bad side of his relationship with his wife. Many of his friends blamed her for being such a wretch, but he takes full responsibility for his horrible behavior. In the end, just another miserable match, but he loved her and needed her. Until he killed her, which he doesn't deny.
He tells a good story, and even if some of the stories cannot be fully believed, all the better. He’d been a great novelist, I think. Better than Sartre, anyway.
This is a great memoir. Even if you skip around, it is a good read.
Althusser is a French philosopher who wrote about Marx (yawn, now I know why I never heard of him…). He was ready to go to college right when the war began, and ended up spending five years as a p.o.w., then starting his academic career. He went to college and never left, staying as a teacher and professional until the awful end. He is a provocative, colorful person who has bouts of depression and at times a contentious relationship with his eventual victim, his wife.
In 1980, he strangled her and “got away it” with it because he always was a bit crazy. And, some say, the French government is soft on intellectuals. Most of this book is what he wrote the couple of years he was in a mental hospital after the murder. He was eventually released and lived a few more years more.
If I had married that Philosophy professor (prince of all boyfriends) I might have knowledge of what phrases such as “dialectic of nature” and “notion of praxus” mean. But never mind, there is some good stuff and there is always a minute or two when my mind gets something…And LA does explain things pretty well at points.
In addition to absorbing accounts of his various depressive episodes, he spins long paragraphs describing the bad side of his relationship with his wife. Many of his friends blamed her for being such a wretch, but he takes full responsibility for his horrible behavior. In the end, just another miserable match, but he loved her and needed her. Until he killed her, which he doesn't deny.
He tells a good story, and even if some of the stories cannot be fully believed, all the better. He’d been a great novelist, I think. Better than Sartre, anyway.
October 6, 2008
Althusser became one of the most respected and interesting philosophers of Marxism in France during the 1950's and 60's, which is no small accomplishment considering the fact that practically every intellectual was writing about Marx at the same time. In all honesty, I find his work to be of rather mixed value. I have found his structuralist interpretations of Capital to be extremely insightful, as well as his work on Marx's 'epistemological break,' though his Freudian and Lacanian readings of Marx suffer from the kind of overwrought intellectualizing that was fashionable at the time. However, this memoir is an extraordinary read. We are given painful descriptions of his struggle with bipolar disorder, culminating infamously with the murder of his wife during an hallucinatory episode. Althusser does not apologize for this terrible action, but he does attempt to explain it. He maintains that the killing of his wife was the manifestation of a kind of "suicide via a third party," if you will. For those who worry about the apparent morbidity of this material, the memoir also includes excellent commentary on his political involvements such as his work with the French Communist Party as well as reflections on the May uprising of 68. We are also provided wonderful reflections on private conversations with intellectual giants like Foucault. An excellent read.
January 15, 2023
Althusser's book has a line far apart from other books. It gives you the opportunity to read Althusser's inner world and the psychodynamic background of his perspective on life, rather than a theory and policy book.
Althusser is a thinker who interests me quite a lot in the 'theoretical sense'. If we say that it is the name that most accurately represents Marxist thought, we are not exaggerating. As you Decipher this stance, you also start reading the parts about his life and emotional world. The book has many different details about Althusser due to the fact that many texts were created by combining them together. Dec. However, these details are not very positive for me. Besides the emotional defense of Althusser, who killed his wife, his efforts to seek Decency, the magnificent masculine discourses in his writings, which he wrote like a diary, his explanations that excuse mental illness, were quite disturbing. So the more interesting Althusser the philosopher is, the more terrible Althusser is as an individual! The man took a fair share of the murder he committed with the dedication of Freud and Lacan, huh!!
At the beginning, the multiplicity and beauty of the quoted parts draw the reader into the book, and then the slap sequence begins. If you did not know the philosopher Althusser, do not read this book, you will walk away.
Reader's note: Althusser is a very good lesson with his life, about how not to be a person.
Althusser is a thinker who interests me quite a lot in the 'theoretical sense'. If we say that it is the name that most accurately represents Marxist thought, we are not exaggerating. As you Decipher this stance, you also start reading the parts about his life and emotional world. The book has many different details about Althusser due to the fact that many texts were created by combining them together. Dec. However, these details are not very positive for me. Besides the emotional defense of Althusser, who killed his wife, his efforts to seek Decency, the magnificent masculine discourses in his writings, which he wrote like a diary, his explanations that excuse mental illness, were quite disturbing. So the more interesting Althusser the philosopher is, the more terrible Althusser is as an individual! The man took a fair share of the murder he committed with the dedication of Freud and Lacan, huh!!
