What do you think?
Rate this book
J. J. Rousseau: An Afterlife of Words
Eli Friedlander reads Rousseau's autobiography, Reveries of the Solitary Walker , as philosophy. Reading this work against Descartes's Meditations , Friedlander shows how Rousseau's memorable transformation of experience through writing opens up the possibility of affirming even the most dejected state of being and allows the emergence of the innocence of nature out of the ruins of all social attachments. In tracing the re-creation of a human subject in reverie, Friedlander is alive to the very form of the experience of reading the Reveries by showing the ways this work needs to--and in effect does--generate a reader, without betraying Rousseau's utter solitude. Friedlander's book provides an afterlife for the Reveries in modern philosophy. It constitutes an alternative to the analytic tradition's revival of Rousseau, primarily through Rawls's influential vision of the social contract. It also counters the fate of Rousseau's writings in the continental tradition, determined by and large by Derrida's deconstruction. Friedlander's reading of the Reveries , a work that has fascinated generations of readers, is an incomparable introduction to one of the greatest thinkers in Western culture.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 1, 2015
Rousseau's last book, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker is a profound, lyrical, often moving and occasionally disturbing book. It is written in elegant, often beautiful prose that wraps a complex rumination on Rousseau's life and writings in a simple, unadorned cloak. Friedlander's book is no less a complex rumination, but it is anything but elegant or beautiful. It is the kind of book that whoever has read it will readily call to mind whenever the subject of lousy academic writing comes up.
Friedlander's stated intention is to read the Reveries as a work of philosophy. He focuses heavily on its status as a text and the way that its nature as such affects its meaning through the relationship it creates with the reader, a relationship which, because Rousseau did not write the book to be read by anyone but himself, its author purposefully refused to create. How, then, does one read a work that was not meant to be read? That might be an interesting question, but Friedlander has no interesting answers. He suggests in his introduction that his way of reading the text might come across as "a kind of over-reading" (5). And so it does, as he pours Rousseau through the filters of Descartes, Derrida, Heidegger, and Benjamin. In so doing Friedlander offers an interpretation of the Reveries that concentrates on its "meaning" in that diffuse, obscure continental philosophical sense of the term. What Rousseau says often gets lost, sidetracked either by discussions of other philosophers or of one of Rousseau's other writings. Friedlander often cites Rousseau's essay on the origin language, but its pertinence isn't always clear. For example, the bulk of his discussion of the Fourth Walk, in which Rousseau discusses lying, is devoted to an exegesis of Rousseau's views on Rousseau's language essay. Rousseau's thoughts on lying would seem worthy of discussion in their own right. Yet they're quickly abandoned in favor of something not discussed in the book at hand.
This is the case throughout. Friedlander doesn't seem all that interested in the Reveries in its own right. That's a shame, as it throws considerable light on Rousseau's mind and personality. Of course, it's possible Friedlander casts such light on the Reveries. It's difficult to tell, though, given his convoluted, murky sentences. He has that awful tendency some writers do of putting common, readily understood words together in a way that makes them mutually incomprehensible. Here's one such example:
Thus the original intuition about truthfulness as adequation is problematized. (17)
And a couple more:
To recognize necessity is to return words to their true size, leading them back from their expansion by way of concentration, without literalizing them. (89)
The original model of the language of passionate utterance, while not exactly appealing to an expressive interiority, finds the source of significance in the outbursts of the soul as it expands towards what it encounters. (91)
The whole thing is like that; lucid passages are encountered like small islands on a vast gray, dull, turgid sea. What is worse is that Friedlander ignores some of the most important topics Rousseau discusses in order to expatiate on Benjamin's comments on this, that, and the other. Rousseau's views on time and happiness in the Fifth Walk? Dismissed in a paragraph! Why talk about one of the main themes of the work? What object would that serve? But there's plenty of space for long perorations on meaning and the nebulous concept of "afterlife," torn off Benjamin and wrapped about Rousseau like a misshapen, ill-fitting sweater.
Rousseau often complained that his contemporaries did not understand his writings and that he hoped, therefore, his readers in the future would do him the justice of comprehending what he really meant and said. Based on Friedlander's confused and confusing little volume, Rousseau will have to keep waiting.
Posted Wednesday, 30 September 2015
Friedlander's stated intention is to read the Reveries as a work of philosophy. He focuses heavily on its status as a text and the way that its nature as such affects its meaning through the relationship it creates with the reader, a relationship which, because Rousseau did not write the book to be read by anyone but himself, its author purposefully refused to create. How, then, does one read a work that was not meant to be read? That might be an interesting question, but Friedlander has no interesting answers. He suggests in his introduction that his way of reading the text might come across as "a kind of over-reading" (5). And so it does, as he pours Rousseau through the filters of Descartes, Derrida, Heidegger, and Benjamin. In so doing Friedlander offers an interpretation of the Reveries that concentrates on its "meaning" in that diffuse, obscure continental philosophical sense of the term. What Rousseau says often gets lost, sidetracked either by discussions of other philosophers or of one of Rousseau's other writings. Friedlander often cites Rousseau's essay on the origin language, but its pertinence isn't always clear. For example, the bulk of his discussion of the Fourth Walk, in which Rousseau discusses lying, is devoted to an exegesis of Rousseau's views on Rousseau's language essay. Rousseau's thoughts on lying would seem worthy of discussion in their own right. Yet they're quickly abandoned in favor of something not discussed in the book at hand.
This is the case throughout. Friedlander doesn't seem all that interested in the Reveries in its own right. That's a shame, as it throws considerable light on Rousseau's mind and personality. Of course, it's possible Friedlander casts such light on the Reveries. It's difficult to tell, though, given his convoluted, murky sentences. He has that awful tendency some writers do of putting common, readily understood words together in a way that makes them mutually incomprehensible. Here's one such example:
Thus the original intuition about truthfulness as adequation is problematized. (17)
And a couple more:
To recognize necessity is to return words to their true size, leading them back from their expansion by way of concentration, without literalizing them. (89)
The original model of the language of passionate utterance, while not exactly appealing to an expressive interiority, finds the source of significance in the outbursts of the soul as it expands towards what it encounters. (91)
The whole thing is like that; lucid passages are encountered like small islands on a vast gray, dull, turgid sea. What is worse is that Friedlander ignores some of the most important topics Rousseau discusses in order to expatiate on Benjamin's comments on this, that, and the other. Rousseau's views on time and happiness in the Fifth Walk? Dismissed in a paragraph! Why talk about one of the main themes of the work? What object would that serve? But there's plenty of space for long perorations on meaning and the nebulous concept of "afterlife," torn off Benjamin and wrapped about Rousseau like a misshapen, ill-fitting sweater.
Rousseau often complained that his contemporaries did not understand his writings and that he hoped, therefore, his readers in the future would do him the justice of comprehending what he really meant and said. Based on Friedlander's confused and confusing little volume, Rousseau will have to keep waiting.
Posted Wednesday, 30 September 2015
Displaying 1 of 1 review