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Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure
This study extends beyond the scope of literature into the psychology of much of our contemporary scene, including fashion, advertising, and propaganda techniques. In considering such aspects, the author goes beyond the domain of pure aesthetics and offers an interpretation of some basic cultural problems of our time.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
About the author
René Girard
125 books657 followersRené Girard was a French-born American historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science whose work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy.
He was born in the southern French city of Avignon on Christmas day in 1923. Between 1943 and 1947, he studied in Paris at the École des Chartres, an institution for the training of archivists and historians, where he specialized in medieval history. In 1947 he went to Indiana University on a year’s fellowship and eventually made almost his entire career in the United States. He completed a PhD in history at Indiana University in 1950 but also began to teach literature, the field in which he would first make his reputation. He taught at Duke University and at Bryn Mawr before becoming a professor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. In 1971 he went to the State University of New York at Buffalo for five years, returned to Johns Hopkins, and then finished his academic career at Stanford University where he taught between 1981 and his retirement in 1995.
Girard is the author of nearly thirty books, with his writings spanning many academic domains. Although the reception of his work is different in each of these areas, there is a growing body of secondary literature on his work and his influence on disciplines such as literary criticism, critical theory, anthropology, theology, psychology, mythology, sociology, economics, cultural studies, and philosophy.Girard’s fundamental ideas, which he has developed throughout his career and provide the foundation for his thinking, are that desire is mimetic (all of our desires are borrowed from other people), that all conflict originates in mimetic desire (mimetic rivalry), that the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry, and that the Bible reveals these ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.
In 1990, friends and colleagues of Girard’s established the Colloquium on Violence and Religion to further research and discussion about the themes of Girard’s work. The Colloquium meets annually either in Europe or the United States.
René Girard died on November 4, 2015, at the age of 91 in Stanford.
He was born in the southern French city of Avignon on Christmas day in 1923. Between 1943 and 1947, he studied in Paris at the École des Chartres, an institution for the training of archivists and historians, where he specialized in medieval history. In 1947 he went to Indiana University on a year’s fellowship and eventually made almost his entire career in the United States. He completed a PhD in history at Indiana University in 1950 but also began to teach literature, the field in which he would first make his reputation. He taught at Duke University and at Bryn Mawr before becoming a professor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. In 1971 he went to the State University of New York at Buffalo for five years, returned to Johns Hopkins, and then finished his academic career at Stanford University where he taught between 1981 and his retirement in 1995.
Girard is the author of nearly thirty books, with his writings spanning many academic domains. Although the reception of his work is different in each of these areas, there is a growing body of secondary literature on his work and his influence on disciplines such as literary criticism, critical theory, anthropology, theology, psychology, mythology, sociology, economics, cultural studies, and philosophy.Girard’s fundamental ideas, which he has developed throughout his career and provide the foundation for his thinking, are that desire is mimetic (all of our desires are borrowed from other people), that all conflict originates in mimetic desire (mimetic rivalry), that the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry, and that the Bible reveals these ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.
In 1990, friends and colleagues of Girard’s established the Colloquium on Violence and Religion to further research and discussion about the themes of Girard’s work. The Colloquium meets annually either in Europe or the United States.
René Girard died on November 4, 2015, at the age of 91 in Stanford.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 68 reviews
August 5, 2019
Jale Parla, Orhan Koçak, Nurdan Gürbilek gibi edebiyat aleminin önemli şahsiyetlerinin hakkında çok konuştuğu Girard'ın bu eserini nihayet ben de okudum. Söz konusu eleştirmenlerin en çok eleştirdikleri Girard'ın her türlü kuram ve akımdan azade kendi yolunu (kendi sistematiğini kurarak) çizen tavrı benim asıl sevdiğim tarafı. Şiddet ve Kutsal'da da buna şahit olmuştum. Hegel üzerinden Dostoyevski, Proust ve Stendhal okumak ile benim Nietzsche üzerinden Mevsim Yenice okumam arasında bir benzerlik var bence...
August 21, 2012
I thought I understood envy. Then I read this book. It doesn't matter if (like me) you've never read the novels Girard analyzes here; you'll still come away wowed. The only thing that didn't seem quite clear in this book is a point that shines in I See Satan Fall Like Lightning--that mimetic desire, the built-in drive to want what others want, is not inherently bad. It's how we're made. It isn't a question of whether we imitate others in our desires, it's who we imitate. The who and what are what matter.
December 3, 2015
Lo giuro, non leggerò mai più un libro allo stesso modo. Si è squarciato il velo di Maya per me, come lettrice. Recuperare tutto dell'Autore.
Confusa e rapita.
Confusa e rapita.
November 15, 2017
This is my first introduction to Girard, and I'm already a huge fan. I have to admit, some of the things he said went over my head, but the gist of his message has already changed the way I think about desire and envy.
Girard is famously known for coining "mimetic theory," which claims that all desire is triangular; it includes the subject, the object, and the mediator. For example, if you were the subject and your object of desire is to be rich, you would think that it's just a straight line from you to your desire (subject-object). Girard disagrees by saying that there is always a mediator, in this instance, a rich person, whom you want to imitate (subject-mediator-object). But the object of your desire is really just an illusion. You don't really want to be rich. You just want to become the person who is rich.
Now if the mediator is someone who is wayyy out of your league, you will be satisfied in following his footsteps towards becoming like him (ahem, Christ). But if your mediator is on the same level as you are, you will see him as a hindrance to your object of desire. Thus, envy is formed.
Since the rise of individualism, Romantics have been tricked into believing that desire comes from "inside of themselves," but this is faulty according to Girard because it hides the social nature of desire. He brings up Cervantes, Stendhal, Proust, and Dostoevsky as exemplars of "novelistic geniuses" because they understand the triangular nature of desire.
The book goes through asceticism, sadism and masochism, double triangular desire (where both sides imitate one another), and so much more! This is definitely a dense read, but I highly recommend it!
Girard is famously known for coining "mimetic theory," which claims that all desire is triangular; it includes the subject, the object, and the mediator. For example, if you were the subject and your object of desire is to be rich, you would think that it's just a straight line from you to your desire (subject-object). Girard disagrees by saying that there is always a mediator, in this instance, a rich person, whom you want to imitate (subject-mediator-object). But the object of your desire is really just an illusion. You don't really want to be rich. You just want to become the person who is rich.
Now if the mediator is someone who is wayyy out of your league, you will be satisfied in following his footsteps towards becoming like him (ahem, Christ). But if your mediator is on the same level as you are, you will see him as a hindrance to your object of desire. Thus, envy is formed.
Since the rise of individualism, Romantics have been tricked into believing that desire comes from "inside of themselves," but this is faulty according to Girard because it hides the social nature of desire. He brings up Cervantes, Stendhal, Proust, and Dostoevsky as exemplars of "novelistic geniuses" because they understand the triangular nature of desire.
The book goes through asceticism, sadism and masochism, double triangular desire (where both sides imitate one another), and so much more! This is definitely a dense read, but I highly recommend it!
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October 3, 2019Girard'ın okuma ve yorumlama biçimi birçok farklı romana ve hatta gündelik davranışa uygulanabilir.
Biraz ayrıntılı bir yorum girme planım var, umarım gerçekleşir.
Biraz ayrıntılı bir yorum girme planım var, umarım gerçekleşir.
April 26, 2018
Siamo abituati a vedere il desiderio come una costruzione rettilinea che dal soggetto va direttamente all’oggetto: per esempio, io desidero essere ricco, quindi l’oggetto delle mie brame è la ricchezza in sè. Girard invece afferma che il desiderio ha una costruzione triangolare, ossia fra il soggetto e l’oggetto sta sempre un mediatore: per esempio io non bramo l’oggetto ricchezza in sè ma desidero essere ricco perchè esistono persone ricche, che fungono da catalizzatore del desiderio, e quindi, in realtà, quello che voglio è essere come quelle persone. Questo meccanismo triangolare del desiderio è sempre e comunque valido, e si applica a tutte le nostre voglie.
Quello che Girard sta dicendo è che la legge universale del comportamento umano consiste nel carattere mimetico, nel senso di imitativo, del desiderio. Noi imitiamo dagli altri i nostri desideri, le nostre opinioni, il nostro stile di vita. Chi imitiamo esattamente?, vi chiederete. Imitiamo le persone che stimiamo e rispettiamo, mentre contro-imitiamo le persone che disprezziamo. Quindi il nostro comportamento è sempre un’imitazione, perché è sempre in funzione dell’altro, nel bene come nel male.
