Jacques Derrida (Routledge Critical Thinkers) [Paperback]

If you want to feel what Derrida and deconstruction are like, this book is for you.

Always clear and rigorous, Royle cuts to the chase and writes with an immediate, infectious pleasure in thinking and reading. Beginners, the half-interested and long-term fans of Derrida will all find much that is new to them here: Royle is extremely well-informed about Derrida - he's read the lot, and reports accurately on areas of Derrida's work that more workaday accounts seem barely aware of. He explains specialist terms like 'supplement' and 'differance' with a sense not just of what they mean but of why they matter and where they might go.

Lastly, what's really special about this book for me is the way Royle writes. The words are ones we use and live in, but in his hands funnier, stranger, more moving, more alive than ever.

Nicholas Royle's text on Jacques Derrida is part of a recent series put out by the Routledge Press, designed under the general editorial direction of Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway, University of London), to explore the most recent and exciting ideas in intellectual development during the past century or so. To this end, figures such as Martin Heidegger, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ricoeur, and other influential thinkers in critical thought are highlighted in the series, planned to include at least 21 volumes in all.

Royle's text, following the pattern of the others, includes background information on Derrida and its significance, the key ideas and sources, and Derrida's continuing impact on other thinkers. As the series preface indicates, no critical thinker arises in a vacuum, so the context, influences and broader cultural environment are all important as a part of the study, something with which Derrida might agree.

Why is Derrida included in this series? It is hard to come up with a more wide-ranging and influential thinker in the twentieth century than Jacques Derrida. While starting out in the literary field as a primary focus, his thought and intellectual influence has extended far beyond to almost every academic field. Particularly in the areas of philosophy, politics, law, theology, sociology, psychology and science, Derrida's influence will continue to be significant for a number of reasons.

Royle's text is very interesting, as I knew it would be from the start, but one of the truly surprising aspects of this text was that it was fun to read. From the very first page, when I saw that the first comment on the text was from Derrida himself, I knew that inside there would be creativity and humour, pieces of interest and insight. Derrida's comment, with which I completely agree, is that this text is 'Excellent, strong, clear and original.' One might consider it ironic that in a text dealing essentially with an overview of another's thought, there would be little room for originality. However, this is to miss a great deal of what Derrida tries to say, and something that one gets out of this text. All things are new and renewed; even the re-hash of old thoughts becomes unique and original.

I did not know it at the time I began reading, but the book is designed so that each chapter can be a stand-alone essay, peripherally related to each other, but not dependent upon any particular order of reading. I say this because I started near the end of the book. There is a chapter entitled 'Poetry Break' – being an erstwhile poet of sorts, this was automatically of interest. But when I noticed that Royle had selected Coleridge's 'Kubla Kahn' as the example. This is one of my favourite poems, and the application of Derrida's principles opened up interesting insights. One key insight (if I am permitted to use that phrase, as Royle argues that the idea of key insights is a foreign concept for Derrida) has to do with the unreadability of the poem – how can we tell what it means? It goes beyond reason, certainly, and is hardly just a drug-induced reverie. It contains a gift and an element of poetry difficult to discern, an infinite and unknowable element that nonetheless speaks to us in unique ways.

Part of the problem of putting Derrida into a series like this is that the series requires the identification of key ideas. Royle states that there is few things less like Derrida's thought than to attempt to organise his ideas into a string of 'key ideas'. Here the humour is introduced again – one feature of the Routledge texts is to have key idea and explication boxes, separated out from the rest of the text. That doesn't happen much in this volume, as Royle tries to remain clear of putting 'Jacque in the Box'. The only such pull-text box asks the question, 'What is a box?' and proceeds to deconstruct and destroy the idea of using this as a working principle in the book.

Ah, there, I've said it. If there is a key idea to be identified in Derrida's work, it is Deconstruction. This is perhaps what Derrida is destined to be known for, the relentless pursuit of deconstructing everything in his path. Derrida himself doesn't care much for the word, but the underlying purpose is crucial. Deconstruction works from the principle that everything is divisible, and that there is value in shaking things up, a sort of seismic communication theory. This leads to the ideas of text, supplement, differance, and even monsters.

