In accordance with some of
the suggestions to be found in the substantial, well informed and well written
‘Introduction’ to this volume, one should probably not in all strictness
interpret this book as work of philosophy. It is, rather, a poignant collection
of occasional writings by Jacques Derrida, possibly the most famous living
French philosopher. Unfortunately, and as the title suggests, the occasions are
all heartrendingly sad: the texts collected here are funeral orations, elegies
and letters of condolence to survivors.

   
Each particular text by Derrida is preceded by an excellent mini-biography of
each of the dead authors, written by Kas Saghofi. But given the general nature
of the text, each such mini-biography inevitably ends on a sour note (Pascal:
‘the last act is always bloody, however fine the rest of the play’). The
reading of such a sorrowful litany of illnesses, complications and fatalities
is as difficult and as sapping of the will-to-live as is any true and full
appreciation of a memento mori. One eventually even wonders whether it
is in bad taste to collect these writings. The editors do raise this very issue
at the beginning of the book. But to raise the issue is scarcely to exorcise
it.

 On
the subject of exorcisms, the present reviewer was surprised by a weird neglect
of religious issues in The Work of Mourning, given that it is
essentially a set of mediations upon death. The substantial introduction, by
the editors Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Nass, talks of drawing social,
historical and political issues out of Derrida’s texts (pp.19-20), but not €“ as
would surely be more appropriate – religious ones. Interestingly, something
about Derrida’s own religious commitments is perhaps revealed here in a way
that is not the case in his more theoretical and philosophical texts. Thus
Derrida has seemed to many commentators to undergo (under a broadly Levinasian
influence) a late ‘turn’ toward considering religious issues (in, for example,
the recent book The Gift of Death). But the reflections upon the deaths
of his friends and colleagues presented to us in The Work of Mourning do
not call for any kind of religious response on our part. Derrida does not
mention or call for a (Catholic) requiem Mass (though he admittedly alludes to
the last supper in the piece on Kofman), a (Protestant) service of remembrance,
or a (Jewish) kaddish or yiskor.

 The
texts collected in The Work of Mourning vary wildly in style (they are
letters, collections of fragments and essays), complexity (some, such as Barthes
and Kofman, have the themes of their writings closely analyzed in the manner
now associated with a deconstructive reading, whilst others are more simply and
personally mourned) and in length (from a couple of pages to around thirty
pages) and were written between 1981 and 1999. They will doubtless be very
interesting for Derrida scholars and admirers, not least as some of the themes
and motifs of Derridian deconstruction are, if only fleetingly, in evidence
here: undecidablitiy, friendship, the ‘other’, the painstaking way of
proceeding through incredibly close reading. It is obviously to this audience
that the book is primarily recommended. However, these Derridean texts will
perhaps also be interesting for those keen on modern French philosophy in
general, since most of its key figures are represented here: Deleuze, De Man, Althusser,
Barthes, Foucault, Lyotard, Kofman and Levinas. (Less well-known figures also
mourned are Max Loreau, Jean-Marie Benoist, Edmond Jabes, Joseph Riddel, Michel
Seriere and Louis Marin.) This is probably the right place to mention that
those new to reading Derrida might find the theoretical elements in the present
collection (such as those in the texts on Barthes and Kofman just mentioned)
rather difficult going, though, as they largely assume, rather than argue for,
the general position established in earlier, more strictly philosophical work
such as Margins of Philosophy.

How,
though, does a reviewer ultimately, seriously, and with tact evaluate a fairly
personal book of mourning such as this? Not just by its contributions to our
knowledge. Nor simply for its sociological status as a time-slice of an entire
generation of national thinkers. In the end, it probably has but one true
measure, and in entertaining the thought of it I am reminded of a remark by
Confucius in the Analects (Book XIX, § 14): "When mourning gives
full expression to grief nothing more is required."

© 2004
Matthew Ray

 Matthew Ray, Bristol, UK

Categories: Grief, Philosophical