Ma non finisce qui. Molto interessante è il fatto, nota l’autore, che questo modo di intendere il desiderio ha la sua radice in un male ontologico: il nostro desiderio di assoluto, che nella nostra società moderna viene distorto e reindirizzato dal sacro al mondano. Vi ricorda qualcosa? Non provate mai un senso di mancanza? Non cerchiamo più l’appagamento del nostro desiderio metafisico, che si configura come felicità, salvezza, o altro, in un dio distante ma in ciò che chiama mediatori, sempre più vicini a noi, che prendono incosciamente il posto della divinità oramai assente. Il nostro desiderio si configura quindi come una trascendenza deviata che non potrà mai essere soddisfatta. Quindi, assumendo un’ottica negativa, possiamo affermare che male e desiderio sono profondamente legati. Dice l’autore:
“Il male esiste ed è il desiderio metafisico stesso, è la trascendenza che tesse gli uomini al rovescio, separando ciò che essa pretende di unire, unendo ciò che pretende di separare[…].
Il valore dell’oggetto consumato dipende oramai solo dallo sguardo dell’altro. […] L’altro domina sempre l’esistenza dell’individuo ma questo altro non è più, come nell’alienazione marxista, un oppressore di classe, è invece il vicino di casa, il compagno di scuola, il rivale professionale. L’altro diventa più affascinante a mano a mano che si avvicina all’io”.
Ci crediamo esseri autonomi e liberi, crediamo nell’unità psicologica delle persone, nella nostra compatezza come IO, dissumulando a noi stessi la verità del desiderio, che è invece triangolare e mediato da altri. Questa è la grande menzogna romantica secondo l’autore, in cui siamo tutti avvinti. Menzogna che può assumere il carattere di autoinganno.
Troviamo poi un altro concetto a mio avviso molto affascinanante, che è quello di ostacolo. è proprio l’ostacolo che rinforza la passione, è l’ostacolo che tendiamo a ricercare perchè porta al parossisimo l’intensità del nostro sentire, anche se si configura poi come sofferenza. Anzi forse proprio per questo. Il termine ultimo di questa corsa verso ciò che ci sembra salvezza si esaurisce nel suo contrario, avverte l’autore:
“Il male ontologico continua ad aggravarsi man mano che il mediatore si avvicina al soggetto che desidera. Il suo termine naturale è la morte. […] Al masochismo succede l’ultimo stadio del desiderio metafisico, quello dell’autodistruzione”.
Davanti a questa evidenza, la lucidità contemporanea, il disincanto dell’uomo moderno, esegue una rotazione di trecentossessanta gradi e ritorna alla cecità. Adesso il desiderio metafisco coincide con la dissimulazione estrema, il pretendere di non desiderare, come il Mersault di Camus o il Roquentin di Sartre:
“Sono gli altri che desiderano intensamente, è l’eroe, cioè l’io, che desidera debolmente o addirittura non desidera affatto; […] Il primo romantico cercava di provare la sua spontaneità, cioè la propria divinità, desiderando più intensamente degli altri. Il secondo romantico cerca di provare la stessa cosa, ma con mezzi opposti. […] Si tratta sempre, insomma, di convincere gli altri e soprattutto di convincere sè stessi che si è perfettamente e divinamente autonomi
[…]Dietro la fantasmagoria moderna, dietro il turbinio degli avvenimenti e delle idee, al termine dell’evoluzione sempre più rapida della mediazione interna, vi è il nulla. L’anima è giunta ad un punto morto”.
https://wordpress.com/post/lacrepaint...
Quello che Girard sta dicendo è che la legge universale del comportamento umano consiste nel carattere mimetico, nel senso di imitativo, del desiderio. Noi imitiamo dagli altri i nostri desideri, le nostre opinioni, il nostro stile di vita. Chi imitiamo esattamente?, vi chiederete. Imitiamo le persone che stimiamo e rispettiamo, mentre contro-imitiamo le persone che disprezziamo. Quindi il nostro comportamento è sempre un’imitazione, perché è sempre in funzione dell’altro, nel bene come nel male.
Ma non finisce qui. Molto interessante è il fatto, nota l’autore, che questo modo di intendere il desiderio ha la sua radice in un male ontologico: il nostro desiderio di assoluto, che nella nostra società moderna viene distorto e reindirizzato dal sacro al mondano. Vi ricorda qualcosa? Non provate mai un senso di mancanza? Non cerchiamo più l’appagamento del nostro desiderio metafisico, che si configura come felicità, salvezza, o altro, in un dio distante ma in ciò che chiama mediatori, sempre più vicini a noi, che prendono incosciamente il posto della divinità oramai assente. Il nostro desiderio si configura quindi come una trascendenza deviata che non potrà mai essere soddisfatta. Quindi, assumendo un’ottica negativa, possiamo affermare che male e desiderio sono profondamente legati. Dice l’autore:
“Il male esiste ed è il desiderio metafisico stesso, è la trascendenza che tesse gli uomini al rovescio, separando ciò che essa pretende di unire, unendo ciò che pretende di separare[…].
Il valore dell’oggetto consumato dipende oramai solo dallo sguardo dell’altro. […] L’altro domina sempre l’esistenza dell’individuo ma questo altro non è più, come nell’alienazione marxista, un oppressore di classe, è invece il vicino di casa, il compagno di scuola, il rivale professionale. L’altro diventa più affascinante a mano a mano che si avvicina all’io”.
Ci crediamo esseri autonomi e liberi, crediamo nell’unità psicologica delle persone, nella nostra compatezza come IO, dissumulando a noi stessi la verità del desiderio, che è invece triangolare e mediato da altri. Questa è la grande menzogna romantica secondo l’autore, in cui siamo tutti avvinti. Menzogna che può assumere il carattere di autoinganno.
Troviamo poi un altro concetto a mio avviso molto affascinanante, che è quello di ostacolo. è proprio l’ostacolo che rinforza la passione, è l’ostacolo che tendiamo a ricercare perchè porta al parossisimo l’intensità del nostro sentire, anche se si configura poi come sofferenza. Anzi forse proprio per questo. Il termine ultimo di questa corsa verso ciò che ci sembra salvezza si esaurisce nel suo contrario, avverte l’autore:
“Il male ontologico continua ad aggravarsi man mano che il mediatore si avvicina al soggetto che desidera. Il suo termine naturale è la morte. […] Al masochismo succede l’ultimo stadio del desiderio metafisico, quello dell’autodistruzione”.
Davanti a questa evidenza, la lucidità contemporanea, il disincanto dell’uomo moderno, esegue una rotazione di trecentossessanta gradi e ritorna alla cecità. Adesso il desiderio metafisco coincide con la dissimulazione estrema, il pretendere di non desiderare, come il Mersault di Camus o il Roquentin di Sartre:
“Sono gli altri che desiderano intensamente, è l’eroe, cioè l’io, che desidera debolmente o addirittura non desidera affatto; […] Il primo romantico cercava di provare la sua spontaneità, cioè la propria divinità, desiderando più intensamente degli altri. Il secondo romantico cerca di provare la stessa cosa, ma con mezzi opposti. […] Si tratta sempre, insomma, di convincere gli altri e soprattutto di convincere sè stessi che si è perfettamente e divinamente autonomi
[…]Dietro la fantasmagoria moderna, dietro il turbinio degli avvenimenti e delle idee, al termine dell’evoluzione sempre più rapida della mediazione interna, vi è il nulla. L’anima è giunta ad un punto morto”.
https://wordpress.com/post/lacrepaint...
January 17, 2009
To truly understand human nature, it is necessary to internalize much of what Rene Girard has written. To truly understand how human nature is expressed in literature, it is necessary to internalize this book.
April 1, 2011
" يعرض المفكّر الفرنسيّ رينيه جيرار نظريّته المتعلّقة بالرغبة المحاكية، أي بالرغبة كمحاكاة، مُعارِضاً النظرة الأوديبيّة الفرويديّة، حيث ينظر إلى الرغبة كتابعة لرغبة أخرى متأتّية من آخر، لا
نابعة من ذواتنا، حيث تستلزم وجود وسيط، أي لا تتحقّق أركانها إلاّ بتكامل الشروط الثلاثة، راغب ووسيط ومرغوب فيه، تغدو الرغبة بحدّ ذاتها غاية ووسيلة، تنشأ بالتأثّر، وتتلاشى بانتفاء
شروطها، تأخذ بذلك شكل مثلّث، يسمّيه جيرار «مثلّث الرغبة»، ولا تكون العلاقة بين الراغب والمرغوب علاقة مباشرة، بل تكون عبر الوسيط، أو النموذج: داخليّ أو خارجيّ. ويؤكّد جيرار
أنّ الأغراض التي يمكن أن تكون موضوع رغبة هي تلك التي تقبل المشاركة وتولّد بين البشر مشاعر التعاطف، بالموازاة مع تلك التي لا تقبل المشاركة، وتكون مجالاً للمنافسة المحمومة،
بالتالي تولّد الكره والبغض والحسد والغيرة، ثمّ تنتج العنف الناشئ عنها... ولا تكون الرغبات مادّيّة فقط، بل تكون هنالك رغبات ميتافيزيقيّة، كأن يكون حلماً بكمالٍ منشودٍ، وتوقاً إلى
العظمة.
