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4.24 AVERAGE
4.24 AVERAGE
Brillante. Con Benjamin me pasa como con Gramcsi, a más que leo de ellos más brutales e iluminados (jeje) que me parecen. Sus textos sobre Kafka son de lo mejor que ha pasado por mis manitas hasta el momento, también me han encantado los de poesía y obviamente sobre el concepto de historia. Pensando en leerlo en alemán porque escribe potentísimo este señor.
Enamorado
10/10
Enamorado
10/10
Read bits and pieces for an architecture theory class. Loved it.
challenging
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Walter Benjamin was such a romantic writer!!! This man’s words are so beautiful, even in translation??? You can read this like a novel or a series of essays that are intended to be connected (it even does the thing where the title drops in the essay “Images of Proust” and you’re like YEAAAA TITLE DROP) even though this was curated posthumously by Hannah Arendt, who clearly knew what she was doing (and also lowkey dragged Benjamin’s ass (lovingly) in her intro…)
A lot of Benjamin’s work is ostensibly about art and forms but also makes a lot of points about the nature of experience in modern life and how / in what ways certain forms can enhance or reflect or make visible those conditions of modernity. Like memory and experience itself (the proximity and standardization of it!) These essays are variations on a theme** that should be read together and have a lot of common threads that still feel insightful when applied to different artistic modes and settings.
One of those rare essay collections (posthumous too) that’s actually helpful to read in order to see the commonalities and shared terms on which Benjamin talks (memory-related foundation pieces are clustered together earlier on, the devaluation of experience carries through in every later discussion of “experience,” “shock” associated with urbanity links to “shock” of a motion picture from one essay to another, etc. >> and all of this leads so perfectly into the discussion of memory and Proust, historical memory, what happens to memory and experience within the proliferation of images through mechanical reproduction, the emphasis on speed + duplication, etc.)
It’d be great to analyze them as branches of a tree/river that extend through this collection…alas I have read in fragments and fits and starts, so it’s hard to collect my thoughts in a braided river this way… :( But I should really go through each of these essays and write a handful of thoughts on each before I forget.
4.75 for honest and moving writing that's theoretically rich even though Benjamin does pull things out of his ass (as all theorists of that time did, but him especially) and for Arendt's phenomenal intro, which gets about as honest as you can get re: contextualizing a person.
4.75 for honest and moving writing that's theoretically rich even though Benjamin does pull things out of his ass (as all theorists of that time did, but him especially) and for Arendt's phenomenal intro, which gets about as honest as you can get re: contextualizing a person.
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
La crítica más mística, la mirada más profética.
Pretty sure half of it went over my head but the parts of it that made sense were GREAT. Also left with the impression that WB was insufferable as a person lol
I decided to read this English translation collection because I keep coming across references to the [a:Hannah Arendt|12806|Hannah Arendt|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1608634661p2/12806.jpg] introduction, and she also edited this. Her 50 page intro was a good read. I really do need to read the original German versions of Walter Benjamin's greatest hits though, because every time I re-read a Benjamin essay, I think, that's not how I remember it. Well, "Unpacking my library" was more or less how I remembered, but "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" seemed very different. Is it my memory, or the work Arendt did as editor, or the translation?
All of the essays give a lot of captial-T Thoughts to mull over but this time around I was especially into the essays on [a:Franz Kafka|5223|Franz Kafka|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615573688p2/5223.jpg] and the "Theses on the Philosophy of History." Of course anything reflecting on the rise of fascism takes on extra weight in this age of trumps, putins, orbans, netanyahus etceteras. But offering reasons why we (especially the so-called Left) haven't learned from history or why we're so surprised are especially welcome. I was so into the "Theses" I was thinking, I should copy these out by hand. Well, maybe I'll just read some other peoples' takes on them instead.
There is a thing in this book from [a:Charles Baudelaire|13847|Charles Baudelaire|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1652257436p2/13847.jpg], I don't remember if it was in the Baudelaire essay or the [a:Marcel Proust|233619|Marcel Proust|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1649882562p2/233619.jpg] essay, but it was about a gambler choosing Hell instead of Nothingness. This really spoke to me, and I don't remember it from [b:Les Fleurs du Mal|203220|Les Fleurs du Mal|Charles Baudelaire|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388667125l/203220._SY75_.jpg|2089235], but this time... wow. All the opioid overdoses, the gun deaths, up to including all the genocides and wars are because some people look at their nothing, routine lives and are ready to go to hell to escape nothingness, instead of recognizing their connection to everything else, instead of seeing poetry to put it one way in the everyday. Please, let's stop choosing hell.
