Unpacking My Library

by Walter Benjamin

Every sort of passion verges on chaos, I know, but what the collecting passion verges on is a chaos of memories.

From intimate musings on his book collection, to a dream-like trip through the bustling streets of Marseille, each of these essays offers a compelling journey into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s most influential philosophers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Essays

96 pages, Paperback

Published April 11, 2025

About the author

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, Jewish mysticism, and neo-Kantianism, Benjamin made influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and historical materialism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was related to German political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to Benjamin's cousin Günther Anders, though the friendship between Arendt and Benjamin outlasted her marriage to Anders. Both Arendt and Anders were students of Martin Heidegger, whom Benjamin considered a nemesis.
Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) and "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (1940). His major work as a literary critic included essays on Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Franz Kafka, Karl Kraus, Nikolai Leskov, Marcel Proust, Robert Walser, Trauerspiel and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu.
Of the hidden principle organizing Walter Benjamin's thought Scholem wrote unequivocally that "Benjamin was a philosopher", while his younger colleagues Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno contend that he was "not a philosopher". Scholem remarked "The peculiar aura of authority emanating from his work tended to incite contradiction". Benjamin himself considered his research to be theological, though he eschewed all recourse to traditionally metaphysical sources of transcendentally revealed authority.
In 1940, at the age of 48, Benjamin died by suicide at Portbou on the French Spanish border while attempting to escape the advance of the Third Reich. Though popular acclaim eluded him during his life, the decades following his death won his work posthumous renown.

Reviews

[Annaliese · Rating 3 out of 5]

Came for Unpacking My Library, stayed for Hashish in Marseille

[Sophy H · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a tiny little book that I read in under an hour.

I've seen this title mentioned so many times in other "books about books", I was expecting a powerful, influential work about books and book collecting. Instead this is just Benjamin musing half heartedly about collecting, owning and rearranging books. There is nothing profound here, nor is the writing particularly good. It left me disappointed if I'm honest.

The other short essays featured (about translating and hashish!!) were equally half arsed.

This seems to be one of those books that has gained a reputation for being a standout piece of work when in actuality, I found it pretty dull. Bugger!

[Clarise Ng · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is exactly the kind of book that used to keep me company during my prolific solo coffee date years when I was in my 20s. Elegantly written prose filled with interesting information that make my mind just a bit wider after I’m done with the last page.

My favorite essays would be the one about Walter Benjamin’s thoughts about book collecting (ownership is the most intimate relationship man can have with things, with the objects not living in the man but man living in his objects; every book in your collection should be one that you have read and can quote), and the one where he took a hashish-fuelled walk through the Marseille (he felt wonderfully unbridled, amused, and content— suffice to say, I am intrigued).

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t really get on with this one. I’m probably not intelligent enough. Too many hows, whys and do-you-mind- if-I-don’ts. The best part was when he was simply recounting being high. Some of the others had more qualifiers than argument.

[NosNos · Rating 3 out of 5]

"How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!"

My first taste of Walter Benjamin's work. He is archetypal for a lot of my other favorite authors (Barthes, Sontag). This is where they learned how to think, how to write (in my opinion, at least). Four essays are included in this small book ("Unpacking My Library", "The Task of The Translator", "A Small History of Photography", and "Hashish in Marseille"). Of which, the ones I enjoyed the most were the last two. The one about his experiences with hasish is just funny as hell. He really was stoned out of his mind. It made me want to try whatever he was having. The anecdote about him drawing attention to himself because he was too tight-fisted when it came to tipping is just peak stoner antics. He writes beautifully about his experiences, generally. He makes you excited and enthusiastic, in just the same way the best parts of a story told by a friend heighten your attention and excite your imagination.