ينطلق جيرار من التجريد إلى التطبيق، يعتمد في تطبيقه الإجرائيّ، وتحليله الفنّيّ والأدبيّ والفكريّ والفلسفيّ المعمّق، على أعمال كبار الروائيّين كسرفانتس وستاندل ودستويفسكي وبروست،
حيث يرى أنّ هؤلاء الروائيّين المميّزين تمكّنوا من كشف حقيقة الرغبة والوسيط، كما أظهروا الوهم الرومانسيّ الذي يغلّف الرغبة ويتعلّق باستقلاليّتها وأصالتها، ليبلغوا عبرها الحقيقة الروائيّة
الكبرى. يظهر جيرار من خلال تفكيكه وإعادة اكتشافه العلائق بين الحقائق التي تثبتها الروايات التي تطرّق إليها، والأوهام التي كانت قد انطلقت منها، منقّباً عن الدرر التي تنطوي عليها
الإبداعات المتجاوزة، يقف مطوّلاً عند قدرة الروائيّ المبدع على التحليق في عوالم فريدة، لا تقلّ روعتها الفنّيّة، وحقيقتها المثبتة عن الكذبة الرومانسيّة الكبرى التي توهِم بها...
يستعرض جيرار في تحليله أهمّ الحيل والمناورات التي تعتمدها الشخصيّات الروائيّة، والتي تندرج في إطار الفنّيّات أو التقنيّات المستخدمة من الروائيّ، أو هي من الخدع الروائيّة التي ترتكز
عبرها الحقيقة الناشئة عن وهم أو حلم أو توق... يشرح جيرار كيف أنّ الرغبة المحاكية، تغدو سبيلاً للمنافسة، ثمّ تتحوّل في شكلها التصاعديّ، بحيث لا تقف عند صورة نهائيّة ثابتة، بل
يكون التحوّل سمتها الرئيسة، لتخلق مجالاً رحباً للتنافس، بالتالي يكون الصراع من أجل الحيازة والفوز، ويكون العنف في الانتظار دوماً... قد تكون هناك حالات إعلاء للرغبة، أو تعالٍ عليها،
لكنّ الرغبة تكون أقوى من كلّ تحدٍّ، لأنّها في تفجّرها، لا تقف عند حدود بعينها، تبحث عن وسائل إرواء وإشباع، إن كان في واقع الرواية، أو في الواقع الحقيقيّ الذي يكون المنبع
والمصدر. يحلّل التحذلق بوصفه آليّة دفاعيّة وهجوميّة في آن، يأخذ على معظم النقّاد عدم اكتراثهم بـ «القوانين النفسيّة»، ينسبونها إلى نظريّات نفسيّة قديمة، ما يظنّون أنّ جوهر العبقريّة
الروائيّة كامن في الحرّيّة، بعيد من تلك القوانين. ثمّ يتنبّأ لنهاية الخيال الذي يستمدّ قوّته من الأنا وحده، لأنّ الواقع الساحر الخدّاع حين يلامس البناء الهشّ للحلم سيقوّضه لا محا��ة،
حيث إنّ الخيال يقصر عن أداء أدواره المختلفة في تشييد او بناء عوالم غرائبيّة، لا يقوم بالإيحاء والإيهام والمخادعة كما ينبغي.
يعتمد جيرار على التأويل في شكل أساسيّ في تفكيكه النصوص الكثيرة التي يعالجها، حيث يكفل التأويل بفتح المجال واسعاً أمام الاحتمالات والافتراضات والاجتهادات، يكون مسلّحاً
بعمق فسلفيّ، وثقافة موسوعيّة أنتروبولوجيّة، يجيّرها لخدمة نظريّته التي أثْرَت الفكر الأدبيّ الإنسانيّ... " **
**هيثم حسين
March 23, 2016
The basic theory of mimesis, or "imitative desire" laid out in the first 10 pages of this book is one of the most powerful and thought-provoking literary theories I've ever read. In the best tradition of revelatory theories, Girard's thesis that the lion's share of our desires, be they physical objects, sexual partners, glamour-related, or status-based, come from observing and copying the desires of others is intuitively sensible, convincingly argued, and infinitely applicable. Sometimes it takes a particular phrasing to make something click in your mind, and while the idea behind "keeping up with the Jones" is as old as the hills, the way that Girard connects the source of envy, jealousy, and hatred to both the appeal of classic literature and the petty emotions of everyday life is so elegant you'll wonder why you never thought of it in that way before. The rest of the book is a long exegesis of examples from great novels you probably haven't read, but the core insight is so valuable that it's worth powering through the rest of the book.
Given that most novels are explicitly about human desires, you would reasonably assume that novels are a good way to learn about those desires. Unfortunately, just as our own motives are typically opaque to our own reasoning, even novels that compel us are often just as mysterious. Why do we identify so strongly when "character X struggles struggles to choose between two lovers" in particular novels yet pass right by other books with seemingly similar themes? One reason is that talented writers have consciously or unconsciously discovered that imitative desire is an extremely effective way to draw readers in - we like to read about people struggling with the subterranean logic of desire because we ourselves are slaves to our passions, and hence find in those characters our own dilemmas, only much more attractively presented. Our lives are ceaseless pursuits of borrowed dreams, whose hard-fought realizations are often immediately discovered to be disappointments, and so it's on to the next new thing. Lather, rinse, repeat. "Mimesis" has been a known concept in Western thought at least since Aristotle; Girard grounds his own definition of the term in the way that people copy others, and in copying come to see the other as a rival. His analysis seems similar to Erich Auerbach's work on mimesis, except that Girard sees mimesis as much more than a purely literary device.
Attempting to build psychological theories out of literary plots, rather than the reverse process of showing how great novels adhere to established psychological models, is dangerous. Great novels typically contain many disparate elements rather than a simple unified outline, and so it's all too easy to see what you want to see, in the manner of some demented Zizek acolyte. Girard's work is similar to other "literary analysis as quasi-science" books I've read, like The Origin of Consciousness In the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, in how carefully phrased yet sweepingly grand its claims are. The book is about the operation of imitative rivalry and desire in the behavior of the characters in novels by Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Proust, and Stendahl. On the one hand this is awesome - if you happen to be writing academic papers on any of those authors, you will find a wealth of insight, with plenty of examples about how Stendahlian vanity differs from Cervantean desire, or Proustian snobbism, or Dostoevskian hatred, or Flaubertian bovarysm, etc. Girard is an enthusiastic reader who has really done his homework, and he supplies plenty of quotations to back up his assertions about Sancho Panza and so on so that you can follow along at home.
On the other hand, this kind of close reading can be less helpful for those who, like me, haven't waded through all of Proust and have to take his word that that's what Proust meant. What's nice on that score is that the writing style is remarkably clear, so kudos to translator Yvonne Freccero for avoiding any Gilles-Deleuze gibberish. I personally have an instinctive suspicion of anything with the subtitle of "Self and Other in Literary Structure", since that kind of abstract theorizing can quickly become impossible to follow, but any confusion with Girard's ideas is likely due to not having read a lot of these novels, rather than the ideas themselves being unclear. He's even clear in his wrongness: human nature being what it is, I don't think any single theory can explain everything, and so while Girard's arguments are often tremendously plausible (surely it's an inarguable fact that the ultimate source of many of our desires are our peers), it's easy to find counter-examples that have the same surface appeal.
For example, in chapter 1, Girard discusses how Don Quixote, generally considered the first modern novel, typifies the modern idea of imitative desire. "Triangular desire" (usually less salacious than its name would suggest) involves jealousy: two rivals competing for the affection of a third, or the creation of a rivalrous desire for a third object by one in the mind of the other. So far so good. But while the complex emotions of envy, frustration, and triumph that successful competition for someone else's love evokes are familiar to nearly everyone, I suspect that far fewer will fully agree that "One reaches the point of wanting the beloved to be unfaithful so that one can court her again". Wouldn't most people just chase after another, newer person rather than see their existing partner seduced? File that one under "hmm".