At the beginning, the multiplicity and beauty of the quoted parts draw the reader into the book, and then the slap sequence begins. If you did not know the philosopher Althusser, do not read this book, you will walk away.
Reader's note: Althusser is a very good lesson with his life, about how not to be a person.
October 1, 2023
Really interesting memoir! Althusser is brutally honest with himself (for the most part) and the writing is perfectly adept at showing that.
March 24, 2023
Discovered this book from a footnote in a Balibar reading for my philosophy seminar. Thought it would be edifying but it was weirdly Freudian and didn't reveal anything about Althusser's ideology or mental health that I didn't find on Wikipedia.
November 4, 2014
This volume actually contains two autobiographical writings by Althusser written several years apart, between which the philosopher strangled his wife to death in a bout of madness. The two pieces, which predictably recount many of the same events from the author's life, are haunting to read next to each other. They seem to confirm Woody Allen's pronouncement that any tale can be either a comedy or a tragedy based on the tone with which it is told.
"The Facts", the earlier work, reads like a charmingly comic and self-deprecating novella, in which Althusser nonetheless confronts his madness by describing his most grandiose delusions- he at one point believed he had robbed a bank, stolen a jet, and advised the Pope- as legitimate facts of his life. As he writes in the latter work, "hallucinations are facts" for those who experience them.
The later, longer text from which the volume takes its title is an excruciating self-interrogation with nary a humorous line. At times, it is hard to take. Some of Althusser's complaints about his parents and upbringing just seem like so much ugly self-pity. The tale becomes vastly more compelling after Althusser meets his wife Helene, who becomes a wonderfully intriguing, terribly trying character, somewhat reminiscent, I thought, of Nicole from "Tender is the Night".
All of the agony is broken by a few chapters, roughly in the middle of "Future", where Althusser discusses his philosophy in a wonderfully lucid, accessible way. One senses the succor of intellectual labor for the author. It is like the reader adopts Althusser's depression, and when the light of philosophy comes, it is beautiful and uplifting.
The last section of "Future" comes to the conclusion that Helene's death cannot be understood as the result of any one fact, be it objective or psychological, but was rather the overdetermined result of a web of contingent factors. In that, this book seems like a classically Althusserian meditation.
"The Facts", the earlier work, reads like a charmingly comic and self-deprecating novella, in which Althusser nonetheless confronts his madness by describing his most grandiose delusions- he at one point believed he had robbed a bank, stolen a jet, and advised the Pope- as legitimate facts of his life. As he writes in the latter work, "hallucinations are facts" for those who experience them.
The later, longer text from which the volume takes its title is an excruciating self-interrogation with nary a humorous line. At times, it is hard to take. Some of Althusser's complaints about his parents and upbringing just seem like so much ugly self-pity. The tale becomes vastly more compelling after Althusser meets his wife Helene, who becomes a wonderfully intriguing, terribly trying character, somewhat reminiscent, I thought, of Nicole from "Tender is the Night".
All of the agony is broken by a few chapters, roughly in the middle of "Future", where Althusser discusses his philosophy in a wonderfully lucid, accessible way. One senses the succor of intellectual labor for the author. It is like the reader adopts Althusser's depression, and when the light of philosophy comes, it is beautiful and uplifting.
The last section of "Future" comes to the conclusion that Helene's death cannot be understood as the result of any one fact, be it objective or psychological, but was rather the overdetermined result of a web of contingent factors. In that, this book seems like a classically Althusserian meditation.
September 12, 2019
Even knowing that this book was about Althusser's madness, I found it hard to anticipate just how batshit crazy it would be.
Althusser says, for instance, that the happiest time of his life were the five years he spent interred in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II. He also spent time in mental hospitals; one was extremely noisy, so he mashed bread up into tiny, hard balls and shoved them in his ears to drown out the noise, because, sure, any adult would think that's a great idea; we've all been there, right? Then the bread started to rot, which caused horrible ear infections. So he told the doctors that the rotting bread in his ears was giving him unbearable headaches without adequately explaining the logic that led him to put bread in his ears, and the doctors thought, "This is more insanity; the guy does not have rotting bread in his ears," but eventually he had to have surgery, because he was the sort of person who thought it was a good idea to put tiny hard balls of bread in his ears but couldn't convey that to anyone else, despite supposedly being an intellectual genius whose ideas about how the world works the rest of us should learn from.
