From the Bookshelf of The Year of Reading Proust…

Illuminations: Essays and Reflections

Walter Benjamin,

Harry Zohn (Translator)

Discussion: Auxiliary Reading (w/Spoilers)

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Auxiliary Reading (w/Spoilers)

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* Journal Articles: Reference List
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last updated Jan 14, 2013 03:03PM

* Auxiliary Reading Chit-Chat
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What Members Thought

May 25, 2014 Jonfaith rated it it was amazing

Shelves: theory, crit

For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter.

There are hardly enough superlatives for this amazing collection of essays concerning Baudelaire, Proust, Kafka, messianism and the aesthetic tension between the cultic and the exhibitional. I had read Unpacking My Library a half dozen times previously and it still forces me to catch my breath. The thoughts on Kafka explore the mystical as well as the shock of the modern. The shock of the urban and industrial is a ...more

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Nov 17, 2009 Mir marked it as to-read

Shelves: ideas

I read some of this for a Lit course but need to go back and read the entire thing.

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 28, 2010 Caroline rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm so eager to grow very old with this book. I read it over a year and more, so can't (sorry) remember it well enough to review. The Proust stuff is freshest in my memory, and most relevant ("regarding proust, i just had to put him down, because albertine died and that's too much for me....." - b) so please just enjoy the romantic excerpts below:

On memory:

"The important thing for the remembering author is not what he experienced, but the weaving of his memory, the Penelope work of recollection. ...more

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