In chapter 2, there's a discussion of religion in Doestoevsky as it relates to the universal problem of reconciling our own seeming mental solitude with the plain fact that others are just as human as we are. Girard grandly proclaims that "Everyone thinks that he alone is condemned to hell, and that is what makes it hell", which immediately brings to mind Sartre's famous pronouncement in No Exit that "Hell is other people". Sartre's line in context is about other people's perception of you, not your perception of others, and while the two perspectives are obviously related, it's difficult to reconcile Girard's point on how your desires are copied from Others with Sartre's point about the pain of realizing that you yourself are an Other. Or something. I'll chalk it up as another instance where a great quote is merely a tool for understanding, and not understanding itself.
Perhaps my favorite example of arguable quotes in the whole book comes at the very beginning of the conclusion. "The ultimate meaning of desire is death but death is not the novel's ultimate meaning". Talk about a "well, that depends" moment! That mixture of elements is characteristic of those who approach criticism from a strongly aesthetic standpoint, loving the mixture of the irrational and paradoxical in the great novel, and indeed in great art as well, so I wasn't surprised to learn that Girard is strongly Christian. Whether you're religious or not, this is a tremendously insightful work even when it goes wrong, because as with all great works it proves its own point: I only read this book because a writer I liked mentioned it, and by reading it I hoped to gain some of that cachet by showing off my knowledge to others. How embarrassing? No: how human.
Given that most novels are explicitly about human desires, you would reasonably assume that novels are a good way to learn about those desires. Unfortunately, just as our own motives are typically opaque to our own reasoning, even novels that compel us are often just as mysterious. Why do we identify so strongly when "character X struggles struggles to choose between two lovers" in particular novels yet pass right by other books with seemingly similar themes? One reason is that talented writers have consciously or unconsciously discovered that imitative desire is an extremely effective way to draw readers in - we like to read about people struggling with the subterranean logic of desire because we ourselves are slaves to our passions, and hence find in those characters our own dilemmas, only much more attractively presented. Our lives are ceaseless pursuits of borrowed dreams, whose hard-fought realizations are often immediately discovered to be disappointments, and so it's on to the next new thing. Lather, rinse, repeat. "Mimesis" has been a known concept in Western thought at least since Aristotle; Girard grounds his own definition of the term in the way that people copy others, and in copying come to see the other as a rival. His analysis seems similar to Erich Auerbach's work on mimesis, except that Girard sees mimesis as much more than a purely literary device.
Attempting to build psychological theories out of literary plots, rather than the reverse process of showing how great novels adhere to established psychological models, is dangerous. Great novels typically contain many disparate elements rather than a simple unified outline, and so it's all too easy to see what you want to see, in the manner of some demented Zizek acolyte. Girard's work is similar to other "literary analysis as quasi-science" books I've read, like The Origin of Consciousness In the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, in how carefully phrased yet sweepingly grand its claims are. The book is about the operation of imitative rivalry and desire in the behavior of the characters in novels by Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Proust, and Stendahl. On the one hand this is awesome - if you happen to be writing academic papers on any of those authors, you will find a wealth of insight, with plenty of examples about how Stendahlian vanity differs from Cervantean desire, or Proustian snobbism, or Dostoevskian hatred, or Flaubertian bovarysm, etc. Girard is an enthusiastic reader who has really done his homework, and he supplies plenty of quotations to back up his assertions about Sancho Panza and so on so that you can follow along at home.
On the other hand, this kind of close reading can be less helpful for those who, like me, haven't waded through all of Proust and have to take his word that that's what Proust meant. What's nice on that score is that the writing style is remarkably clear, so kudos to translator Yvonne Freccero for avoiding any Gilles-Deleuze gibberish. I personally have an instinctive suspicion of anything with the subtitle of "Self and Other in Literary Structure", since that kind of abstract theorizing can quickly become impossible to follow, but any confusion with Girard's ideas is likely due to not having read a lot of these novels, rather than the ideas themselves being unclear. He's even clear in his wrongness: human nature being what it is, I don't think any single theory can explain everything, and so while Girard's arguments are often tremendously plausible (surely it's an inarguable fact that the ultimate source of many of our desires are our peers), it's easy to find counter-examples that have the same surface appeal.
For example, in chapter 1, Girard discusses how Don Quixote, generally considered the first modern novel, typifies the modern idea of imitative desire. "Triangular desire" (usually less salacious than its name would suggest) involves jealousy: two rivals competing for the affection of a third, or the creation of a rivalrous desire for a third object by one in the mind of the other. So far so good. But while the complex emotions of envy, frustration, and triumph that successful competition for someone else's love evokes are familiar to nearly everyone, I suspect that far fewer will fully agree that "One reaches the point of wanting the beloved to be unfaithful so that one can court her again". Wouldn't most people just chase after another, newer person rather than see their existing partner seduced? File that one under "hmm".
In chapter 2, there's a discussion of religion in Doestoevsky as it relates to the universal problem of reconciling our own seeming mental solitude with the plain fact that others are just as human as we are. Girard grandly proclaims that "Everyone thinks that he alone is condemned to hell, and that is what makes it hell", which immediately brings to mind Sartre's famous pronouncement in No Exit that "Hell is other people". Sartre's line in context is about other people's perception of you, not your perception of others, and while the two perspectives are obviously related, it's difficult to reconcile Girard's point on how your desires are copied from Others with Sartre's point about the pain of realizing that you yourself are an Other. Or something. I'll chalk it up as another instance where a great quote is merely a tool for understanding, and not understanding itself.
Perhaps my favorite example of arguable quotes in the whole book comes at the very beginning of the conclusion. "The ultimate meaning of desire is death but death is not the novel's ultimate meaning". Talk about a "well, that depends" moment! That mixture of elements is characteristic of those who approach criticism from a strongly aesthetic standpoint, loving the mixture of the irrational and paradoxical in the great novel, and indeed in great art as well, so I wasn't surprised to learn that Girard is strongly Christian. Whether you're religious or not, this is a tremendously insightful work even when it goes wrong, because as with all great works it proves its own point: I only read this book because a writer I liked mentioned it, and by reading it I hoped to gain some of that cachet by showing off my knowledge to others. How embarrassing? No: how human.
March 30, 2018
È un testo impegnativo e richiede una buona dimestichezza con l’opera di Stendhal, Flaubert, Dostoevskij e Proust, ma dire che è illuminante è dire poco. Il concetto di "desiderio mimetico" ha cambiato profondamente non solo il modo in cui leggo i romanzi, ma anche come mi relaziono con gli altri e con me stesso. Due sono le questioni da esplorare: i risvolti politici di questo concetto, possibilmente in un'ottica rivoluzionaria e non reazionaria (da qui a giustificare le strutture sociali che regolano-reprimono il desiderio è un attimo); e soprattutto, cosa si può fare una volta preso atto dell'ubiquità di questo meccanismo: è possibile scegliere il proprio "mediatore", o almeno indirizzarsi verso un modello "positivo"? Che margine di manovra abbiamo?
June 27, 2017
Quest'opera è la verità.
