Jacques Derrida

Routledge Critical Thinkers

by Nicholas Royle

There are few figures more important in literary and critical theory than Jacques Derrida. Whether lauded or condemned, his writing has had far-reaching ramifications, and his work on deconstruction cannot be ignored. This volume introduces students of literature and cultural studies to Derrida's enormously influential texts, covering such topics as: deconstruction, text and difference; literature and freedom; law, justice and the 'democracy to come'; drugs, secrets and gifts. Nicholas Royle's unique book, written in an innovative and original style, is an outstanding introduction to the methods and significance of Jacques Derrida.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Ebooks

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[فؤاد · Rating 1 out of 5]

دومين كتاب از مجموعه متفكران انتقادى راتلج، و افتضاح. هر چى كتاب فوكو روشنگر بود، اين پيچيده و گنگ و بدون خط سير مشخص بود. صد و بيست صفحه خوندم، بدون اين كه به قدر نصف صفحه مطلب دستگيرم شده باشه. مى خواستم حداقل تا پس فردا كه ميرم كتابخونه پسش بدم، بخونمش. ولى ديگه نكشيدم. نصفه رهاش كردم.

پس به كسايى كه مى خوان اين كتاب رو بخونن: نخونيد!

[Lazarus P Badpenny Esq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the Sun, Derrida may be looked at only indirectly.

[Arvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

این کتاب از مجموعه متفکران انتقادی ِ نشر مرکزه - که سردبیرش پیام یزدانجوه - ترجمه کتاب کار پویا ایمانیه که به نظر من یکی از بهترین مترجمای فلسفه‌س - چرا که خودش رشته‌ش فلسفه‌س
اما خود کتاب راجع به "دریدا" نوشته شده - فیلسوفی که کارش "دریدا" نبودنه - کسی که شالوده‌ی خودشو میشکنه در عین حالی که به خودش وفاداره - توسط یک "دریدا شناس"
چیزی که من فهمیدم از دریدا اینه که فیلسوف آخرالزمانیه به قول خودش - آخرالزمان به این معنا که زمانی زنده‌ها پس از مرگ که برای مرگ یا زندگی آماده میشن! فیلسوفی که دنبال در حضور دنبال چیزهایی که غایبه می‌گرده - هرچیزی تو متن به حاشیه رونده میشه رو به چشم ما میاره - فیلسوفی که شبح‌واره : در عین حالی که هست ، نیست - توی هستی دنبال نیستی میگرده توی نیستی دنبال هستی ! لرزه ایجاد میکنه تو همه‌ی ساختارها - در عین اینکه ساختارها رو میشکنه به اونها هم وفاداره - فیلسوفِ "راز" و "تفاوط" و "شالوده شکنی " و "زبان" و "ادبیات" و "سیاست"
فیلسوفی که با حوصله میشینه شعر و رمان و ادبیات و سینما و هرچیز دیگه‌ای رو مطالعه میکنه و شالوده‌شکنیشون میکنه در عین حالی که ستایششون میکنه بهشون میخنده ! فیلسوفی که رد ِ همه‌چیزو میگیره - نه فیلسوف تحلیلیه نه فیلسوف قاره‌ای در عین حال هردوهم هست !
کتاب هم به سبک نوشتار دریدایی نوشته‌ شده یعنی برای شما ایده‌های دریدا رو به صورت خلاصه توضیح نمیده بلکه در هر فصل ایده‌ی دریدا و دریدا رو به صورت عملی حاضر میکنه جلوتون در حالی که دریدا و ایده‌ش غایبه.
کتابهای زیادی از دریدا ترجمه نشدن به خاطر ااینکه زبان ساده‌ای نداره فقط مقدمه کتاب مهمش "از گراماتولوژی" تو ایران از انتشارات رخداد نو ترجمه شده و گویا مترجم ِ فیلسوف ِ دیگه‌ای به اسم "شاهین کوهساری" مشغول ترجمه‌ی کل کتابه.
خوندن این کتاب تجربه‌ی متفاوتی برای من بود - تجربه‌ی متفاوتی از ادبیات و فلسفه - مرز این دو گم شد مثل کار خود دریدا

[Michael Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book with the (naive) intention of finding an accessible introduction to Derrida's works, and a comparative analysis of structuralism and post-structuralism. I left the book without either. Thus, I have the dejected feeling that I was reading plays upon plays ... upon plays on words; I am not arguing this is not a good explanation of Derrida's work, just that it's not for me and certainly not what I expect from a book in the Routledge Critical Thinkers series.