The stuff about the murder of his wife, Helene Rytmann.... Althusser claimed that murdering her was an act of love, because hey, that's how men show women they love them, right? It's so revoltingly misogynist (as is the entire book), anti-semitic, and self-justifying. I can't describe it. Words fail.
Althusser says, for instance, that the happiest time of his life were the five years he spent interred in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II. He also spent time in mental hospitals; one was extremely noisy, so he mashed bread up into tiny, hard balls and shoved them in his ears to drown out the noise, because, sure, any adult would think that's a great idea; we've all been there, right? Then the bread started to rot, which caused horrible ear infections. So he told the doctors that the rotting bread in his ears was giving him unbearable headaches without adequately explaining the logic that led him to put bread in his ears, and the doctors thought, "This is more insanity; the guy does not have rotting bread in his ears," but eventually he had to have surgery, because he was the sort of person who thought it was a good idea to put tiny hard balls of bread in his ears but couldn't convey that to anyone else, despite supposedly being an intellectual genius whose ideas about how the world works the rest of us should learn from.
The stuff about the murder of his wife, Helene Rytmann.... Althusser claimed that murdering her was an act of love, because hey, that's how men show women they love them, right? It's so revoltingly misogynist (as is the entire book), anti-semitic, and self-justifying. I can't describe it. Words fail.
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February 16, 2019Imposible otorgarle una calificación a un escrito que ha sido realizado con el fin único de expresar una subjetividad ocultada y rechazada por la ley y el poder psiquiátrico.
Un acto de expresión por parte de Louis Althusser ante la negativa por parte de la autoridad de ejercer su voz ante un juzgado por haber sido declarado “loco”.
Un acto de expresión por parte de Louis Althusser ante la negativa por parte de la autoridad de ejercer su voz ante un juzgado por haber sido declarado “loco”.
March 2, 2025
تبدأ القراءة وأنت تحمل احكام مسبقة وموطن نفسك على أن لا تتعاطف مع الجاني، حتى لو كان ارتكب جريمته في لحظة جنون..فكون صوت الضحية مغيب، وجانبها من القصة مجهول..كافي لهذا الحكم المسبق والمتحيز.
لكنك تنهي القراءة وتفكر في أن الحياة غير عادلة. وأن البعض موصومين بالشقاء في كل لحظات حياتهم
سيرة بداها لويس التوسير راغبا في الحديث، في أن لا يقتصر ذكره على الفيلسوف الذي خنق زوجته في لحظة جنون..راغبا في شرح سوابق المأساة والمعاناة وتخبطه مع الأدوية والمصحات والاكتئاب، حياته مع هيلين واكتئابها ورغبتها في الموت على يديه.
يتطرق في سيرته الى طفولته وحياته وإلى السياسة والفلسفة ومسيرته فيهما، ثم. يعود مرة اخرى لمأساته وتخبطه مع الأدوية وجلسات الكهرباء والاجتجاز في المصحات والأطباء. رغبته الملحة في تدمير نفسه، والاكتئاب..ذلك الاكتئاب الذي كاد أن يبتلعه، ففي لحظات ترديه..كان يبحث في كل شجرة عن غصن ليعلق نفسه فيه.
سيرة مؤثرة..لا تستجدي التعاطف فلويس التوسير انهى السيرة بعبارة. (هؤلاء الذين يظنون أنهم يعرفون المزيد..لا تخشوا أن تتكلموا)
بل هي محاولة للفهم فهم ما معنى ان تقذف (بلا وعي) إلى نقطة اللاعودة و
يطلب منك أن تعود لو استطعت!
في الكتاب إدانة لمؤسسات العلاج النفسي وتحويلها المرضى إلى مرضى دائمين معتمدين عليها وغير قادرين على مغادرتها، وفيها تقدير لدور المحلل النفسي..والأصدقاء
الأصدقاء الذين لأجلهم كتب هذا الكتاب..والذين لو (حطموا الأبواب التي أغلقهاعلى نفسه ) في أيامه الأخيرة قبل الكارثة لانقذوه وغيروا مجرى حياته..ربما!
لكنك تنهي القراءة وتفكر في أن الحياة غير عادلة. وأن البعض موصومين بالشقاء في كل لحظات حياتهم
سيرة بداها لويس التوسير راغبا في الحديث، في أن لا يقتصر ذكره على الفيلسوف الذي خنق زوجته في لحظة جنون..راغبا في شرح سوابق المأساة والمعاناة وتخبطه مع الأدوية والمصحات والاكتئاب، حياته مع هيلين واكتئابها ورغبتها في الموت على يديه.