January 13, 2022
يحلّل الكاتب ما يسميّه ب"مثلث الرغبة"، من خلال تناوله لعدة روايات كبيرة. ويري أن تاريخ الروايات الكبيرة يمثل وحدةً، حيث تتمحور جميعا حول مثلث الرغبة، والرغبة الميتافيزيقية. وأن تراتب هذه الروايات يمثل تدرجا في تحولات نفس الرغبة الميتافيزيقية، تدرجا يبدأ من دون كيشوت لسرفانتس، ويصل لذروته في روايات ديستويفسكي. مارا بمدام بوفاري، الاحمر والاسود لستندال، البحث عن الزمن المفقود لبروست.0
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لا تنبع الرغبة في غرض محدد من منبع أصيل ومستقل من داخل الفرد، وإنما يستعيرها الراغبُ من شخص آخر يملك الغرض المرغوب، ويتشكل مثلث الرغبة من الراغب، غرض الرغبة، الشخص الذي يملك غرض الرغبة والذي يسمي "الوسيط". تتوجه رغبة الشخص الراغب ظاهريا إلي الغرض المرغوب، ولكن في الحقيقة فإنها تتوجه إلي الوسيط. الوسيط هو الذي يشغل الراغب في حقيقة الأمر.0
والعلاقة بين "الراغب" و "الوسيط"، والتي تتشكل خلالها الرغبة، تسمي الوساطة. والكاتب يحلل العلاقات بين شخصيات كل الروايات المذكورة تبعا لمفهوم "الوساطة".0
والوساطة (علاقة الراغب بالوسيط) نوعان: خارجية وداخلية. الوساطة الخارجية هي التي يكون فيها الوسيط شخصا بعيدا عن الراغب، شخصا أسطوريا أو من زمن آخر، مثل شخصية الفارس الاسطوري أماديس بالنسبة لدون كيشوت. يستعير دون كيشوت رغباته المحددة والمتغيرة من تصوره الأسطوري لهذا الوسيط الخارجي والبعيد. فهو يري فيه الصورة الاكمل لما يجب أن يكون عليه. والوساطة الخارجية تتميز بأنها علاقة واضحة وهادئة، يعي فيها الراغب تبعيته للوسيط، وبالتالي يصبح أكثر هدوءا وأقل قلقا إذا فاته غرض رغبة بعينه. وبتعبير "جيرار" ينشر الوسيط البعيد ضوءا بعيدا كاشفا لمساحة واسعة، ويُمكّن هذا الراغبَ، دون كيشوت، من أن يتعامل مع فشله في مغامراته بهدوء لينتقل إلي المغامرات الأخري التي تليها.0
أما الوساطة الداخلية، فهي التي يكون فيها الوسيط قريبا من الراغب، وقد يكون شبيها به ومن نفس طبقته الاجتماعية، وهي علاقة شائكة، ديناميكية وحافلة بالتناقضات. فالشخص الراغب خلالها يتعلق بغرض رغبة محدد يملكه الوسيط، يكون مدفوعا إلي هذا الغرض من البداية بالهالة التي يرسمها للوسيط كشخص "آخر" مكتمل عنه. أي أن رغبته في هذا الغرض المحدد تكون مستعارة من الوسيط أو "رغبة بحسب الآخر"، في الخطوة التالية يشعر الراغب أن الرغبة هي رغبته هو وأن الوسيط الذي يشاركه الرغبة هو عقبة في طريق رغبته، وتتشكل هنا العداوة والكراهية والحقد تجاه الوسيط. وتغطي الكراهية علي التقديس الخفي الذي يحمله الراغب تجاه الوسيط.0
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بعد التناول الظاهري للشكل الذي يتكون به مثلث الرغبة، سواء عبر الوساطة الخارجية أو الداخلية، يتناول الكاتب "الأصل الميتافيزيقي للرغبة". وميتافيزيقية الرغبة تعني أن الرغبة في أصلها رغبة واحدة أولية ومجردة، ويتم إسقاطها في تبديّات جزئية تظهر في الرغبات المحددة والمتغيرة وفي الوساطات المختلفة. فالفرد البشري يشعر بخوائه الداخلي، ويري دائما "الآخر" باعتباره أكثر اكتمالا منه، فالآخر دوما يملك ما لا نملكه. الآخر المجرد بوجه عام الذي كان يتمثل قديما في الشخصيات الأسطورية أو في الإله، ثم أصبحنا في العصور الحديثة وبعد سقوط الأساطير نُسقطه في "آخر محدد"، في وسيط داخلي يمثل لنا الآخر الذي نريد أن نكتسي بجلده ونُصبح هو.0
وبعد أن يصل الراغب إلي غرض رغبته المزعوم، بعد أن يمتلكه، يشعر بأن هذا الغرض فقد قيمته، لأنه ترك الآخر ودخل دائرة الخواء الذاتي للشخص الراغب، وهنا يحول الراغبُ رغبته إما لغرض آخر يملكه نفس الوسيط، إما لأغراض تقع في ملكية وسطاء آخرين.0
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يوجد للرغبة الموجهة لغرض محدد تبعا لوساطة محددة، عاملان: عامل مادي، وعامل ميتافيزيقي. يرتبط العامل المادي بسمات واقعية مميزة للغرض المحدد، وتكتسب تلك السمات أهمية في المراحل الأولي التي يكون فيها الراغب مازال بعد بعيدا عن الغرض المرغوب وعن الوسيط. ويرتبط العامل الميتافيزيقي بلامعقولية وعبثية ارتباط الراغب بالرغبة المحددة، وهي اللامعقولية المرتبطة بميتافيزيقية وتجريد الرغبة في شكلها الأولي. ويزداد العامل الميتافيزيقي أهمية باقتراب الراغب من غرض رغبته ومن الوسيط. وكلما قلت المسافة بين الراغب والوسيط، زاد قلق الراغب وهوسه وتعلقه اللامعقول بغرضه حتي يري غرضه غير قابل للاستبدال، لأن الغرض من هذه المسافة يكون قد فقد سماته الموضوعي�� ويكون العامل الميافيزيقي للرغبة زاد علي حساب عاملها المادي. ويظهر هذا القلق المرتبط بالاقتراب من الوسيط، وبسيادة العامل الميافيزيقي للرغبة علي العامل المادي، في روايات ديستويفسكي، والتي تمثل ذروة هذا التدرج. ففيها نجد الصراعات الجنونية بين الشخصيات دون أن تكون السمات الموضوعية للاغراض محل الصراع واضحة من الأساس. كذلك نجد تسيد العامل الميتافيزيقي علي الرغبة في هذه المسافات الحرجة من الوسيط في "البحث عن الزمن المفقود" حيث تتشكل الصراعات عبر وساطات داخلية مزدوجة ومتبادلة، في صالونات متعادية هي متشابهة في الاساس وتنتمي لنفس الطبقة، من خلال تعارضات وهمية تكتسب خلالها فروقٌ ضئيلة وتافهة دلالاتٍ مهولة.0
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يحلّل جيرار المازوخية، تبعا لما سبق، تحليلا رائعا. فالمازوخي هو شخص تراكمت أمجاده، أو بالأحري تراكم فشله. فكلما امتلك غرضَ رغبته كلما شعر بفشله. وبالتالي أصبح غرضُهُ هو أن يتعلق بوسيط قوي يمثل له عقبة هائلة لا يستطيع أن يتخطاها. فالمازوخي لا يرغب في الألم في حد ذاته، لكنه يستعذب الألم لأنه مرتبط لديه بالغرض المرغوب المستعص للأبد. إن المازوخي مثله مثل الغير مازوخيين، يبحث عما هو إلهي ومكتمل. لكنه ببصيرة أصفي من غيره يستبق عدمية الرغبات المحددة ويعلق نفسه من البداية بأغراض مستعصية بشكل أبدي.0
ويحلل النفسانيون المازوخي كشخص يرغب في الألم في حد ذاته، بآلية دفاعية منهم، يريدون من خلالها أن يجعلوا المازوخيين أشخاصا غرباء، مرضي، يرغبون فيما لا نرغب فيه نحنُ، البشرُ الأسوياء، في حين أن الرغبة التي تحركنا في الحقيقة واحدة.0
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هذا الكتاب، بصرف النظر عن مدي اعتقادي في صحة نتائجه في تحليل الرغبة، وهو الشيء الذي يتطلب مني وقفة أطول لتحديده، هو كتاب عظيم ومُلهم.0
فتحليل الرغبة وأكاذيبها صحبني لمراجعات مشرقة لاغترار بعض رغباتي وزيفها، وجعلني أرقد هادئا متأملا بصفاء ومتخففا من أكاذيب كثيرة (ساعدت كتب أخري قرأتها مؤخرا في هذه الحالة) . كما أن تحليل الروايات فيه من أجمل وأكثر التحليلات الروائية تبصرا التي قرأتها في حياتي.0
وبنيته شديدة الإحكام، فكل الاستطرادات فيه، المتمثلة في التحليلات السياسية والاجتماعية والروائية، تتبع نفس الفكرة والأسلوب، بتكثيف شديد وبدون جملة واحدة تمثل حشوا او خروجا عن فكرة الكتاب. كتاب أصيل ومتفرد بشكل ملهم.0
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لا تنبع الرغبة في غرض محدد من منبع أصيل ومستقل من داخل الفرد، وإنما يستعيرها الراغبُ من شخص آخر يملك الغرض المرغوب، ويتشكل مثلث الرغبة من الراغب، غرض الرغبة، الشخص الذي يملك غرض الرغبة والذي يسمي "الوسيط". تتوجه رغبة الشخص الراغب ظاهريا إلي الغرض المرغوب، ولكن في الحقيقة فإنها تتوجه إلي الوسيط. الوسيط هو الذي يشغل الراغب في حقيقة الأمر.0
والعلاقة بين "الراغب" و "الوسيط"، والتي تتشكل خلالها الرغبة، تسمي الوساطة. والكاتب يحلل العلاقات بين شخصيات كل الروايات المذكورة تبعا لمفهوم "الوساطة".0
