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guadaloop 's review for:
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections
by Walter Benjamin
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.