Monsters, you say? Surely a lot of modern and postmodern thought is monstrous, in a number of ways. Derrida would say yes! The monstrous is always around us – Shelley's Frankenstein is not simply a monster tale, but is also a moral and political lesson. We can apply the idea of the monstrous to the future – it is something unknown, and therefore frightening; monsters cease to be monsters once they are domesticated, once they are known. Derrida believes that much of religious faith is based upon the monstrous – Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, Jesus on the cross, these are monstrous things, that once they become known and transformed in new ways, cease their monstrosity. Of course, some of the ways in which these have been domesticated becomes once again monstrous.

As do the other volumes in this series, Royle concludes with an annotated bibliography of works by Derrida, works on Derrida, interview transcripts (Royle mentions a number of times that Derrida is known for talking as much as writing), and a listing of the top ten initial suggestions for those who want an accessible introduction to Derrida's work.

Intriguing and unexpectedly humourous, this is one of the better books I've read in a very long time.

There are some things this book does excellently, I'll list these as pro's,

pro's:

> The book gives thorough attention to derrida's vast catalogue of works, quoting from his short essays and major texts alike throughout to illustrate the points made.

> Royle has an excellent sense of humour (as does Derrida) which lights up a fair few pages in this book.

> The book constantly draws attention to itself, it gives no illusion of presenting a 'true' Derrida, but rather 'Royle's Derrida'. Texts are open and when we read them, we interpret them in our own style. I enjoyed its constant playfulness, where it both attempted to conform and rebel against the set structure of the 'critical thinkers' series it is a part of.

> It hasn't put me off reading Derrida, in fact its made works such as 'positions', 'spectres of marx' and 'of grammatology' seem more relevant to me and I intend to grapple those texts in the near future.

> It sets out the key ideas well, whilst challenging the very notion of 'key ideas'. Notions such as differance, the supplement and deconstruction are outlined and explored with examples, without being set in stone, fixing a singular meaning to such notions, e.g. deconstruction has a multiplicity of meanings, ranging from 'a coming to terms with literature' through to 'the experience of the impossible'. Through these notions, Royle illustrates how Derrida highlights the instablitiy, the very unfixablity of a meaning to any given term in language, and any meaning perscribed to a given text.

However, there were a few things I hoped to see explored which weren't, and some areas where I think Royle expected too much of his readers (it is, after all, supposed to be accessible to those with no prior understanding of Derrida's thought). I'll list the downside of this book,

cons:

> There are a fair few chunks I didn't grasp well at all, readers who know little of Derrida should be warned that, though this is an intro to Derrida, its still difficult to get your head round many of the concepts. I'm still not sure how to deconstruct a text for myself (or, perhaps to put it more accurately, I wouldn't know how to locate the deconstruction already at work in a text). But I imagine more familiarity of examples in Derrida's own work, or perhaps others such as Bloom or De Man would help.

> If you want to know a little about Derrida's family life, upbringing, major experiences that have shaped his thought, and important thinkers who have influenced him, sadly there just isn't much here at all, it wants to read like a Derrida text, rather than situate Derrida's thought in terms of his life history. It seems to sacrifice engagement with 'Derrida - the person' in exchange for a focus on 'Derrida - the author'. To gain a small glimpse of the man himself behind the thought, the film entitled 'Derrida' is pretty good, as it shows a little of his home life whilst exploring his ideas with him - although obviously through the eye of film - it is the film makers text no less than his own (and, arguably, the viewers).

> There are many interesting areas of controversy surrounding Derrida that weren't mentioned by Royle, e.g. his fall-out with Foucault, his imprisonment on false drug charges, and his defence of De Man despite his links to nazism. Some mention of these would have been interesting.

> Derrida is like marmite. Some academics love deconstruction, others see no worth in it. Royle doesn't really tell us why its so controversal, what are the main criticisms of it? He briefly mentions John Searle (perhaps Derrida's best known critic) but doesn't give much clarity on what his criticism is. As well as leaving criticisms of Derrida aside, there's a bit too much hero-worship, constantly referring to numerous works of his as 'astonishing' or 'extraordinary', without much explanation.

All in all, its an interesting, challenging text. It'll wet your appetite for Derrida, but warn you that reading Derrida constitutes a 'project', rather than a 'read'.

EDIT: I would like to add that since writing this review, I have read Derrida's 'Specters of Marx' and I found it fascinating. Royle's book was much more use than I had realised in grasping Derrida's thought in this book - in particular deconstruction and ethics, and the future to come.