Peeters derrida biography of mahatma
Derrida: A Biography
June 25, 2016
Exhaustive and sympathetic without being hagiographical
There is, of course, something deeply ironic, even paradoxical, about writing a biography of Derrida, reconstructing the man from the texts, fragments and traces of narrative written by Derrida himself, and the people who knew him - texts which always have a belated status. Peeters, who was himself a postgraduate working under Barthes, is fully aware of this poignant incongruity and tackles it upfront in his introduction.
What he offers us here is an exhaustive and sympathetic biography of Derrida, the man as well as the philosopher, thinker and writer. He is respectful of Derrida's wife and avoids any kind of intrusive voyeurism when it comes to Derrida's relationships with women, while acknowledging the importance of women - as friends, colleagues, fellow intellectuals as well as lovers - in Derrida's life.
The movements of this book are, primarily, intellectual ones, focusing on the development of Derrida's thought, from his early education (some of his first school reports are unintentionally comic - who knew that Derrida was quite so bad at Latin unseens as a schoolboy!) through his publishing and academic career, to his untimely death in 2004.
In some ways, a biography of Derrida also has to be a `biography' of left-wing French political and intellectual thought from the second world war into the 21st century, and Peeters is attentive to the role Derrida plays here - from his early experiences of Vichy anti-Semitism in Algeria, to his nuanced responses to September 11.
Above all, for someone who has only dipped into Derrida in terms of his impact on critical theory and literary studies, this conveys a strong sense of his personality: affectionate, loving, sometimes fragile, always striving, never content to just accept, and very alive.
Derrida isn't always well served by translators (not always their fault) or interpreters, and his own writings are, necessarily and self-consciously, difficult as he struggles to articulate a philosophy of writing. This biography has left me eager to go back to Derrida's own texts - a fine outcome and one of which Peeters should be proud.
There is, of course, something deeply ironic, even paradoxical, about writing a biography of Derrida, reconstructing the man from the texts, fragments and traces of narrative written by Derrida himself, and the people who knew him - texts which always have a belated status. Peeters, who was himself a postgraduate working under Barthes, is fully aware of this poignant incongruity and tackles it upfront in his introduction.
What he offers us here is an exhaustive and sympathetic biography of Derrida, the man as well as the philosopher, thinker and writer. He is respectful of Derrida's wife and avoids any kind of intrusive voyeurism when it comes to Derrida's relationships with women, while acknowledging the importance of women - as friends, colleagues, fellow intellectuals as well as lovers - in Derrida's life.
The movements of this book are, primarily, intellectual ones, focusing on the development of Derrida's thought, from his early education (some of his first school reports are unintentionally comic - who knew that Derrida was quite so bad at Latin unseens as a schoolboy!) through his publishing and academic career, to his untimely death in 2004.
In some ways, a biography of Derrida also has to be a `biography' of left-wing French political and intellectual thought from the second world war into the 21st century, and Peeters is attentive to the role Derrida plays here - from his early experiences of Vichy anti-Semitism in Algeria, to his nuanced responses to September 11.
Above all, for someone who has only dipped into Derrida in terms of his impact on critical theory and literary studies, this conveys a strong sense of his personality: affectionate, loving, sometimes fragile, always striving, never content to just accept, and very alive.
Derrida isn't always well served by translators (not always their fault) or interpreters, and his own writings are, necessarily and self-consciously, difficult as he struggles to articulate a philosophy of writing. This biography has left me eager to go back to Derrida's own texts - a fine outcome and one of which Peeters should be proud.