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A review by colin_cox
The Storyteller: Tales Out of Loneliness by Walter Benjamin
3.0
Weaving together a collection of disparate stories, essays, and reviews of a writer or thinker without his or her expressed consent is a tricky operation. If successful, the collection clarifies a set of ideas and concepts relevant to the writer in question that would otherwise remain opaque or invisible. In addition, such collections may open new territories of inquiry about the author in question. Although, if such a project fails, the writer becomes increasingly distant, drifting beyond our comprehension and confirming our worst impulses which the following sentiment approximates: I simply won't get them!
There is, however, another category, and that category represents my reaction to The Storyteller: Tales of Loneliness by Walter Benjamin. Here's the thing: I like Benjamin, I have studied Benjamin, but I would not under any circumstances characterize myself as comfortably familiar with the scope of his profoundly mesmerizing body of work. I am a Benjamin tourist, therefore, The Storyteller: Tales of Loneliness leaves me befuddled but not discouraged. I concurrently want to read this collection again while also reading more of Benjamin's critical work. I want to understand how his fiction informs and illuminates his nonfiction.
So, to some degree, after reading The Storyteller: Tales of Loneliness I don't comprehend more about Benjamin than I did before, but that doesn't mean I'm rolling my eyes. If anything, my eyes are focused, steady, and longing to hover over a copy of Arcades Project.
There is, however, another category, and that category represents my reaction to The Storyteller: Tales of Loneliness by Walter Benjamin. Here's the thing: I like Benjamin, I have studied Benjamin, but I would not under any circumstances characterize myself as comfortably familiar with the scope of his profoundly mesmerizing body of work. I am a Benjamin tourist, therefore, The Storyteller: Tales of Loneliness leaves me befuddled but not discouraged. I concurrently want to read this collection again while also reading more of Benjamin's critical work. I want to understand how his fiction informs and illuminates his nonfiction.
So, to some degree, after reading The Storyteller: Tales of Loneliness I don't comprehend more about Benjamin than I did before, but that doesn't mean I'm rolling my eyes. If anything, my eyes are focused, steady, and longing to hover over a copy of Arcades Project.