والوساطة (علاقة الراغب بالوسيط) نوعان: خارجية وداخلية. الوساطة الخارجية هي التي يكون فيها الوسيط شخصا بعيدا عن الراغب، شخصا أسطوريا أو من زمن آخر، مثل شخصية الفارس الاسطوري أماديس بالنسبة لدون كيشوت. يستعير دون كيشوت رغباته المحددة والمتغيرة من تصوره الأسطوري لهذا الوسيط الخارجي والبعيد. فهو يري فيه الصورة الاكمل لما يجب أن يكون عليه. والوساطة الخارجية تتميز بأنها علاقة واضحة وهادئة، يعي فيها الراغب تبعيته للوسيط، وبالتالي يصبح أكثر هدوءا وأقل قلقا إذا فاته غرض رغبة بعينه. وبتعبير "جيرار" ينشر الوسيط البعيد ضوءا بعيدا كاشفا لمساحة واسعة، ويُمكّن هذا الراغبَ، دون كيشوت، من أن يتعامل مع فشله في مغامراته بهدوء لينتقل إلي المغامرات الأخري التي تليها.0
أما الوساطة الداخلية، فهي التي يكون فيها الوسيط قريبا من الراغب، وقد يكون شبيها به ومن نفس طبقته الاجتماعية، وهي علاقة شائكة، ديناميكية وحافلة بالتناقضات. فالشخص الراغب خلالها يتعلق بغرض رغبة محدد يملكه الوسيط، يكون مدفوعا إلي هذا الغرض من البداية بالهالة التي يرسمها للوسيط كشخص "آخر" مكتمل عنه. أي أن رغبته في هذا الغرض المحدد تكون مستعارة من الوسيط أو "رغبة بحسب الآخر"، في الخطوة التالية يشعر الراغب أن الرغبة هي رغبته هو وأن الوسيط الذي يشاركه الرغبة هو عقبة في طريق رغبته، وتتشكل هنا العداوة والكراهية والحقد تجاه الوسيط. وتغطي الكراهية علي التقديس الخفي الذي يحمله الراغب تجاه الوسيط.0
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بعد التناول الظاهري للشكل الذي يتكون به مثلث الرغبة، سواء عبر الوساطة الخارجية أو الداخلية، يتناول الكاتب "الأصل الميتافيزيقي للرغبة". وميتافيزيقية الرغبة تعني أن الرغبة في أصلها رغبة واحدة أولية ومجردة، ويتم إسقاطها في تبديّات جزئية تظهر في الرغبات المحددة والمتغيرة وفي الوساطات المختلفة. فالفرد البشري يشعر بخوائه الداخلي، ويري دائما "الآخر" باعتباره أكثر اكتمالا منه، فالآخر دوما يملك ما لا نملكه. الآخر المجرد بوجه عام الذي كان يتمثل قديما في الشخصيات الأسطورية أو في الإله، ثم أصبحنا في العصور الحديثة وبعد سقوط الأساطير نُسقطه في "آخر محدد"، في وسيط داخلي يمثل لنا الآخر الذي نريد أن نكتسي بجلده ونُصبح هو.0
وبعد أن يصل الراغب إلي غرض رغبته المزعوم، بعد أن يمتلكه، يشعر بأن هذا الغرض فقد قيمته، لأنه ترك الآخر ودخل دائرة الخواء الذاتي للشخص الراغب، وهنا يحول الراغبُ رغبته إما لغرض آخر يملكه نفس الوسيط، إما لأغراض تقع في ملكية وسطاء آخرين.0
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يوجد للرغبة الموجهة لغرض محدد تبعا لوساطة محددة، عاملان: عامل مادي، وعامل ميتافيزيقي. يرتبط العامل المادي بسمات واقعية مميزة للغرض المحدد، وتكتسب تلك السمات أهمية في المراحل الأولي التي يكون فيها الراغب مازال بعد بعيدا عن الغرض المرغوب وعن الوسيط. ويرتبط العامل الميتافيزيقي بلامعقولية وعبثية ارتباط الراغب بالرغبة المحددة، وهي اللامعقولية المرتبطة بميتافيزيقية وتجريد الرغبة في شكلها الأولي. ويزداد العامل الميتافيزيقي أهمية باقتراب الراغب من غرض رغبته ومن الوسيط. وكلما قلت المسافة بين الراغب والوسيط، زاد قلق الراغب وهوسه وتعلقه اللامعقول بغرضه حتي يري غرضه غير قابل للاستبدال، لأن الغرض من هذه المسافة يكون قد فقد سماته الموضوعي�� ويكون العامل الميافيزيقي للرغبة زاد علي حساب عاملها المادي. ويظهر هذا القلق المرتبط بالاقتراب من الوسيط، وبسيادة العامل الميافيزيقي للرغبة علي العامل المادي، في روايات ديستويفسكي، والتي تمثل ذروة هذا التدرج. ففيها نجد الصراعات الجنونية بين الشخصيات دون أن تكون السمات الموضوعية للاغراض محل الصراع واضحة من الأساس. كذلك نجد تسيد العامل الميتافيزيقي علي الرغبة في هذه المسافات الحرجة من الوسيط في "البحث عن الزمن المفقود" حيث تتشكل الصراعات عبر وساطات داخلية مزدوجة ومتبادلة، في صالونات متعادية هي متشابهة في الاساس وتنتمي لنفس الطبقة، من خلال تعارضات وهمية تكتسب خلالها فروقٌ ضئيلة وتافهة دلالاتٍ مهولة.0
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يحلّل جيرار المازوخية، تبعا لما سبق، تحليلا رائعا. فالمازوخي هو شخص تراكمت أمجاده، أو بالأحري تراكم فشله. فكلما امتلك غرضَ رغبته كلما شعر بفشله. وبالتالي أصبح غرضُهُ هو أن يتعلق بوسيط قوي يمثل له عقبة هائلة لا يستطيع أن يتخطاها. فالمازوخي لا يرغب في الألم في حد ذاته، لكنه يستعذب الألم لأنه مرتبط لديه بالغرض المرغوب المستعص للأبد. إن المازوخي مثله مثل الغير مازوخيين، يبحث عما هو إلهي ومكتمل. لكنه ببصيرة أصفي من غيره يستبق عدمية الرغبات المحددة ويعلق نفسه من البداية بأغراض مستعصية بشكل أبدي.0
ويحلل النفسانيون المازوخي كشخص يرغب في الألم في حد ذاته، بآلية دفاعية منهم، يريدون من خلالها أن يجعلوا المازوخيين أشخاصا غرباء، مرضي، يرغبون فيما لا نرغب فيه نحنُ، البشرُ الأسوياء، في حين أن الرغبة التي تحركنا في الحقيقة واحدة.0
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هذا الكتاب، بصرف النظر عن مدي اعتقادي في صحة نتائجه في تحليل الرغبة، وهو الشيء الذي يتطلب مني وقفة أطول لتحديده، هو كتاب عظيم ومُلهم.0
فتحليل الرغبة وأكاذيبها صحبني لمراجعات مشرقة لاغترار بعض رغباتي وزيفها، وجعلني أرقد هادئا متأملا بصفاء ومتخففا من أكاذيب كثيرة (ساعدت كتب أخري قرأتها مؤخرا في هذه الحالة) . كما أن تحليل الروايات فيه من أجمل وأكثر التحليلات الروائية تبصرا التي قرأتها في حياتي.0
وبنيته شديدة الإحكام، فكل الاستطرادات فيه، المتمثلة في التحليلات السياسية والاجتماعية والروائية، تتبع نفس الفكرة والأسلوب، بتكثيف شديد وبدون جملة واحدة تمثل حشوا او خروجا عن فكرة الكتاب. كتاب أصيل ومتفرد بشكل ملهم.0
October 31, 2019
Minha vida mudou lendo esse livro.
Para que não fique só nessa frase, advirto: quem veio ao livro procurando ler uma obra de crítica ou teoria literária sairá muito frustrado. Este não é um livro sobre literatura. É a gênese de uma teoria social, psicológica e espiritual sem precedentes. A literatura romanesca só foi seu veículo.
Para que não fique só nessa frase, advirto: quem veio ao livro procurando ler uma obra de crítica ou teoria literária sairá muito frustrado. Este não é um livro sobre literatura. É a gênese de uma teoria social, psicológica e espiritual sem precedentes. A literatura romanesca só foi seu veículo.
November 14, 2010
Il segreto del desiderio umano colto dai grandi romanzieri.
Al di là dell’interessante analisi delle opere di Cervantes, Dostoevskij ecc., è impressionante vedere quanto le teorie di Girard permettano di “chiarire” l’animo umano.
Al di là dell’interessante analisi delle opere di Cervantes, Dostoevskij ecc., è impressionante vedere quanto le teorie di Girard permettano di “chiarire” l’animo umano.
September 8, 2007
Profound analysis of modernity and desire.
January 9, 2013
Exceptional. I agree with previous reviewers who say that this book has changed their lives. I am extremely intrigued to read Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World.
April 28, 2019
Thorough analysis of the greatest prose writers. Basic pattern in every society: the tendency to imitate, but concealed.
February 28, 2023
Stable dream is reality
Rene Girard's wonderful book analyzing Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Proust, Cervantes and Stendhal in one book and one concept.
