Complaint: Grievance among Friends

by Avital Ronell

“It is not, nor it cannot come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.” Thus spoke Hamlet, one of the great kvetchers of literature. Every day, gripers challenge our patience and compassion. Yet Pollyannas rile us up with their grotesque contentment and unfathomable rejection of protest. Avital Ronell considers how literature and philosophy treat bellyachers, wailers, and grumps—and the complaints they lavish on the rest of us. Combining her trademark jazzy panache with a fearless range of readings, Ronell opens a dialogue with readers that discusses thinkers with whom she has directly engaged. Beginning with Hamlet, and with a candid awareness of her own experiences, Ronell proceeds to show how complaining is aggravated, distracted, stifled, and transformed. She moves on to the exemplary complaints of Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, and Barbara Johnson and examines the complaint-riven history of deconstruction. Infused with the author’s trademark wit, Complaint takes friends, colleagues, and all of us on a courageous philosophical journey.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published April 2, 2018

About the author

Avital Ronell is Professor of German, comparative literature, and English at New York University, where she directs the Research in Trauma and Violence project, and has also written as a literary critic, a feminist, and philosopher.

Ronell to Israeli diplomats and was a performance artist before entering academia.

She gained a B.A. from Middlebury College and studied with Jacob Taubes at the Hermeneutic Institute at the Free University of Berlin. She received her Ph.D. under the advisement of Stanley Corngold at Princeton University in 1979, and then continued her studies with Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous in Paris.

She joined the comparative literature faculty at the University of California, Berkeley before moving to NYU. She is also a core faculty member at the European Graduate School.

Reviews

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite an unusual book about an unusual topic. The author brought me an entirely new mindset to consider and I very much enjoyed this. Well-researched and well-written. Recommended.
My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

[Ezra plt · Rating 1 out of 5]

She probably lives on some different planet. And she's unreadable at that.

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and well written. A very well documented, witty and interesting books with an interesting sight on the world of people who complains.
Recommended.
Many thanks to University of Illinois Press and Netgalley