[Prithvi Shams · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up this book hoping to make sense of Jacques Derrida. I put it down wondering if there really was anything to make sense of in his extensive corpus of word salad and running around in semantic circles.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic introduction to Derrida's thought. Royle doesn't spoon-feed you the "main ideas" in Derrida's works. Instead, he leads the reader in thinking through Derrida's ideas. It's conversational, with lots of questions. Royle encourages the reader to slow down, to become comfortable pondering the spaces where ambiguity exists. In doing so, he illuminates Derrida's methods of thinking.
For some people, that might be unsatisfying. Although, I don't think it should be. Anyone even minimally familiar with Derrida's work should realize that the whole project of identifying "main ideas" or offering a definitive, introductory account of "Derrida" is incompatible with his work. Royle explains this in the intro, and in this explanation, he gets at the style of Derrida's thinking.

[Tanmay Tathagat · Rating 4 out of 5]

An appropriately mind-bogging introduction to Derrida's thought that would irritate and infuriate a majority of its readers, but would be have it any other way? How can we possibly have a straightforward boilerplate listing of "key ideas" for somebody as revolutionary as Derrida? It is an invigorating text, which makes for an exceptional reading experience. It is a book one should return to again and again, preferably with a notebook and a pen, because there's just no damn way you got everything the first time. But quite definitely, this is simply not the book you should be reading if you have your paper on Deconstruction or Post-Structuralism the next morning, and in this, it is very different from a lot of the books in this series.

[Sahand · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could it be any worse? There is absolutely nothing about Derrida's philosophy in this mumbo jumbo of nothingness. The writer keeps telling you how great Derrida is, but never even tries to explain why.
This series has books of different values; the one on Barthes is one of the best.

[Mrityunjay Mrityunjay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Derrida explained, in 200 pages, in a derridean way = overdose. As much I liked this reading, I like reading Derrida slow and steady.

[Michael A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent introduction to Derrida from a literary studies standpoint (as opposed to philosophical). Special attention is paid to the concepts of supplementarity, the text, the secret, and the gift.

[Francisca · Rating 4 out of 5]

i may need a couple of days of sorting through my notes and the work of my highlighter before i can begin explaining what this whole book was about. all i can say right now is that i do feel like i've learned something--even more so considering i knew next to nothing about derrida's work or ideas. still, i can't help feeling relieved as well that my dissertation supervisor did not recommend me deconstructionism for my theoretical framework.

[Jay Rothermel · Rating 3 out of 5]

To read Nicholas Royle’s Jacques Derrida (2003) is to experience a certain seismic shift, a trembling of the foundations of what we thought an ‘introduction’ could be. It is not a map of a territory already conquered, but a series of provocations, a set of openings, a come.

I find myself writing this review in the shadow of Royle’s own peculiar, playful, and deeply responsible style. How does one introduce Derrida without immediately betraying him? Most introductory guides attempt to ‘settle’ the ghost, to pin deconstruction down like a dead butterfly under glass. They give us the ‘key ideas’ as if they were solid objects we could put in our pockets. But Royle knows better. He knows that to speak of Derrida is always to speak with him, or perhaps to be spoken by him.

What Royle has achieved here is a work of ‘faithful betrayal.’ He does not simply summarize; he performs. He takes the ‘invisible quotation marks’ that Derrida found everywhere and makes them audible. Whether he is discussing the ‘monstrosity’ of the future, the ‘poematic’ heart, or the strange logic of the ‘supplement,’ Royle writes with a verve that mirrors the very inventiveness he seeks to describe. He understands that deconstruction is not a ‘method’ or a ‘tool-kit’ but an event—an earthquake that is happening even as we speak.