يتطرق في سيرته الى طفولته وحياته وإلى السياسة والفلسفة ومسيرته فيهما، ثم. يعود مرة اخرى لمأساته وتخبطه مع الأدوية وجلسات الكهرباء والاجتجاز في المصحات والأطباء. رغبته الملحة في تدمير نفسه، والاكتئاب..ذلك الاكتئاب الذي كاد أن يبتلعه، ففي لحظات ترديه..كان يبحث في كل شجرة عن غصن ليعلق نفسه فيه.
سيرة مؤثرة..لا تستجدي التعاطف فلويس التوسير انهى السيرة بعبارة. (هؤلاء الذين يظنون أنهم يعرفون المزيد..لا تخشوا أن تتكلموا)
بل هي محاولة للفهم فهم ما معنى ان تقذف (بلا وعي) إلى نقطة اللاعودة و
يطلب منك أن تعود لو استطعت!
في الكتاب إدانة لمؤسسات العلاج النفسي وتحويلها المرضى إلى مرضى دائمين معتمدين عليها وغير قادرين على مغادرتها، وفيها تقدير لدور المحلل النفسي..والأصدقاء
الأصدقاء الذين لأجلهم كتب هذا الكتاب..والذين لو (حطموا الأبواب التي أغلقهاعلى نفسه ) في أيامه الأخيرة قبل الكارثة لانقذوه وغيروا مجرى حياته..ربما!
January 1, 2021
This is a sordid, disturbing, occasionally hesitant & occasionally patronising, heavy and suspicious first-hand account of the life of the notorious Louis Althusser. It undoubtedly tells a very tragic story, and perhaps it is cruel to approach him so mercilessly; but it would not be fair to do otherwise.
The writing is transparent & generous, and it is in style of Althusser to "lay his cards on the table" as soon as possible. In this sense, not one page is spent with page-filler anecdotes and marketable gossip: it is 300+ pages of dense, analytic apologia, likes of which can rarely be found in the corpus of this genre.
It is up to the reader to form their own opinions about the ultimate object of this book, the murder of Helene Rytmann. If one thing is certain, that is the impossibility of approaching The Future Lasts Forever with a tragic sympathy: that Althusser dissipates at every turn.
NOTE: The last chapter of the first book should be read as Althusser's "formal" self-defence. It is an almost pathetic attempt to yield a mystery. He should have known much better that left alone, that mystery would have made itself known to the reader one way or the other.
The writing is transparent & generous, and it is in style of Althusser to "lay his cards on the table" as soon as possible. In this sense, not one page is spent with page-filler anecdotes and marketable gossip: it is 300+ pages of dense, analytic apologia, likes of which can rarely be found in the corpus of this genre.
It is up to the reader to form their own opinions about the ultimate object of this book, the murder of Helene Rytmann. If one thing is certain, that is the impossibility of approaching The Future Lasts Forever with a tragic sympathy: that Althusser dissipates at every turn.
NOTE: The last chapter of the first book should be read as Althusser's "formal" self-defence. It is an almost pathetic attempt to yield a mystery. He should have known much better that left alone, that mystery would have made itself known to the reader one way or the other.
May 11, 2024
أقدم الفيلسوف لويس ألتوسير على قتل زوجته أثناء نومها خنقًا على إثر نوبة جنون حادة، عانى منها على فترات قبل ذلك.. أدخل للمستشفى للعلاج، ونظرًا لحالته الصحية لم يُحاكم.... خرج بعد شفائه ليؤلف هذا الكتاب، لسيرة حياته، طفولته، علاقته بوالديه، بزوجته هيلين التي قتلها، وقد عاش متعلقًا بها، ومرعوبا من فكرة تخليها عنه يومًا ما، عن أفكاره، فلسفته، نوبات جنونه....
لويس ألتوسير، عمل على استرجاع لشريط حياته محاكمًا نفسه وأقرب الأشخاص له والدته ووالده على وجه الخصوص... ليستخلص السبب الذي أدى به لقتل أكثر شخص أحبه وخشي فقده!
٣٨١ صفحة
لويس ألتوسير، عمل على استرجاع لشريط حياته محاكمًا نفسه وأقرب الأشخاص له والدته ووالده على وجه الخصوص... ليستخلص السبب الذي أدى به لقتل أكثر شخص أحبه وخشي فقده!
