An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida

Description

Who was Jacques Derrida, and why does he have such a towering, and foreboding reputation across modern philosophy? For some he is the source of the crisis of alternative facts. For far right terrorist Anders Brievik, 'Derridian deconstruction' was the cause for the end of truth. In 1992, 18 philosophers wrote an open letter to the Times to complain when he was awarded an honorary degree by Cambridge University. For others, he is a film star thinker who covered every possible subject from literature, politics, and language. Born in Algiers, the young Jackie, named after a character in a Chaplin movie, only to change to Jacques once he moved to Paris, was always an outsider. Here, despite an obvious genius, he found it difficult to find himself. However, in 1967, he changed the whole course of philosophy in one go: with the development of the ideas of deconstruction. Immediately, his reputation as a complex and confounding thinker was established. Feted by some, abhorred by others, Derrida's influence across late 20th century thought is unquestionable. And here Peter Salmon introduces the key concepts, showing that, despite the impression of being eclectic, Derrida was a writer who spent his life on a series of interlinked themes: ethics, friendship, language. Accessible, provocative and beautifully written, An Event, Perhaps introduces to a new readership the life and thinking of a philosopher whose influence over the 21st century is likely to be as important as it was on the previous century.

Peter Salmon was born in Australia but now lives in the UK. his first novel, The Coffee Story, was a New Statesman Book of the Year. He has written for the Guardian, the Sydney Review of Books, the New Humanist, as well as Australian TV and radio. He has received Writer's Awards from the Arts Council of England and the Arts Council of Victoria, Australia. Formerly Centre Director of the John Osborne/The Hurst Arvon Centre (2006-2012), he also teaches creative writing, most recently at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Liverpool John Moores University.

This is a compulsively readable intellectual biography of Derrida that teases out his endlessly fascinating thought, even when it is at its knottiest, with admirable patience and lucidity. Salmon's book, in vividly transmitting the intellectual excitement of Derrida's times, reminds the reader that, especially in his thinking about ethics, he remains a philosopher who is urgently, politically relevant to our times too. -- Matthew Beaumont, Professor at English at University College, London The life of Jacques Derrida has never been told as elegantly or engagingly as it is in Peter Salmon's new book. Salmon realises, as nobody else has until now, how the life and the philosophy are dialectically braided but never makes the rookie mistake of letting the former entirely account for the latter. He relates rivetingly how an Arab Jewish philosopher from the colonised margins of imperial Europe, who had been thrown out of his Algierian lycee for being a Jew thanks to Nazi-collaborating Vichy regime laws, came to perform one of the most impressive takedowns in intellectual history, namely the deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence underpinning western thought. In delightfully readable, often laconic prose, Salmon helped me to understand Derrida as never before and demonstrated why he is not, as some detractors called him, the Devil but much more cherishable. A wonderful book -- Stuart Jeffries, author of Grand Hotel Abyss A precise intellectual biography ... Salmon's ability to render the man and the mind behind Derrida's "notoriously difficult" style accessible make this volume a rich resource for both newcomers to, and fans of, "one of the great philosophers of this or any age. * Publishers Weekly * Today, "postmodernism" has become the go-to explanation across a range of political opinion for all sorts of contemporary ills. But what if the philosophers so often blamed for undermining standards of truth and objectivity were pointing out a problem, rather than causing it? Peter Salmon's clear-sighted, engaging guide to Derrida's life and ideas is an excellent way to learn about how one of the twentieth century's most complex thinkers continues to influence our world. -- Daniel Trilling, author of Lights in the Distance Brilliant ... one of the clearest introductions to 20th-century continental philosophy available ... [a] scintillating account of [Derrida's] life and thought -- Julian Baggini * Prospect magazine * [Salmon] render[s] Derrida's thought accessible ... he shows how structuralism soon lost its purchase, as Derrida ... laid waste to what he saw as its hollow metaphysical certainties. * The Critic * Thrilling ... [Salmon] could hardly have written a timelier reminder that Derrida's 'thinking is a crucial component of any future philosophy; that his thinking is immediately - always already - applicable to the world as we find it; and that this application has political heft'. * Times Higher Education * Accessible, provocative and beautifully written * Progressive Geographies * Written in clear and effective prose, Salmon's biography provides a concise account of Derrida's development from his student days in Algiers to international renown and revilement by looking at the problems that he was trying to solve. * The Battleground * An Event, Perhaps is certainly timely. It appears in an era when, not for the first time, varieties of critical thought are being accused of a contradictory array of culture-war crimes and political upheavals. -- Brian Dillon * Guardian * Excellent ... The great merit of Salmon's book is that it is clearsighted and readable. -- Andrew Hussey * Literary Review * A rigorous intellectual biography ... [Salmon] succeeds in making accessible the work of a notoriously difficult writer. -- Brigid O'Dea * Irish Times * In An Event, Perhaps, Derrida's intellectual development is adroitly unpacked by Peter Salmon without bamboozling the reader or peddling dime-store psychologizing. -- Sean Sheehan * PopMatters * Excellent -- Nigel Warburton * Five Books * One of the best books I've read in years -- James E. Faulconer Rigorous and revelatory ... Salmon's lucid exposition will be indispensable to anyone who wants to understand Derrida's key ideas ... a triumph -- New Statesman * John Gray * Brief, well-written and rather moving.Salmon guides us . with clarity, wit and self-deprecating humour -- Jonathan Ree * New Humanist * An Event, Perhaps is not just a welcome addition to the literature on Derrida, but a hugely significant one ... a generous and learned intellectual achievement. -- Niall Gildea * Inscriptions *