I am particularly struck by the way Royle handles the ‘secret.’ In a world that demands total transparency, Royle (following Derrida) reminds us that the secret is essential to democracy, to literature, and to life itself. He doesn’t try to ‘reveal’ Derrida’s secret; he guards it. He allows the text to remain ‘unread’ in that productive sense where a book continues to live on, to survive, precisely because it cannot be exhausted by a single reading.

The structure of the book—with its ‘Poetry Break’ and its attention to things like ‘telephony’ and ‘animals’—is a joy. It suggests that thinking Derrida is not just for the seminar room, but for the street, the forest, and the telephone line. Royle’s prose is infectious; it has a ‘ghostly’ quality, moving with a speed and a lightness that never sacrifices the ‘absolute urgency’ of the decision.

If you are looking for a dry, encyclopedic entry, look elsewhere. But if you want to be ‘transformed’ by a reading, if you want to feel the ‘fission’ of a sentence, then this is the book. Royle shows us that Derrida is not a philosopher of ‘nothingness’ or ‘relativism,’ but a thinker of the ‘yes’—an affirmation of the other, of the arrivant, of the democracy to come. It is a brilliant, funny, and deeply moving work. It is, quite simply, the most interesting thing in the world. I cannot recommend it enough. Come and read it.

* * *

Outline:

1. Why Derrida?
* Invisible Quotation Marks: Derrida encourages alertness to "invisible quotation marks" even within words, destabilizing traditional meanings.
* The Instability of Names: A name is not "one's own"; to love a name is to love something that is not yours.
* Human/Animal Distinction: Derrida troubles the line between human and animal, suggesting thinking begins when the animal "looks at us" and we are naked before it.
* Machine and Death: Writing and memory require mechanical repetition; the "machine" is inextricably linked to death.
* Messianism without Religion: Derrida explores a form of messianism that blocks relationship to theology.
* Urgency of Decision: Though we must "slow down," decisions often require "absolute urgency".
* The Undecidable: Every decision is caught in the "ghost" of the undecidable; it cannot be purely calculated.
* Heterogeneity of Knowledge: The moment of decision is "heterogeneous to knowing"—a moment of "non-knowledge".
* Living On: "Living" is not a self-identical concept; it is essentially "different-from-itself"—a "ghost's life".
* The Name as Death: A proper name is, a priori, a "dead man's name," a name of death.

2. Key Ideas
* Shattering the "Key Idea": Derrida’s work interrogates the very logic of having a single "key idea".
* Chain of Substitutions: Concepts like "trace" or "text" are not atoms; they are part of an open chain of non-synonymous substitutions.
* The Box/Frame (Parergon): The border or frame (parergon) is both beside the work and part of the work.
* Decentring: Deconstruction is a decentring of the human subject, institutions, and the logos.
* Loss of the Centre: The centre is the "absence of play" and is another name for death.
* Open Contexts: Meaning depends on contexts that are "always open" and "non-saturable".
* Authorial Blindness: Authors often say "more, less, or something other" than what they intend.
* Non-Atomic Terms: Terms are internally divided and divide other things.
* Divisible Borders: Borders (national, institutional, or textual) are strangely problematic and always divisible.
* Structure without Centre: A structure lacking any centre represents the "unthinkable itself".

3. Deconstruction: The Earthquake
* Describe and Transform: Deconstruction does not just describe a text; it transforms the way we think about it.
* The Constative vs. Performative: Distinguishes between statements of fact (constative) and utterances that do something (performative).
* Precise and Faithful Reading: Derrida is a scrupulous reader who explicates "difficult" texts rather than simplifying them.
* No "Univocal Definition": Deconstruction cannot be defined as a single tool or "ism".
* Seismic Attentiveness: Deconstruction involves a seismological focus on the tiniest details.
* Fission of Statements: Even a simple statement is subject to "fission" or internal division.
* No "Pure" Performative: A performative (like a promise) must be able to fail; failure is an essential condition.
* The Comical Aspect: Every promise has a "comical" aspect due to the structural possibility of its perversion.
* The "Non-Serious": Derrida focuses on what tradition excludes as "non-serious" (fiction, poetry, jokes).
* The Perverformative: Performatives are "spooky" and perverse, haunted by the unthinkable.