٣٨١ صفحة
January 21, 2021
Althusser, después de haber asesinado a su esposa, fue declarado "loco", con lo que le quitaron la opción de explicarse ante el jurado. Estas memorias buscan, desde la infancia y hasta la vejez, las razones para el asesinato.
La lucidez de Althusser y el profundo análisis de sus traumas no son de ningún loquito. Es un tipo brillante con una capacidad analítica increíble, una pizca de humor negro y el talento para transmitir la esencia de sus traumas. Disfruté mucho con la lectura.
La lucidez de Althusser y el profundo análisis de sus traumas no son de ningún loquito. Es un tipo brillante con una capacidad analítica increíble, una pizca de humor negro y el talento para transmitir la esencia de sus traumas. Disfruté mucho con la lectura.
March 3, 2021
"[...] Por que, afinal, Cézanne pintou a montanha Sainte-Victoire a cada instante? É porque a luz de cada instante é um presente.
"Então, a vinda ainda pode, apesar de seus dramas, ser bela. Tenho sessenta e sete anos, mas finalmente sinto-me, eu que não tive juventude, pois não fui amado por mim mesmo, sinto-me jovem como nunca, ainda que a história deva acabar brevemente.
"Sim, o futuro então dura muito tempo".
"Então, a vinda ainda pode, apesar de seus dramas, ser bela. Tenho sessenta e sete anos, mas finalmente sinto-me, eu que não tive juventude, pois não fui amado por mim mesmo, sinto-me jovem como nunca, ainda que a história deva acabar brevemente.
"Sim, o futuro então dura muito tempo".
July 29, 2020
First book ever recommended to me by my husband. Reading it since 2014.
April 29, 2021
A self involved neurotic attempts objectivity. Strange sexual anxiety recounted with an intellectual rigor that betrays its own weaknesses. A mind trying and failing to wrap around itself.
July 18, 2022
Exhibit A of psychoanalysis not working
July 30, 2023
Freaky
November 6, 2025
I love you brother🫂
December 2, 2012
"I also experienced extreme anguish and repulsion at the idea that someone wanted to 'get their hands on me'. What I feared above all was scheming women....As a precaution I even resorted on occasion to insane remarks and ripostes. For example, I once replied to a young woman who wrote declaring her love, which I had been aware of for some time: 'I detest being loved!' which was completely untrue but which signified; I detest anyone taking the initiative in this respect....I am referring to myself personally as an individual and not as a philosopher- in relation to my mad desire to love, of which I felt, knew even i was incapable.'
"Seduction and provocation; the two naturally went together....I was immediately and irresistibly seductive and successful...Of course I compensated for these rash and crazy advances and the anxiety they caused by going over the top, investing emotionally in the situation and convincing myself i was really and madly in love. Thus, I created an image of the woman I had met that was powerful enough to sustain my excessive passion....It was my own personal way, albeit a rather strange one of feeling I was in control of the situation or rather in supreme control of a situation that was in fact beyond my con
"Seduction and provocation; the two naturally went together....I was immediately and irresistibly seductive and successful...Of course I compensated for these rash and crazy advances and the anxiety they caused by going over the top, investing emotionally in the situation and convincing myself i was really and madly in love. Thus, I created an image of the woman I had met that was powerful enough to sustain my excessive passion....It was my own personal way, albeit a rather strange one of feeling I was in control of the situation or rather in supreme control of a situation that was in fact beyond my con
April 25, 2022
A transformational book, which reveals much about Althusser’s personal life and views.
December 7, 2020
If you’d like to learn something meaningful about this famous, Algerian-born, Leftist philosopher, this book probably won’t help you very much with that. On the other hand, the book is highly readable. It is essentially a book about how the psychologically disturbed philosopher killed his wife and largely “got away” with it. But Burroughs did the same and had no real psychological history to warrant escape from Mexican incarceration and subsequent move to Morocco.
October 28, 2016
One need not be an Althusserian or even a traditional Marxist to appreciate this terrifying, sad, and wonderful book. I've read it several times. I cannot turn away from his story. It's not pity. His memoir is the essence of despair and guilt--and simply masterful storytelling.
August 22, 2016
"Si può fare tutta la letteratura e la filosofia che si vuole sulla morte: la morte che circola in ogni dove nella realtà sociale in cui è "investita", proprio come il denaro, non è sempre presente nelle stesse forme nella realtà e nelle fantasie."
August 21, 2016
“anche le allucinazioni sono fatti”
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