/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13978756]

gershom scholem was an unironically profound thinker and scholar. he should be more popular on /lit/

[Anonymous No.13978758]

>>13978756
I've been eyeing a couple of books of his on Jewish mysticism, I'll get them eventually, hopefully.

[Anonymous No.13978778]

>>13978758
major trends of jewish mysticism is probably the best book to start with, though the books of lectures he gave to eranos might be a good ease-your-way in approach. some degree of familiarity with eliade and corbin would be helpful, particularly eliade

[Anonymous No.13978833]

>>13978778
His exchange with Eliade in the early '70s is interesting. They were friendly for years because of Eranos and their shared interests, and only in the late '60s (I believe) when someone started publishing excerpts of Eliade's pro-fascist writings in Israeli journals was Scholem tipped off to Eliade's past. He wrote to Eliade asking him to explain, and Eliade bald-facedly lied in response, saying it wasn't true at all. The letter has been around for a while but the response was only recently published in some French journal, if I remember correctly.

[Anonymous No.13978925]

>>13978833
regardless of their personal relationship, eliade's work offers a more general framework that, if exposed to, makes scholem's stuff more accessible.

fascist stuff not-withstanding, the racial nationalism of eliade, scholem and corbin has enormous overlap

[Anonymous No.13979105]

I read pic related a few weeks ago. Mostly focused on Benjamin but some of his criticisms of Benjamin were pretty revealing.
He believed that Benjamin was essentially a religious mystic and his attempts to formulate his thoughts into Marxist dialectic created something neither fish nor fowl. Scholem didn’t care for the Marxism, Brecht didn’t care for the mysticism
Also strongly suggests that Benjamin considered suicide long before the Nazis took power and invaded France. The stress of just earning a living as an expatriate in Paris alone was enough to drive him to the brink.
The Spanish not letting him across the border when the Nazis were bulldozing France was just the final straw that broke the camels back.

[Anonymous No.13979308]

>>13979105
brecht or benjamin? reading your first scholem book as some non-mystical thing on benjamin is funny and classic nyrb classics

[Anonymous No.13979384]

His poetry is pretty good too

>>13979105
Good book. It's pretty funny how the debate on whether Benjamin was a Marxist or Mystic or Historian just keeps going.
>Also strongly suggests that Benjamin considered suicide long before the Nazis took power and invaded France.
This is very true. We have a couple would-be suicide notes of his.

[Anonymous No.13979566]

>>13979308
Brecht didn't care for Benjamin's mysticisim. Benjamin was rather enamored with Brecht. Scholem wasn't as enthused about Brecht but he as amused by the success of The Threepenny Opera and how Brecht became a darling of the bourgeoise theater audience despite songs in Threepenny pretty much calling for their mass execution.
He appreciated Brecht's chutzpah

[Anonymous No.13980083]

>>13979384
is benjamin worth reading?

[Anonymous No.13980180]

>>13980083
Yes, absolutely. He was the greatest mind of his generation, but I thesis'd on him so I'm very biased. However anyone interested in critical theory, cultural criticism, historical theory, or else just modern Marxism ought to read him. He's been left behind by the modern left, though if you ask me he's also precisely the thinker we need tight now.

[Anonymous No.13980305]

>>13980083
Check out Illuminations it’s a good introduction to his work.
Save the Arcades Project for last. He never got the chance to edit it and it’s very fragmentary. (but still many interesting passages. But also more repetitive than his more polished work.)

[Anonymous No.13980504]

>>13980083
Indeed. Illuminations and Reflections are maximum comfy