It deals with the phenomenon of "desire" through these five authors. It dwells on the non-spontaneous nature of desire. Desiring, for Girard, does not originate from the desiring or desired, but in a third way.
Girard has a famous theory. It's called the "triangular theory of desire". According to this theory, there is the subject in one corner of the triangle, the object in the other corner, and the mediator in the other corner. He links the formation of desire to what he calls the mediator. At this point, he argues that the nature of desire is imitation, and the 'spiritual distance' of the subject, object and mediator determines the nature of this desire formation.
He divides the novels into two as novels and romantic ones, and accepts that there is only a connection between the subject-object, and that by hiding the third corner, the novels that attribute the source of desire to the subject and the object are romantic, and the novels that do not hide the mediator are romantic.
To put it simply, if you sense an artificiality in the relations between the characters in the novel you are reading, if you see a constant behavioral fault in the characters, these works are classified as romantic. However, if the complicated behavior of the character you are reading has created an unpredictable environment and has taken over you, those books are also novels.
in Girard; Dostoevsky examines the novels of Flaubert, Proust, Cervantes and Stendhal based on the theory of triangular desire. Of course, these are the names that offer us the best of the model he mentioned. Girard calls this thing done by writers who research the imitative aspect of desire that exists in human nature as a constant mediator and reveal this in their novels, as "novelistic truth".
Rene Girard's wonderful book analyzing Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Proust, Cervantes and Stendhal in one book and one concept.
It deals with the phenomenon of "desire" through these five authors. It dwells on the non-spontaneous nature of desire. Desiring, for Girard, does not originate from the desiring or desired, but in a third way.
Girard has a famous theory. It's called the "triangular theory of desire". According to this theory, there is the subject in one corner of the triangle, the object in the other corner, and the mediator in the other corner. He links the formation of desire to what he calls the mediator. At this point, he argues that the nature of desire is imitation, and the 'spiritual distance' of the subject, object and mediator determines the nature of this desire formation.
He divides the novels into two as novels and romantic ones, and accepts that there is only a connection between the subject-object, and that by hiding the third corner, the novels that attribute the source of desire to the subject and the object are romantic, and the novels that do not hide the mediator are romantic.
To put it simply, if you sense an artificiality in the relations between the characters in the novel you are reading, if you see a constant behavioral fault in the characters, these works are classified as romantic. However, if the complicated behavior of the character you are reading has created an unpredictable environment and has taken over you, those books are also novels.
in Girard; Dostoevsky examines the novels of Flaubert, Proust, Cervantes and Stendhal based on the theory of triangular desire. Of course, these are the names that offer us the best of the model he mentioned. Girard calls this thing done by writers who research the imitative aspect of desire that exists in human nature as a constant mediator and reveal this in their novels, as "novelistic truth".
March 25, 2024
por fin
April 21, 2021
René Girard's name is now unavoidable in circles where intellectuals, sometimes dissident ones, try to understand the trajectory of an online society. Intriguingly, Girard developed the social and even religious theory for which he is now known first as a study of fiction.
Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (1961) is the French thinker's first book, published after he spent about a decade teaching French literature in the U.S. despite having initially specialized in history. This was the structuralist era, when intellectuals across disciplines redefined the objects of their inquiry as systems that cohered through the mutual differences of their internal elements, as Saussure saw language and Lévi-Strauss saw myth. Girard's theory borrows from structuralism an interest in discovering elementary components at the base of complex structures like novels and societies.
He posits, therefore, a fundamental geometric relation governing the plots of great novels: the protagonist seems to desire something (wealth, status, a lover, etc.), but in fact really desires the object through a mediator whom the protagonist wishes to emulate or usurp. Desire, then, is mimetic—in the sense of mimicry—and triangular—because it doesn't go from subject to object but from the subject through the mediator to the object. Girard's first and clearest example is Don Quixote, who learns to want what a chivalric knight wants through reading about the hero Amadis of Gaul in medieval romances; his quest is less to possess the knight's rewards than to become Amadis through this possession. Given Don Quixote’s reputation as the inaugural European novel, it's no surprise to find that the pattern continues in later fiction: Girard's main examples are the works of Stendhal, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, and Proust.
Girard, however, differs from structuralism's tendency to see human subjects as effects rather than agents of linguistic and social structures. He asserts by contrast that his exemplary novelists do passively act out a pattern but rather show us the pattern to tell us the truth about the modern world, a pattern the critic extends and clarifies:
Whereas Quixote only mimicked the books he read in the early modern period, the post-1789 heroes of Stendhal and later novelists mimic their fellow citizens (Girard calls this "internal mediation," because it's internal to the social structure, as opposed to Quixote's relation to a fictional character). Then they seek to overthrow them to enjoy what they have or become what they are, until the whole society is sucked, as in Dostoevsky's Demons, into the whirling vortex of a covetous, resentful war of all against all. Not even romantic love is spared this torments of mimetic desire, because even where a third person is absent, sex is subject to what Girard calls "double mediation," where one narcissistically loves only the image of oneself one provokes in the beloved, a glamor often achieved by the feigned indifference of "hard to get" that turns eros into a frigidly self-regarding mutual masturbation. This pretended aloofness, this refusal to own up to one's mediated desire and social dependency, is the "deceit" of Girard's title.
What is the solution to this crisis of modernity? If it was caused by deviated transcendency—the immanence of a secular and egalitarian society where people have nothing to worship but themselves in each other's eyes—than a restoration of the properly transcendent object of desire (i.e., God) should put a stop to the cycle of rivalry. To this end, Girard notes the conversions that conclude so many great novels, from Quixote's deathbed renunciation of chivalry to Raskolnikov's Christian humility. By writing the novel, the novelist purges himself of mimetic desire and arrives at a prospect where he can look at human beings as fellows rather than rivals and can write his revelation in the form of great fiction:
Yet I have two questions about Girard's philosophical or psychological thesis. First, is all desire mediated in the way Girard describes so that no genuine communion between subject and object is possible without passing through a mediator? Is there no such thing as goodness, beauty, or truth in a thing or a person that could attract me on its own merits and based on my own needs, and not on my wish to imitate and supplant a rival claimant? Great novels end when the protagonists overcome mimetic desire, often on their deathbeds, but what would a world without it look like? How does Girard even account even for his own love of Cervantes and Dostoevsky?
In this severity, Girard reminds me of two other exacting 20th-century French thinkers. First is the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu with his thesis that the aesthetic can only ever be a counter in the social game of distinction inaugurated by modernity. For Bourdieu, Flaubert invents autonomous art, whose formal marker is its flagrant linguistic artifice, to create a space in the market where the not-conventionally-productive members of the bourgeoisie can profitably convert their spiritual goods into haute couture. As in Girard, motivation tends to be extrinsic, social, and selfish. The second thinker Girard recalls for me is Simone Weil, specifically the air of Catharism—an utter refusal of the things of this world, in defiance of at least Catholic orthodoxy's injunction to appreciate God's creation—that Czesław Miłosz detected in her work. In all three intellectuals, we find an implicit judgment of the social world as a nightmare where monstrous egos devour one another for the vain glory of social, economic, or sexual primacy—and more than this, such thinkers also tend to cut off most roads out of the social nightmare, such as love or art or nature, which they unmask as further appetitive delusions. That Weil and Girard at least leave us with God is a relief, whereas a friend of mine once remarked in a discussion of Bourdieu's ideas, "Oh, if I believed all that, I'd just kill myself!"
My second question follows from the first. Mimetic desire is real in part, and we are no doubt encouraged in what we want by the people and institutions that form us; hence I read Girard because it suddenly seemed everyone else was reading him. But is it really so horrifying, always so bound to rivalry and violence? Just as Girard makes erotic love sound almost impossible since it will always partake of double mediation, he also seems to rule out benign influence or genuine tutelage. Yet it's good for a young person to want to adopt the vocation of an admired teacher—as long as it's a good vocation—and it's good for me if I read good books because a person I admire recommends them. Girard criticizes the modern ideal of individual autonomy, but stigmatizing all mimesis, as if there were any other way to become a person than by modeling oneself on other people, seems only to validate it.
To end where I began, Girard premises his social theory on a literary theory, and here too I have some questions. His principles of exclusion and inclusion to the category of great fiction seem arbitrary or at least under-defined, for one thing. While based on the old contest between romance and novel, Girard's canon is nevertheless very narrow: only five novelists make the cut, though a few asides suggest that Madame de Lafayette, Tolstoy, and Camus (but only had he lived to write better novels than his earlier Existentialist romances) might also be included. Criteria so demanding should be more clearly explained.