4. Be Free
* The Double Bind of Freedom: The order "Be Free" is an imperative you cannot obey without sacrificing freedom.
* Responsible Anarchy: Commitment to a "leaderless" questioning of responsibility.
* Democracy to Come: Democracy is not a fixed state but an "endless promise".
* Double Gesture: Simultaneously practicing emancipation (revolt) and scrupulous fidelity (respect for tradition).
* Reinventing Play: Play is not just "ludic"; it is the "spacing" between parts that allows for movement.
* New Enlightenment: A desire for vigilance and clarity that demystifies apocalyptic discourse.
* Enigmatic Presence: Making "enigmatic" what we think we understand as "proximity" or "immediacy".
* Faith in Language: We cannot lie without a foundational "faith" in the structure of language.
* The "Come": The word "come" marks neither a desire nor an order; it precedes and calls the event.
* The Experience of the Impossible: Deconstruction is a "coming-to-terms" with literature as an experience of the impossible.

5. Supplement
* Dangerous Supplement: The supplement is added to enrich, but it also fills a void, implying the "original" was incomplete.
* Inside/Outside Duplicity: The supplement belongs without belonging; it is "maddeningly" neither presence nor absence.
* Conceptual Transformation: Breakthroughs occur when we "deform" accredited relationships between words and concepts.
* Supplement at the Source: There is no "pure" origin; the supplement is present even at the source.
* Supply/Substitute Logic: Education and writing are systems of "suppléance" (substitution) for "Nature".
* Auto-Affection: The desire to affect oneself (e.g., masturbation or hearing oneself speak) reveals an "imaginary" origin.
* Regime of Normal Hallucination: Hearing oneself is the most "normal" and yet "impossible" experience.
* Translation as Requirement: An "original" text is marked by the requirement to be translated; translation modifies the original.
* Radical Metalinguistics: Metadiscourse is both necessary and impossible; it is a "parasitism".
* Disorder of Identity: Personal identity is an "interminable phantasmatic process of identification" rather than a given.

6. Text
* No Outside-Text: "There is nothing outside the text"—meaning there is no reference that is not caught in a differential network.
* Protest Against Linguistics: Deconstruction is a protest against the "authority of linguistics" and logocentrism.
* Prelinguistic Mark: The "mark" is prelinguistic and not exclusively human; animals use marks (e.g., territorial urine).
* Survival (Living On): The structure of the "original text" is its ability to survive the death of the author.
* Differential Network: A text is a "fabric of traces" referring endlessly to something other than itself.
* Non-Saturable Context: Context overruns all limits and cannot be fully "saturated".
* Iterability: The structure that ties repetition to "alterity" (otherness); a mark must be repeatable to function.
* Absence of the Sender: For writing to be writing, it must remain readable even if the author "no longer answers".
* The Plenitude is Death: Pure presence or plenitude would be the end of movement, effectively death.
* The Re-Mark: Every mark contains a "prior" inscription that allows it to break with its original context.

7. Differance
* Homophone/Silent "A": In French, the difference between "difference" and "differance" cannot be heard.
* Differing and Deferring: The term brings together the concepts of spatial differing and temporal deferring.
* Neither Word nor Concept: Differance is "not a name" but the "play" that makes naming possible.
* Tracing the Other: Every "present" element contains marks of past and future elements.
* Inconceivable to Consciousness: Differance cannot be thought of from the starting point of self-presence.
* Blocking Theology: Differance prevents the name from being used as a unitary, "God-like" structure.
* Shopping List Logic: A shopping list is only a list if it implies the author's absence or "absence of memory".
* Sender is not Receiver: The person who writes a note is not the "same" person as the one who reads it later.
* The Break intervenes: The "break" from the context of production happens the moment a mark is made.
* No Taxonomical Closure: The chain of substitutions (trace, text, supplement) has no final "master-term".

