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Illuminations Paperback – January 1, 1999
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPimlico
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 1999
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN-100712665757
- ISBN-13978-0712665759
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Product details
- Publisher : Pimlico; New Ed edition (January 1, 1999)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0712665757
- ISBN-13 : 978-0712665759
- Item Weight : 9.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Walter Benjamin](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/01Kv-W2ysOL._SY600_.png)
Walter Bendix Schonflies Benjamin (1892 -- 1940) was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and was also greatly inspired by the Marxism of Bertolt Brecht and Jewish mysticism as presented by Gershom Scholem.
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Customers find the book's recommendation excellent and challenging. They also say it's worth the effort.
"...Great stuff." Read more
"This was a pretty excellent (and challenging) survey of Benjamin's work, with included pieces mostly concerning storytelling and particular literary..." Read more
"...In clear translations. Highly recommended to those interested in memory, Proust, and insights into a troubled political and social environment" Read more
"...Other than that the book is great." Read more
Customers find the writing style wonderful and clear.
"...Literature, Art, Politics and more are discussed in such a wonderfully clear manner. Great stuff." Read more
"...Then, suddenly, one tilts, and the extraordinary reach, eloquence and power of this man's reading hits home...." Read more
"...In clear translations. Highly recommended to those interested in memory, Proust, and insights into a troubled political and social environment" Read more
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As for the essays themselves, anyone who has read Benjamin is aware of how challenging the prose (if we may call it that) is. As Arendt notes in her introduction, Benjamin is a poetic thinker, and tends both to assume a fair amount of foreknowledge and employ sophisticated (and often extended) figurative devices, e.g., simile, to relate his points. Contrast this with the geometric prose of Spinoza and other modern philosophers, with their numbered axioms, definitions, propositions, etc. In his essay on Proust, for example, Benjamin likens the weight of scent in memory to the weight of the fisherman's net by which he gauges his catch, and sentences to the physical labor required to haul it up. There is also some evidence of his on-again-off-again Marxist tendencies (which embarrassing fact, combined with his ambivalence between this commitment and Zionism, is acknowledged in the introduction to the collection), as in his late essay on art modified by mechanical reproduction, plus the more obvious shoehorning of concepts like "class struggle" and "proletarianization". Nevertheless, this is a fantastic collection which ought to attract both old and new readers of Benjamin--I know I'll be buying Reflections, Illuminations' spiritual companion, and at least some of his standalone work.
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Also saw someone say he was a member of the Frankfurt School in one of the reviews. He wasn't.