A review by fuhhlarzablur
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin

5.0

I've taken a long time to get around to reading this collection in full, having read a couple of the pieces (Work of Art, Philosophy of History) some years ago and snippets of others (Unpacking My Library, Kafka) more recently. Still others (The Storyteller, Proust) had long been on my list of subjects to investigate, thus more or less justifying a full read of the collection. I knew I enjoyed Benjamin's style, but what I didn't expect was that even the pieces on subjects in which I had little prior interest (Epic Theatre, Baudelaire) would turn out to be entirely riveting, and indeed to kindle in me a fierce fascination with those subjects. Throughout the pieces Benjamin moves across dense, even miserable subjects with due solemnity, but also with a humour so light as to make his touch feel weightless. It is evident how much of this effect is owed to Kafka, both from Benjamin's own comments on that author and from the close attention paid to their relationship in Arendt's introduction.

The introduction itself I left until last, undecided as to whether I would read it until the last page of the Theses on the Philosophy of History. It is the first work of Arendt's that I have bothered to read, but once again, a previously absent interest has been kindled, as I find she writes with equal authority and tenderness on the matters of literature, politics, biography, and history relevant to Benjamin's life and work.