8. The Most Interesting Thing in the World
* Literature as Founding Excess: Literature is a "foreign body" already inside law and institutions.
* Right to Say Everything: Modern literature is linked to the democratic authorization to speak without censure.
* Globalatinization: The concept of "literature" is a Latinized invention tied to global Western politics.
* Reflexivity without Depth: Literary reflexivity is often a "suspended relation" to meaning, like an "abyss".
* Aporia (Non-Road): Aporia is an absolute blockage or "no way" that must be non-passively endured.
* Law as Fantastic: Law is "mad" and "essential inaccessible"; it resembles a fictional narrative.
* Event without Event: Freud's "crime" at the origin of law is a "quasi-event" that resembles a fiction.
* Singularity of the Law: The door of the law is "for you alone," yet you can never enter.
* Deconstructible Law vs. Undeconstructible Justice: Law can be deconstructed; justice is the "experience of the impossible" and cannot be.
* Being-Two-to-Speak: The "secret of literature" is the bare device of an author/narrator doubling.

9. Monsters
* Prospective Character: Most writers modify their views over time, but Derrida’s work seems "sewn up from the start".
* interminable Growth: Deconstruction is an outgrowth that "infects and contaminates" other discourses.
* The Absolute Beginner: Every act of writing or teaching requires starting "all over again" with dismay.
* Future as Monstrosity: The future must be "monstrous" because it breaks with constituted normality.
* Theoretical Monsters: We should be interested in "monstrosities" in theory that outdate classifications.
* The Arrivant: The one who arrives must be "absolute" and "nameless," calling the "home" into question.
* Absolute Hospitality: Saying "yes" to the future that cannot be anticipated.
* Domestication: Culture is the movement of trying to "tame" and appropriate the monstrous arrivant.
* The Time of the Monster: Monstrosity can only be recognized "afterwards" when it has become a norm.
* Every Other is Completely Other: Responsibility binds us to the other as an absolute, "monstrous" difference.

10. Secret Life
* Proper Name as Aleatory: The proper name has no inherent meaning but is "affected" by language.
* Behind the Curtains (JD/DJ): Derrida plays with his initials to stage the disappearing act of the author.
* Idiomatic Writing: The "dream" of writing that would be uniquely one's own, yet is always already for the other.
* Secret Heterogeneous to the Hidden: A secret is not something "to be revealed"; it is the "absolute" of death/life.
* Sharing what is Not Shared: We know in common that we have "nothing in common".
* Autobiography as the Locus of Secret: Writing one's life is about engaging with the "impossible" and "unreadability".
* Taste for the Secret: Secrets are essential for democracy to avoid "totalitarian space".
* Heterothanatographical: Writing life is simultaneously writing death (life death).
* Counterfeit Money: Literature involves a "gift without exchange" that disrupts economic logic.
* Unsignable Poem: A poem is something "one never signs," appearing only in "flashes of madness".

11. Poetry Break
* Poem as "Eat Me": The poematic text says "Eat, drink, swallow my letter," acting as a "foreign body".
* Demon of the Heart: The poetic is that which you desire to learn "by heart" from the other.
* Learn by Rote vs. Heart: Learning by heart is always haunted by the "deadly machine-like" learning by rote.
* The "Dictation" of Poetry: The poem is a dictation you must "copy down" and guard.
* Amnesia and Celebration: To celebrate a poem is to commemorate the "amnesia" and "madness" of its unicity.
* Unreadability: Great poetry remains "unread" because it constantly produces new effects.
* Drugs and Poetry: Literature is a "drug" that can either cure or poison the reader.
* The Poem as Gift: A poem is a "gift" that does not expect anything in return.
* Setting Fire to the Library: The unicity of the poem requires breaking with all "poetics".
* Dictation by Heart: The poematic "invents the heart" as it is taken in.

12. After Derrida
* The "After" as divided: "After" can mean later than, in search of, or in the manner of.
* Structuring Absence: Derrida can influence fields (like film theory) even by being a "structuring absence".
* Ghostly Impact: Deconstruction’s impact is "spooky" and "weightless," going "bump in the day".
* Disavowal of Analytical Philosophy: Anglo-American philosophy often "makes-believe" Derrida is not there.
* Work of Mourning: All writing is essentially a work of mourning; the name itself carries death.
* The Dead are Not Departed: The departed "do things" and continue to act through their texts.
* Intervention of Deconstruction: Deconstruction is "at war" with प्रभावी inequality and monstrous brutality.
* Don't Count Me In: Derrida’s affirmation of "non-belonging" to any clique or group.
* Fidelity through Betrayal: One honors a thinker by "supplementing and altering" their work, not just parroting it.
* The Adventure of the Other: Deconstruction allows for the "event of the entirely other" to come.


