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A review by notmartin
Illuminations by Harry Zohn, Walter Benjamin
4.0
Exploring my Water Benjamin era. I didn't really understand the hype around Benjamin, but he appeared to be a melancholic figure, someone who glimpsed at the world from a very unique perspective, a lonely sight. And some of his essays I didn't care for too much, although they are probably of great interest if you're into German literature. But when Benjamin writes something good, it's supreme. These small fragments that pop out of nowhere, sometimes standing out like a sore thumb, they are just fantastic. The final fragment in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, where Benjamin skips from a study of film and the apparatus to, suddenly, Fascism as the aestheticisation of politics and Communism as the politicisation of aesthetics/art. He is taken over by brilliance and ends the essay on an explosive note. Similarly with the Angel of History, just great, powerful writing that retroactively changes how the rest of the essay is read.
The strongest essays are definitely his rethinking of translation hierarchies in "Task of The Translator"; his writings on crowds in "On Some Motifs In Baudelaire" (and his comparison with workers in a factory, brilliant); of course, the great inspiration for John Berger's *Ways of Seeing*: "The Work of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction", *especially* the final fragment on Fascism; and finally, "Theses on The Philosophy of History" and its iconic imagery of the angel of history.
The strongest essays are definitely his rethinking of translation hierarchies in "Task of The Translator"; his writings on crowds in "On Some Motifs In Baudelaire" (and his comparison with workers in a factory, brilliant); of course, the great inspiration for John Berger's *Ways of Seeing*: "The Work of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction", *especially* the final fragment on Fascism; and finally, "Theses on The Philosophy of History" and its iconic imagery of the angel of history.