- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Routledge; illustrated edition edition (4 Mar 1993)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0415904811
- ISBN-13: 978-0415904810
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,293,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
'The thrill of reading Zizek ... arises in part from the collision between the insanity he finds everywhere in our psychic and social lives and the rigorous clarity with which he anatomizes its workings.' - Lingua Franca
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Product Description
In "Enjoy Your Symptom!" Slavoj Zizek argues for the accessibility and ultimate simplicity of Lacanian theory by linking it with popular Hollywood film. "Enjoy Your Symptom!" is divided into five chapters, each elucidating some fundamental Lacanian notion or theoretical complex - "letter, fantasy, woman, repetition, phallus, father" - through a reference to Hollywood and the popular culture which forms the background of our common experience. Each chapter is then divided into two parts. In the first part, Lacan is "in Hollywood," ie the notion or complex in question is explained by way of examples from Hollywood or popular culture in general. In the second division, we are "out of Hollywood", ie the same notion is elaborated as it is in its context. The "Why ..." in the title of each chapter purposely evokes the naivete of a child's question. Pick up this book and learn why a "letter" always arrives at its destination with the help of "City Lights", "Now Voyager" and "Letter from an Unknown Woman"; learn why fantasy is the ultimate support of reality with the help of "Rancho", "Notorious", "She" and "Tarzan"; learn why woman is a symptom of man with the help of Roberto Ross.
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First Sentence
It may seem peculiar, even absurd, to set Chaplin under the sign of "death and sublimation": is not the universe of Chaplin's films, a universe bursting with nonsublime vitality, vulgarity even, the very opposite of a damp romantic obsession with death and sublimation? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
It may seem peculiar, even absurd, to set Chaplin under the sign of "death and sublimation": is not the universe of Chaplin's films, a universe bursting with nonsublime vitality, vulgarity even, the very opposite of a damp romantic obsession with death and sublimation? Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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4 reviews
27 of 34 people found the following review helpful
very clear stuff
1 April 1999
Format:Paperback
If you know anything about Hegel and Lacan, Zizek is actually a quite clear expositor of Lacan. Looking awry is particularly clear, lucid to the point of simplification in his account of Lacan, but what can you expect when your proof-test is Hitchcock and HOllywood movies. Most academic books consist of (dead author) and (contemporary theorist), and if the text at hand simply serves to validate the theory, why drag out heavy reading when Hitchcock will do? If the theory is correct, it encompasses both Shakespeare and anything oj simpson ever appeared in, so not to use both would only be a sign of stuffiness. Zizek has the virtue of being easy to read and not taking himself too seriously, and begins every chapter with a quote from Lenin or Stalin, as if Stalin was the last philosopher. It's not a parody, but if Kojeve (Lacan) is right, that every philosophy is just a repetition of one moment of the Hegelian spirit, then Zizek's jeu d'esprit is an honest accomodation to what's happening now.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
elevator music piped upwind
27 Mar 2003
Format:Paperback
Clarity of language and argument one finds, some feel, rarely in current theoretical writing or in psychoanalytic writing. Here Zizek has structured his book so that nearly every idea gets two chances to impress the reader. I would agree with one of the reviews on this site of another of Zizek's books, that the author writes more clearly and persuasively about politics than about culture. However, this book presents a pleasing mixture (as most of Zizek's books do) of the cultural, political, philosophical, and Lacanian munch.
Each chapter sets out to answer a question posed by the chapter heading (e.g., Why is Reality Always Multiple?). First Zizek approaches a solution or description of the problem as it appears in Hollywood films. These Zizek treats as texts or case studies. Whatever your opinion of the merits of psychoanalytic description for general use, the discussion of the films makes marvellously amusing reading. As demanding for this reader as the steep range of theoretical vocabulary employed is the ample library of films from which Zizek draws his examples. Many of which films I'd never seen. The second section of each chapter recasts the first approach through film in the language, theory and realm of analysis, theory and philosophy.
I cannot weigh in an estimation of the value of this book. Surely, it is not as profoundly useful or clear as Zizek's political and philosophical thriller, Ticklish Subject. Yet, the application of Zizek's critical arsenal to Hollywood without the baggage of Politics and History, makes room for exposition through, sad to say, a universal and more immediate medium.
2 of 24 people found the following review helpful
the point?
17 July 2004
Format:Paperback
"I cannot weigh in an estimation of the value of this book. Surely, it is not as profoundly useful or clear as Zizek's political and philosophical thriller, Ticklish Subject. Yet, the application of Zizek's critical arsenal to Hollywood without the baggage of Politics and History, makes room for exposition through, sad to say, a universal and more immediate medium." Here's a statement that completely misses not only the point but the importance of Zizek. Ofcourse, in an era of achedemics and 'intellectual'-types complacently spiteful to popular culture as the anti-shakespeare (christ?), this isn't surprising.
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