Jay
17 February 2026

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Jacques Derrida' by Nicholas Royle is a book in the Routledge Critical Thinkers series which has set rules of presentation. First the book must open with a 'Why thinker?', then the thinker's key ideas are explained, and then the book ends with an 'after thinker'. Royle plays with this style, by first deconstructing the ideas of the series which then opens up the text to a vast number of interpretations. For example, the question of 'why Derrida?' can be considered in many ways, the most immediate response would be 'why should we read Derrida?' but contained within the first question are ideas such as 'why does Derrida exist?' and 'why should there be such a thing as Derrida?', the question is then ontological and the context changes.

This unique presentation of Derrida's ideas remains 'authentic' to Derrida's theories, particularly around deconstruction, and therefore could be seen in some ways as a post-deconstructive introduction to the deconstructive thinker. Which, ironically, I am not doing now as I am referring to 'Derrida' as a unified, singular thing, and referring to deconstruction as inherently 'Derridean, or as Derrida's'.

While this text is intended to be an introduction, a survey, and in some areas a rough ouline of Derrida it still remains 'Derridean' in style. So, when compared to other books which have a similar intention, such as Penelope Deutscher's 'How to Read Derrida' this book not only gives a more complete survey of Derrida's ideas but it also invites the reader to read a pseudo-Derridean text.

Afterword: For a book with a section titled 'after Derrida' there is an eerie presence of Derrida within the book (besides the inclusion of his writings in the text), in the format of a review at the beginning: 'Excellent, strong, clear and original'.

[A.N. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exhilarating book, generously affording insightful etymologies of words in question along with a recourse to far-fetched yet accessible literary examples, Royle's stands among the best sources ever written on this phenomenon called Derrida. In the course of this book, Royle's style, as is the case in many of his other works as well, remains original, far from overwhelmed by the weight of the compelling arguments it puts forward, playing instead playfully on Derrida's (non-)linguistic plays. In his uncanny style, Royle nears what he once quotes in his book as the status of "abolish[ing] the distance between what he is writing about and what his writing is doing." Highly recommended!

[Mohsen panahi · Rating 4 out of 5]

سال قبل این کتاب را تهیه کردم اما تنها 80یا 90 صفحه مطالعه کرده بودم که کتاب را بستم. مفاهیم در مقابلم مقاومت میکردند. شاید هم بی حوصله تر از الان بودم. در هر حال کمتر میفهمیدم.
یک ماه قبل دوباره کتاب را گشودم و خواندم. همزمان، مقاله ی نیرو و معنا را از کتاب نوشتار و تفاوت دریدا مطالعه کردم. سعی کردم عجول نباشم. با صبر و حوصله بعضی از فصل ها را دوباره و سه باره خواندم. اولین چیزی که از دریدا میتوان آموخت همین است:عجول نباشید. این دفعه که تا صفحه آخر خوانده ام، نمیتوانم کتاب را ببندم. فکر میکنم طی چند ماه آینده دوباره و دوباره به کتاب مراجعه کنم.

[Myrthel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've come to appreciate this series, these compact little books are a great way to introduce you to the main ideas of a modern thinker before you go on to explore their theories and writings. With Derrida I needed this help more than usual because although the french philosopher writes beautifully the content of his work is often mind boggling and confuses the hell out of me.

[Hossein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but there are better companions to Derrida which are thicker, but more informative and easier to understand. You should know that Derrida is difficult. You must read one of these companions in order to understand him. This one is good.

[Bisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very dense, very exciting, did I mentioned very dense?

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Derrida's writing is hard work. Royle notes in his chapter of Differance that "no one is pretending that […] any of Derrida's other works – is a piece of cake. At any event, if Derrida is a piece of cake – and I would not wish to press the richness of this analogy too far – we should bear in mind what Friedrich Engels said of Hegel: 'The fellow demands time to be digested'."