All of the essays give a lot of captial-T Thoughts to mull over but this time around I was especially into the essays on [a:Franz Kafka|5223|Franz Kafka|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615573688p2/5223.jpg] and the "Theses on the Philosophy of History." Of course anything reflecting on the rise of fascism takes on extra weight in this age of trumps, putins, orbans, netanyahus etceteras. But offering reasons why we (especially the so-called Left) haven't learned from history or why we're so surprised are especially welcome. I was so into the "Theses" I was thinking, I should copy these out by hand. Well, maybe I'll just read some other peoples' takes on them instead.
There is a thing in this book from [a:Charles Baudelaire|13847|Charles Baudelaire|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1652257436p2/13847.jpg], I don't remember if it was in the Baudelaire essay or the [a:Marcel Proust|233619|Marcel Proust|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1649882562p2/233619.jpg] essay, but it was about a gambler choosing Hell instead of Nothingness. This really spoke to me, and I don't remember it from [b:Les Fleurs du Mal|203220|Les Fleurs du Mal|Charles Baudelaire|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388667125l/203220._SY75_.jpg|2089235], but this time... wow. All the opioid overdoses, the gun deaths, up to including all the genocides and wars are because some people look at their nothing, routine lives and are ready to go to hell to escape nothingness, instead of recognizing their connection to everything else, instead of seeing poetry to put it one way in the everyday. Please, let's stop choosing hell.
Fascinating; the most pertinent essay to me, and I think it retains extraordinary relevance today as well, was "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." The ideas it puts forth about film and generally, on the meaning and purpose of art itself, lent themselves well to other things he said about the masses in his discussion of Baudelaire in "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire." He also got me to rethink Poe's short story "The Man of the Crowd" as he mentions it in that essay as well; there's so much to think about regarding the perception of civilization and subsequent alienation.
It was a great idea to open the collection with his reflections on being a book collector, "Unpacking My Library." It primed the reader for a real struggle, honestly, because Benjamin can be a tad esoteric at times.
I honestly wish he went deeper in his two essays on Kafka because I found them that interesting, and some of the vagueness had me wanting more.
I have never read Leskov, nor had I heard of him until this essay collection, but his essay on storytelling and its decline also got me to think about engagement with the written word, and the value placed on oral tradition and its dissemination.
Poor Proust, though, Benjamin essentially called him a sad strange little man, though not without affection most likely... so now I have to read In Search of Lost Time.
My final verdict is that I have to read more of Benjamin's work. Some of his writing is definitely more accessible in certain passages, while in others I truly have to reach to slightly grasp what he's trying to say, giving reason to reread.
It was a great idea to open the collection with his reflections on being a book collector, "Unpacking My Library." It primed the reader for a real struggle, honestly, because Benjamin can be a tad esoteric at times.
I honestly wish he went deeper in his two essays on Kafka because I found them that interesting, and some of the vagueness had me wanting more.
I have never read Leskov, nor had I heard of him until this essay collection, but his essay on storytelling and its decline also got me to think about engagement with the written word, and the value placed on oral tradition and its dissemination.
Poor Proust, though, Benjamin essentially called him a sad strange little man, though not without affection most likely... so now I have to read In Search of Lost Time.
My final verdict is that I have to read more of Benjamin's work. Some of his writing is definitely more accessible in certain passages, while in others I truly have to reach to slightly grasp what he's trying to say, giving reason to reread.
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
So good! The angel of history faces backwards! One time I stole this book from my friend's bookshelf because I felt I needed to have it. (The only time I ever stole anything.) Then she stole it back from my shelf when I wasn't looking. Now I can afford to buy my own copy! Vague memories (probably mis-remembered) of some of these essays inform my work now. I feel a personal love for Walter Benjamin, like I'd like to give him a hug in heaven.
There is nothing like Benjamin. Perhaps one of the most citeable media critics of the 20th century, Benjamin's collection of essays explores the works of great names like Kafka, Proust, and Baudelaire (among many). His essay on the role of art in the age of mechanical reproduction is also a masterpiece. His original thoughts continue to resonate into the 21st century and I strongly believe anyone who studies literature or film is missing out should they choose to not read this classic collection.