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- Slavoj i ek was named in Prospect as one of the top 100 public intellectuals of our day
- i ek's readership will increase the market for How to Read Lacan
- Adding to 10 other titles currently available in the How to Read series
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"The only thing of which one can be guilty is of having given ground relative to one's desire." - Jacques Lacan. Is psychoanalysis dead or are we to read frequent attacks on its theoretical 'mistakes' and clinical 'frauds' as a proof of its vitality? Slavoj i ek's passionate defence of Lacan reasserts the ethical urgency of psychoanalysis. Traditionally, psychoanalysis was expected to allow the patient to overcome the obstacles which prevented access to 'normal' sexual enjoyment; today, however, we are bombarded from all sides by different versions of the injunction 'Enjoy!' Lacan reminds us that psychoanalysis is the only discourse in which you are allowed not to enjoy. Since for Lacan psychoanalysis itself is a procedure of reading, each chapter uses a passage from Lacan as a tool to interpret another text from philosophy, art or popular ideology. Lacan is read with Hegel and Hitchcock, with Shakespeare and Dostoevsky.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is short, readable, interesting, truthful to Lacan, funny etc.
But if you want a serious introduction to Lacan which will lead you to understand sentences like "the subject is what a signifier represent for another signifier" or "desire is the desire of the Other" and other kind of Lacanian slogans, you have to know that THERE IS NO EASY WAY INTO LACAN.
I'm saying that because I started with Zizek's Looking Awry which is supposedly an introduction to Lacan as well, then I tried this one but, although you can get what Zizek is getting at, Lacan's thought remains in the background.
Although those books might give an exemple of what can be done with Lacanian theory, I really advice anyone to start with Bruce Fink's Clinical Introduction, and then to get to his Lacanian Subject. I really made a breakthrough in my understanding of Lacan with those two books (which are clear but demanding and rewarding). Another book you might want to consider is Reading Seminars I & II - an excellent collection of essays.
Zizek is perhaps one of the most witty thinkers at the moment, but you will get more out of him once you know more about Lacan, Hegel, Marx and Kant. When you have a good grasp of those thinkers, you'll see Zizek under a totally different light.
I also advice you to read Lacan's Seminar VII which is not really complicated if you have already some knowledge and that you take the time to read. Indeed, this seminar is the one from which Zizek seems to draw most of his material (about Sade, the sublime, the Real and the second death)
But if you want a serious introduction to Lacan which will lead you to understand sentences like "the subject is what a signifier represent for another signifier" or "desire is the desire of the Other" and other kind of Lacanian slogans, you have to know that THERE IS NO EASY WAY INTO LACAN.
I'm saying that because I started with Zizek's Looking Awry which is supposedly an introduction to Lacan as well, then I tried this one but, although you can get what Zizek is getting at, Lacan's thought remains in the background.
Although those books might give an exemple of what can be done with Lacanian theory, I really advice anyone to start with Bruce Fink's Clinical Introduction, and then to get to his Lacanian Subject. I really made a breakthrough in my understanding of Lacan with those two books (which are clear but demanding and rewarding). Another book you might want to consider is Reading Seminars I & II - an excellent collection of essays.
Zizek is perhaps one of the most witty thinkers at the moment, but you will get more out of him once you know more about Lacan, Hegel, Marx and Kant. When you have a good grasp of those thinkers, you'll see Zizek under a totally different light.
I also advice you to read Lacan's Seminar VII which is not really complicated if you have already some knowledge and that you take the time to read. Indeed, this seminar is the one from which Zizek seems to draw most of his material (about Sade, the sublime, the Real and the second death)
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Very useful introduction to Lacan as well as Zizek himself.
I have read the Bowie book (Fontana Masters)which is more comprhensive but I found I have learned more from this book.
Zizek covers Lacan's 'Triad' concepts of the Symbolic, Imaginary and the Real, with a colourful and highly intelligent prose, but never straying from the objective.
I have read the Bowie book (Fontana Masters)which is more comprhensive but I found I have learned more from this book.
Zizek covers Lacan's 'Triad' concepts of the Symbolic, Imaginary and the Real, with a colourful and highly intelligent prose, but never straying from the objective.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
To put it down in the simplest of forms, this book provides what's written on the tin.
It serves to introduce readers (including a layman such as myself) to the dense thought of Lacan, but it's not a mere overview of that - for it would be quite incomplete if it was.
Instead what the book does offer is interpretation and many clear -but never shallow- applications to a wide range of fields of experience and intellectual production: from the "unknown unknowns" in the Iraq's war to Shakespeare's Richard II monologues.
Lacan's concepts are not easy to grasp and this book isn't either, but the pickings are worth it.
Particularly as you'll get an introduction as well to an eclectic thinker, which is Zizek (the "big Other" here, and not a much concealed one!).
It serves to introduce readers (including a layman such as myself) to the dense thought of Lacan, but it's not a mere overview of that - for it would be quite incomplete if it was.
Instead what the book does offer is interpretation and many clear -but never shallow- applications to a wide range of fields of experience and intellectual production: from the "unknown unknowns" in the Iraq's war to Shakespeare's Richard II monologues.
Lacan's concepts are not easy to grasp and this book isn't either, but the pickings are worth it.
Particularly as you'll get an introduction as well to an eclectic thinker, which is Zizek (the "big Other" here, and not a much concealed one!).
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good Introduction to Lacan and Zizek
This is probably the best and most accessible introduction to Lacan's way of thinking. It does not cover all the central concepts in Lacan's thought, but it does cover those which... Read more
Published 17 months ago by P. BENSON
Irrefutable!
Here one might claim the ground that Zizek has fundamentally misunderstood a key point in this laconic and iconic text(ure)that is the reading of Lacan. Read more
Published on 7 Jun 2008 by Professor Bjorn Hagforth
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