Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man

by David Lehman

Deconstruction leaves few people neutral. Lehman examines the current academic uproar over this literary movement and the scandal arising from the revelations that the late de Man, one of its chief exponents, had collaborated with the Nazis, writing anti-Semitic articles during the German occupation of Belgium. He includes a translation of de Man's 1941 essay, "The Jews in Contemporary Literature." Lehman is especially interested in analyzing the often disingenuous defenses of de Man offered by the deconstructive establishment, and the deeper implications of these with regard to the state of intellectual life in the United States. While Lehman finds the implications of deconstruction disturbing, his treatment is lively and thorough.

Genres: Education, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Poetry

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

David Lehman is a poet and the series editor for The Best American Poetry series. He teaches at The New School in New York City.

Reviews

[John Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The central tenet of deconstructionism and other literary theories that were trendy during the 1980s and 1990s was that language is so inherently slippery it can mean almost anything. The result was to elevate the critic to imperial status, able to say he or she wanted about a book and freely inject his or her biases, political views, and peeves and crotchits into the text because, according to theory, there was no way to disprove it. Anyone who pointed out that the words on the page said nothing even remotely resembling what the critic claimed could be defamed as a tool of the establishment who was not hip to the secret meanings unlocked by the critic.

It is not surprising that theories such as deconstructionism would attract amoral and mendacious people. Morality ordinarily puts a brake on what such people may say and do, and theory freed them from these restraints.

This book describes the rise and fall of Paul de Man, who became an academic celebrity before it was revealed that he had worked as a Nazi flack/propagandist during World War II. Even after the truth came out, de Man's acolytes claimed that it wasn't true, and that he was the victim of vicious politically-motivated attacks.

It is an interesting and worthwhile cautionary tale. The author, who was on the scene at the time and apparently knew at least some of the main figures in the story, sometimes gets caught up in the personal back-and-forth to the detriment of the larger story. However, that story is well worth reading.

Incidentally, I am informed that deconstructionism and its contemporaries no longer are in fashion among university-based literary critics. I feel confident, however, in inferring that they have been replaced by other equally pernicious theories. Some things have not changed, and, unfortunately, one of those things is the entrenched left-wing academic culture which was responsible for this story in the first place.

[Mills College Library]

149 L5231 1991

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really good read if overly polemical. Maybe postmodernism isn’t the very worst thing that has ever befallen the academy?

[Bob Koelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I approached this book with almost no background on the subject. I vaguely remember the scandal breaking about Paul de Man in 1987, and how deconstructionism was colored by the revelation. This book tells the whole tale, from the perspective of a deconstruction critic, who nevertheless finds some deconstructionist insights useful. The first half of the book describes how literary criticism experienced a rather sudden revolution in the US in the late 1960s, led by a Yale cabal of Derrida, de Man, and J Hillis Miller. Their approach was ignore anything outside the margins of the text, and just about everything qualifies as a text. It's a deflating approach, denying the concept of greatness in any work, and finding everything equally worthy of study. It also parses the text to a degree that the author (another concept they deny) never intended, because the author is merely the vehicle for text to reach us. Anyway, there is much absurdity on display here, but everything about their approach was abandoned when it was discovered, 4 years after his death, that de Man was a Belgian collaborationist, bigamist, and shady businessman prior to his arrival in the US in 1948. Conscious that these revelations brought their school of thought under attack, some abandoned all integrity and consistency in his posthumous defense, particularly Derrida. It was all very entertaining.