But seriously, the essay about photography, I think, is so relevant today. He mentions the viewpoints of early adopters and early detractors, and how photography displaced the "representational" ambition of painting (why paint with the hopes of representing something when a machine can capture a perfect image of reality?). He goes on to explore this relationship between painting and photography in a way that, I think, could be carried over to something like AI art (which,] funnily enough, does not even rise up to the possibility of representation: it is a copy of a copy of a copy. It does not represent anything other than the genAI's aggregated and compiled *notion* of what you're asking it to portray. This is why early AI art has that uncanny, dream-like quality to it. It's honestly a shame that it's slowly losing that uncanniness in the race for 'improving' the image generation capabilities.).


His essay on translation is interesting, but one feels that he might be essentializing language in a way that just doesn't suit me. He talks of a 'pure language', and by this he means the dynamic interplay of symbols without the concrete referents. He brings this up to explain what he sees as what translation should actually be about. He says it's not a compliment that a translation reads "like an original in it's own language", because that would be flattening the beautiful, boundary-breaking differences between the languages. Look at this quote:

"Pannwitz writes: “Our translations, even the best ones, proceed from a wrong premise. They want to turn Hindi, Greek, English into German instead of turning German into Hindi, Greek, English. Our translators have a far greater reverence for the usage of their own language than for the spirit of the foreign works. The basic error of the translator is that he preserves the state in which his own language happens to be instead of allowing his language to be powerfully affected by the foreign tongue."

Soo true king.

Anyway, excited to read more Benjamin.

[Seth Campos · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was introduced to Walter Benjamin in our Art Appreciation class at the Ateneo when we were tasked to read one of his essays. As early as then, I found his style unengaging, though, admittedly, I was forced to admit that there was substance in what he said. Thus, when I found this little volume with its lovely, minimalist cover at a Fully Booked, I was intrigued.

As I opened its pages, I was expecting a neat little collection of some of Benjamin's most profound, insightful, and historic essays, as was the case with Orwell's Why I Write (also published by Penguin). Now, having read this edition over the span of four days (which I was reading alongside Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms—a far easier and more substantive read!), I can now say that either this book is a poor collection or Benjamin is simply a poorer writer.

What I found inside was bland, uninteresting, and utterly unappealing. Benjamin's writing here is dry and winded, and the topics he covers do not make up for it—mere musings indeed! In each of the four essays, there is no clear structure, thesis, or argument. He just rambles on and on—like that one talkative friend who speaks so much but says so little so you just want him to shut up. His thoughts and ideas are too shrouded in needlessly complex sentences that neither sound good nor help to explain his topics. Whether of unpacking his library, the task of the translator, the history of photography, or hashish, I neither care nor know any more than I did beforehand.

Doubtless, there are ideas in these pages, themes to be dissected, and concepts to be seriously discussed, but I cannot begin to do any of those if the text itself failed to deliver them to me. I cannot judge a meal's nutritional value if I could not stomach to swallow it. You may write the greatest poem in the history of man, but if your penmanship is utterly, disgustingly illegible (chicken scratch), then it is pointless. Much more than a library needs to be unpacked here.

[Toni · Rating 2 out of 5]

A slim collection of essays by German philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin, this book opens with “Unpacking My Library,” a reflective piece on the joys and rituals of collecting books. The rest of the collection veers into other topics.

While some lines connected with me, the overall collection didn’t resonate with me. But if you’re into literary theory or Benjamin’s broader body of work, you might still enjoy it.

[Reece · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brilliant collection of musings on the art of book buying and collecting. Not necessarily presenting any drastically new ideas but presents the psychology of the collector in a very thought-provoking way.

It definitely calls out to a bygone era where book collecting was a more arduous undertaking than a quick trip down to a shop or a point and click online. Very enjoyable.

[T P Kennedy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of three very slight essays. One on book collecting is mildly interesting though of its time. The second on photography is very specific to the early twentieth century and doesn't really bear rereading now. The third on taking hashish in Marseille is just tiresome. Worth a flick through but nothing more.

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned/the content of this book made me feel…

…totally confused by words - huh?! The last chapter about drug taking made most sense which is ironic considering that it’s the one that I could relate least to!

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the chapter on book collecting, but the other 3 chapters/essays did not hold my attention.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great, I wish I understood it.