That makes me feel better; however, I still have a mental-stomach-ache even after reading through Royle's explanations. 'There's a difference between drowning and waving' as the old saying goes. It brings to mind Clifford Geertz's words "the difference, however un-photographable, between a twitch and a wink is vast … the winker is communicating … a mere twitch... carries no meaning." I can't shake the uncomfortable feeling that everyone who reads Derrida is winking and I'm sitting well outside the in-joke.

Nonetheless, I do feel better informed having read this book by Royle. It has helped me start to 'digest' several ideas that seem to be central to Derrida's writing – including that there is no 'central' anything. Several terms which Derrida uses frequently are covered, including Decentralisation; the notion that whilst we can discuss the centre of a circle, once there, there is nothing – but none the less that 'nothing' can be transformed. Deconstruction; the idea relates not so much to pulling things apart, but that ideas and meaning can (do) defy structures and rules, and therefore any sense can spring from anything at any time (akin to Barthes' "halo of virtualities"). Differance; the notions of differing and deferring combined. Paraegon; the deframing of truth and of information (Royles gives the example of placing text in the book in a grey box, thereby illustrating an applied frame to what one person says is essential). And so on and so on, creating a veritable dictionary of neologisms manifested by Derrida's busy brain.

So overloaded with ideas is Derrida, that even those recorded as 'asides' trigger ramifications for my research. For example, his approach to 'speech' marks and parenthesis (Latin for 'put in beside') which, in his hands, can be transgressive in their attempt to (subliminally) remove the stated 'thing' from 'reality' and 'truth.' For me, it explains why readers remain divided by Derrida's deliberately 'discursive' (non)sense.

A curious idea liberates the written language from being 'bookish' with the redefinition of 'text,' or as Derrida prefers to call it making your 'mark.' Once you relinquish the Western-alphabetic notion of text, you can see that all animals, including humans, are driven to make their mark. Consider, for example, an animal's territorial scent, a handprint on a cave wall or an ink-blotch on parchment made by an illiterate. These marks, he notes, are neither rhetorical nor anthropological, they are "pre-linguistic," associated with 'non-knowledge' and as such, "the mark has no need for language." Significantly, all of these textual marks are designed as Derrida says, to survive the death of their author or signatory. We might say, therefore, that these textual marks aim at being eternal. Once acknowledged, texts can 'live on' and are never a 'finished product' but "a fabric of traces referring endlessly to something other than itself."

Perhaps my favourite Derrida notion is the one of 'hauntology' to replace ontology. 'Ontos' is Greek for being, and Derrida argues that absence is as relevant as the presence or being. As such, there is a meaning which, like a ghost haunts our thoughts, and although such meaning is ephemeral and insubstantial, it none the less, leaves a trace and can initiate transformation.

Although I do feel transformed with new insight, I still can't shake the feeling, perhaps due to what Royle call's Derrida's "funny-uncanny" tone, that even now, Derrida is winking at me. All I can offer in response is an involuntary facial glitch. Regardless, nice try Royle; it's 'me' not 'you.'

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of a series subtitled "essential guides for literary studies", as I didn't notice till I'd finished it. I'm not especially a literary studies kind of guy, but very much a JD fan, and always in the market for a new introductory-level presentation. I've been reading Derrida (and around him) forever, although with a marked preference for certain bits of the oeuvre over others; in any case I'm fairly familiar with the basics. I'm not sure how helpful this would be for its intended readership (Royle spends a fair bit of the book going on about how at odds Derrida's whole endeavour is with the very idea of things like "essential guides" and "key ideas", and I think establishes that point at least quite thoroughly). For me reading the text was like surfing around familiarish waters, and the book was most useful for its numerous pointers to other texts likely to be interesting for me; in that respect it is excellent.

[Simon Barraclough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easily the best of all the short guides to Derrida that I’ve read: funny, digressive, comprehensive, surprising, moving and open-minded. If it doesn’t gather in all of Derrida’s nets, it lets you know how many oceans they contaminate.

[db67671321 · Rating 3 out of 5]

a lighthearted reading of Derrida's works, and itself an effigy of Derrida

[Henrique Valle]

:D