Flesh of My Flesh

by Kaja Silverman

What is a woman? What is a man? How do they―and how should they―relate to each other? Does our yearning for "wholeness" refer to something real, and if there is a Whole, what is it, and why do we feel so estranged from it? For centuries now, art and literature have increasingly valorized uniqueness and self-sufficiency. The theoreticians who loom so large within contemporary thought also privilege difference over similarity. Silverman reminds us that this is but half the story, and a dangerous half at that, for if we are all individuals, we are doomed to be rivals and enemies. A much older story, one that prevailed through the early modern era, held that likeness or resemblance was what organized the universe, and that everything emerges out of the same flesh. Silverman shows that analogy, so discredited by much of twentieth-century thought, offers a much more promising view of human relations. In the West, the emblematic story of turning away is that of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the heroes of Silverman's sweeping new reading of nineteenth- and twentieth-century culture, the modern heirs to the old, analogical view of the world, also gravitate to this myth. They embrace the correspondences that bind Orpheus to Eurydice and acknowledge their kinship with others past and present. The first half of this book assembles a cast of characters not usually brought together: Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Marcel Proust, Lou-Andréas Salomé, Romain Rolland, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wilhelm Jensen, and Paula Modersohn-Becker. The second half is devoted to three contemporary artists, whose works we see in a moving new light:Terrence Malick, James Coleman, and Gerhard Richter.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Art, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Feminism

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just about everything of this book exudes beauty. From its gorgeously illustrated leaves, to its smooth, glossy touch and stately bulk, not just reading but even handling this book is a kind of joy in itself. And then there's the prose - eloquent without being long-winded, straightforward without being simplistic; an achievement on its own, considering the breadth of Western art and culture engaged here. After all, there's a story being told here, one that spans the generations from Virgil to Freud, Da Vinci to Gerhard Richter: the story of analogy. For analogy, according to Silverman, is just what allows us to recognize ourselves in the other, and the other in ourselves, bound not on the basis of egoistic drive to encompass the whole, but on a mutual recognition of our finitude: "finitude marks the point where we end and others begin, [and] it is also what makes room for them"; accordingly, analogy is nothing less than "the starting point for another kind of human relationality... it is the structure of Being, and it gleams with promise because it does indeed have the power to save us".

Less an abstract metaphysical treatise than a work of critically engaged cultural critique however, it's poetry and myth, art and cinema which occupy the many analyses here, with Silverman finding in each the resources for exploring and detailing the power of analogy to give voice to our 'ontological equality', our emplacement within the 'oceanic' Whole among which we all dwell. Particularly fantastic was the discussion of the life and work of Lou Andreas-Salome, a figure who I (embarrassingly) knew only as Nietzsche's perpetual flame, but who was in fact a first-rate psychoanalyst and writer in her own regard. While perhaps not news to others, Silverman's beautiful recounting of the many friendships and correspondences with which she kept make for compelling reading not just at the level of 'theory', but as a matter of sheer story-telling goodness for anyone concerned (and how could it not? We're talking here of Freud, Rainer Maria Rilke, and yes, the philosophical meteor that was Nietzsche too).

At the heart of Silverman's study though, lies the myth of Orpheus, whose various treatments - both actual and analogical - are here traced out in a cultural history as rich as it is enduring. Writing from the margins of a psychoanalytic perspective herself, Silverman works here to institute not Oedipus - as the classic telling has it - but story of Orpheus and Eurydice as the one of the 'ur-narratives of Western subjectivity.' This insofar as they embody - at least in the re-tellings advocated by Silverman - the very ontological equality championed by the book. For all the wonder within though, it should be mentioned that Flesh of my Flesh does come off less as a work of 'theory building' than of 'world building': not conceptual imbrication but artistic exemplification drives the narrative of the book, as though a case made by cases than by the abstractions of syllogisms. The distinction is a little rough, I'll admit, but the philosophile in me did wish for a little more of the latter than was on offer. Still, as a work of both intelligence and beauty, well, there are few others that can compare.

[Dirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brilliant, stimulating, frustrating book. It is an intelligent and ingenious and stimulating discussion of the role of analogy in our thinking about the world and about one another as exemplified in several works of art and philosophical writings that took the author’s interest. Lurking in the background is the thought that if we dwelt more on the resemblances among ourselves and between our selves and various things than we dwell on the differences, we would live more harmoniously with one another and with the universe. She stresses the difference in our attitude toward mortality that follows from our emphasis on distinction, (roughly put) because mortality, or finitude is something that unites us with all others. She takes the position that up until the renaissance art and literature tended to emphasizes resemblance, whereas since then, with notable exceptions, which interest her, it has stressed difference.
In full disclosure I should say that by temperament I am more interested in distinction than resemblance; for that reason writers like, say, Joseph Campbell, with his tireless highlighting of resemblance, tend to bore me.
The subjects of her discussion are selected rather than inclusive. For example she explores mainly Ovid's, Virgil’s, and Rilke’s use of the Orpheus myth but omits e. g. Gluck’s Orfeo, Cocteau’s Orpheus, and Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus, and Levertove's A Tree on Orpheus. Again, she explores the insights of several early theorists of developmental psychology, notably Freud and Lou Andreas Salome, but largely drops psychodynamic literature after the early years of the 20th century. Object relations theory seems more relevant than early analysts, but is not discussed except for a brief reference to Winnicott.
Reading over the Orpheus myth is a good example of what is so stimulating about this book. I, and all the people I’ve checked with, take the episode of the myth leading to Eurydice’s second death to be about the irony of loving too much or about uncontrolled passion. While she points out that, like other myths, it is open to widely varying interpretations, she stresses Orpheus' backward glance as a rejection of Eurydice, hence of connection, of the feminine principal, and of our common mortality. It’s fascinating to turn your mind back to these stories and try them with her perspective in hand. For example I would love to chat with her about the Gluck opera Orfeo, which ends with Amor reuniting the lovers (And Gluck is a composer who can deal firmly and passionately with conflict as in Iphigénie en Tauried). Gluck’s ending seems to me an embracing of wholeness at the height of the Enlightenment, but what would Silverman say?
Because of reading this book I got Terrence Malick’s Movie The Thin Red Line from Netflix. I don’t normally watch war movies and probably would never have seen it otherwise. Having read her subtle account of the levels of meaning of this richly allusive movie made it fun and meaningful to me, which I’m not at all sure it would otherwise have been.
On he other hand I happened to go to the same show of Gerhard Richter’s paintings that stimulated her to study him. At the time I found him a technically accomplished painter who painted things that didn’t much interest me. If I had read the chapter that resulted from her visit and which points out layers an layers of meaning centered around the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the issues she is discussing, would have been much more pleasurable and meaningful to me.
Let me complain a bit about the frustrations. First the book has many illustrations it depends on for detailed analysis of graphic works. The illustrations are scattered, have no captions, and there is no list of illustrations. Consequently you spend a good deal of your time first figuring out the location of an illustration, then switching back and forth between discussion and illustration by means of fingers or slips of paper. Another problem is willful distortion of language. On the level of mere irritation she is fond of ugly academic revisions of meaning and syntax such as “privilege” and “valorize” as transitive verbs meaning, ”prefer” or “like”. I think when she uses those words she believes that they are more precise or at least more portentous than “like,” but I do not believe that is the case. That stuff is grating but easy to decipher. More of a problem is when she bends a word out of meaning to make a point but only becomes obscure. A common example is “correspond”. I know of two distinct meanings of this word, one is intransitive and means to be equivalent; the second is transitive and, construed with “with”, means to exchange letters over a period of time. But she frequently uses it to try to force the action of a human relationship on pairs of things where neither or only one is human. For example on page 13 she is speaking of an installation that James Coleman made at an exhibit of Michelangelo. She says, “…the exhibition included the painting that led Freud to conclude that Leonardo, unlike the ‘normal’ male subject, never turned way from his mother: Virgin and child with Saint Anne. Coleman corresponded with this painting by doing what it does: linking things to each other through their similarities” This is nonsense language. Paintings don’t write letters. As a metaphor it is forced and awkward.
She also tends to get drunk on resemblances. For example she has a footnote, “through one of those uncanny coincidences that point to a profound ontological connection Freud’s daughter and Rilke’s mother had the same birth name [Sophia:].” I’m sorry; sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.

[Alex Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of book I would have ate up in college 20 years ago. Silverman discusses identity and sexuality/gender, family, race through mythology, critical theory, philosophy and mixed media (art, culture &c) in order to make her points. While she goes far into the stratosphere in terms of cultural exegesis the end result is inconclusive, of course, as a conclusion will satisfy one point of view and she means to definitively encompass all of them. What she offers is a tool box of approaches but with a false promise of a conclusion. In this sense, the book is far too conservative and ends up saying very little all the while she says a great deal with a medley of citations. As far as academic research goes, this is a great work. As far as a cultural reference, it is too obtuse for most audiences but provides a discerning reader with enough fodder to pick and choose what they want to focus on. For a book I would find this unsatisfactory because she is too conservative in her approach. She doesn't want to be wrong and takes very few chances. Silverman respects her sources too much to make them say something together. I don't mean she should lie, but she can provide her own overarching interpretation here, which she shies away from, preferring to let her sources speak for her. But because they are so far reaching and she has so many of them, she is unable to orchestrate them into one movement. Still, a somewhat interesting exploration, although in some sense, it is more of an academic exercise than one that people will take much from decades later.

[Olivia Ek · Rating 5 out of 5]

magnificent. the kind of art historical writing that feeds the soul!!!!

[Elizabeth]

I am guessing that this may have something to say on the how did we get here question.
not in WILI can be found in worldcat by the title not by the author