Of Grammatology

yes, i have read this insufferable text. granted, i could deconstruct it and give it five stars as a brilliant coming-of-age story, but i won't resort to such petty criticism (that is, of course, if you consider inconsistency and contradiction petty, which i take most deconstructionists would indeed consider)

truthfully, Derrida was not an idiot. his programme is insightful and it does attend to real concerns in literary analysis. the problem with deconstructionism is found in it's willingness to engage in false dichotomies, question-begging, and all manner of self-sealing arguments. fallacies aside (of which there are too many to count), Derrida is simply all too willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

i should probably explain that in more detail, but i could ramble for hundreds of pages about how much i despise the gratuitous irrationality of deconstructionism. send me an e-mail if you want more detail. ( )

I didn't finish the book. I got to page 289--27 short of the end--and just couldn't go any further. So if there was a brilliant insight located in the last 27 pages, I missed it.

This book was an utter waste of my time. That's not necessarily a reflection on Derrida. It may be that I am an idiot. Either way, I got nothing of value from it, so there's not much more that I can say about it.

My guess is it's Derrida, though. I would suggest you stay away from this book unless 1) you're required to read it, or 2) you find similar but somewhat clearer thinkers (Baudrillard, Foucault, Barthes, Bataille) very stimulating. But start your postmodern adventure with those, not with big D. ( )

A superb and crucial book, and the cornerstone of Derrida's work. But I have come to believe that Derrida is the vehicle that made it possible to advance from the work of Husserl and Heidegger to the work of Bernard Stiegler. ( )

It's complicated.