Furthermore, exemplifying what I've always found to be the worst trait of the critic-as-theorist, Girard is uninterested in and seemingly unable to account for features of the literature he studies if they don't obviously support his thesis—or, worse, contradict it. Where is his explanation of Cervantes's complex metafiction, of Stendhal's romantic irony as shown in his amusing mock-epigraphs to the chapters of The Red and the Black ("'She isn't pretty, she wears no rouge'—Sainte-Beuve"), of Dostoevsky's experiments with time and perspective in The Idiot, of Flaubert's straining to eliminate cliché and attain le mot juste in describing the phenomenal world? Girard barges past these curious aesthetic phenomena in his haste toward his theory of everything. While he seems to grant tremendous authority to literature in seeing the greatest works as bearers of the truth missed by every other discourse, he actually slights the literary by subordinating its particularities to a total theory.
Girard's reproof of romantic individualism is compelling given some of the exaggerated forms it's taken in the French avant-garde, but can we really be persuaded that there is no glory whatever in Don Quixote's or Julien Sorel's or Emma Bovary's doomed quest to triumph over a society too cruel or banal to appease their desires? By insisting that their longings have no legitimacy, Girard deprives their stories of tragedy—their flaws become merely faults, and sordid ones at that, rather than the shadow-side of their outsized virtues. This brings me to my final point. Many Goodreads reviewers, probably drawn to Girard for the same reasons I was, mention reading this book without having read any of the novels it critiques. (I am not wholly innocent of this either: I never went past Swann's Way in Proust, so I skimmed or skipped some of Girard's long chapter on the Recherche.) But to read literary theory without reading literature is like reading a cookbook instead of eating. Don Quixote does contain what Girard sees in it, but it contains plenty more besides, so there is every reason, if we want to understand ourselves and our societies, to read the novel before the theory of the novel.
Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (1961) is the French thinker's first book, published after he spent about a decade teaching French literature in the U.S. despite having initially specialized in history. This was the structuralist era, when intellectuals across disciplines redefined the objects of their inquiry as systems that cohered through the mutual differences of their internal elements, as Saussure saw language and Lévi-Strauss saw myth. Girard's theory borrows from structuralism an interest in discovering elementary components at the base of complex structures like novels and societies.
He posits, therefore, a fundamental geometric relation governing the plots of great novels: the protagonist seems to desire something (wealth, status, a lover, etc.), but in fact really desires the object through a mediator whom the protagonist wishes to emulate or usurp. Desire, then, is mimetic—in the sense of mimicry—and triangular—because it doesn't go from subject to object but from the subject through the mediator to the object. Girard's first and clearest example is Don Quixote, who learns to want what a chivalric knight wants through reading about the hero Amadis of Gaul in medieval romances; his quest is less to possess the knight's rewards than to become Amadis through this possession. Given Don Quixote’s reputation as the inaugural European novel, it's no surprise to find that the pattern continues in later fiction: Girard's main examples are the works of Stendhal, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, and Proust.
Girard, however, differs from structuralism's tendency to see human subjects as effects rather than agents of linguistic and social structures. He asserts by contrast that his exemplary novelists do passively act out a pattern but rather show us the pattern to tell us the truth about the modern world, a pattern the critic extends and clarifies:
A basic contention of this essay is that the great writers apprehend intuitively and concretely, through the medium of their art, if not formally, the system in which they were first imprisoned together with their contemporaries. Literary interpretation must be systematic because it is the continuation of literature. It should formalize implicit or already half-explicit systems. To maintain that criticism will never be systematic is to maintain that it will never be real knowledge.Through the great novelists, Girard articulates not just a theory of the novel but a theory of modernity. Triangular and mimetic desire is for him the deep structure of secular, egalitarian societies. Another name he gives mimetic desire is "deviated transcendency": where we used to worship the divine—this he calls "vertical transcendency"—we now worship one another in an envious idolatry of wanting what our neighbor has or wanting to become what our neighbor is (Girard labels the latter "metaphysical desire").
Whereas Quixote only mimicked the books he read in the early modern period, the post-1789 heroes of Stendhal and later novelists mimic their fellow citizens (Girard calls this "internal mediation," because it's internal to the social structure, as opposed to Quixote's relation to a fictional character). Then they seek to overthrow them to enjoy what they have or become what they are, until the whole society is sucked, as in Dostoevsky's Demons, into the whirling vortex of a covetous, resentful war of all against all. Not even romantic love is spared this torments of mimetic desire, because even where a third person is absent, sex is subject to what Girard calls "double mediation," where one narcissistically loves only the image of oneself one provokes in the beloved, a glamor often achieved by the feigned indifference of "hard to get" that turns eros into a frigidly self-regarding mutual masturbation. This pretended aloofness, this refusal to own up to one's mediated desire and social dependency, is the "deceit" of Girard's title.
What is the solution to this crisis of modernity? If it was caused by deviated transcendency—the immanence of a secular and egalitarian society where people have nothing to worship but themselves in each other's eyes—than a restoration of the properly transcendent object of desire (i.e., God) should put a stop to the cycle of rivalry. To this end, Girard notes the conversions that conclude so many great novels, from Quixote's deathbed renunciation of chivalry to Raskolnikov's Christian humility. By writing the novel, the novelist purges himself of mimetic desire and arrives at a prospect where he can look at human beings as fellows rather than rivals and can write his revelation in the form of great fiction:
The title of hero of a novel must be reserved for the character who triumphs over meta physical desire in a tragic conclusion and thus becomes capable of writing the novel.Conversion, then, doesn't require a literal turn to God—even if Girard, who aligns novelistic psychology with that of the New Testament several times in the book, distinctly implies that this will help immensely—but it does demand a transcendence of the social, a disciplined indifference to one's own differential status in relation to others. Lesser literature belongs to a category Girard derides as the "romantic," in which he includes most poetry, most 20th-century fiction, including the works of the Existentialists and the American modernists, and even the arch-realist Balzac; romantic literature does not analyze and transcend mimetic desire but only enacts it, by setting up the poet or protagonist as lonely hero confronting an indifferent society. Such a romantic illusion perpetuates the fiction of "autonomy," which Girard sees as the deceitful basis of a desire that pretends to be one's own and not that of another:
We believe that "novelistic" genius is won by a great struggle against these attitudes we have lumped together under the name "romantic'' because they all appear to us intended to maintain the illusion of spontaneous desire and of a subjectivity almost divine in its autonomy. Only slowly and with difficulty does the novelist go beyond the romantic he was at first and who refuses to die. He finally achieves this in the "novelistic" work and in that work alone.Against the avant-garde, with its interest in originality and shock, Girard memorably defends what he openly calls the "banality" of the greatest novels:
This banality of novelistic conclusions is not the local and relative banality of what used to be considered "original" and could again be given oblivion followed by a "rediscovery, and a "rehabilitation." It is the absolute banality of what is essential in Western civilization. The novelistic denouement is a reconciliation between the individual and the world, between man and the sacred. The multiple universe of passion decomposes and returns to simplicity. Novelistic conversion calls to mind the analusis of the Greeks and the Christian rebirth. In this final moment the novelist reaches the heights of Western literature; he merges with the great religious ethics and the most elevated forms of humanism, those which have chosen the least accessible part of man.Girard's relevance to the present should be obvious: social media has accelerated and automated mimetic desire so much that its users become mere vectors of advertising and propaganda as they pass on the memes they hope will make them akin to the influencers they want to be, whether the influencer is a makeup artist or the President of the United States. Girard's further argument that mediated desire leads people to lash out at their mediators by accusing them of being what they themselves are—e.g., that the snob derides the snobbery of others—also illuminates the malevolent purity spirals of "cancel culture":
The obsessed man astounds us with his clear understanding of those like himself—in other words, his rivals—and his complete inability to see himself. […] The sickest persons are always the most worried by the sickness of Others. After cursing Others, Oedipus finds he himself is guilty.The religious overtone of Girard's thought, finally, is attractive to an increasingly post-liberal intelligentsia, whether radical or reactionary, whose members seek an exit from neoliberalism's tech-enabled compulsion to contagious consumer identity and outrage. When Girard mocks Hegelians and Marxists for thinking that the end of class struggle or material inequality could possibly end human conflict, when he quotes Dostoevsky and the Gospels, he hints that the escape route from this secular catastrophe of dehumanization might not be found on the left hand or the right but rather above.
Yet I have two questions about Girard's philosophical or psychological thesis. First, is all desire mediated in the way Girard describes so that no genuine communion between subject and object is possible without passing through a mediator? Is there no such thing as goodness, beauty, or truth in a thing or a person that could attract me on its own merits and based on my own needs, and not on my wish to imitate and supplant a rival claimant? Great novels end when the protagonists overcome mimetic desire, often on their deathbeds, but what would a world without it look like? How does Girard even account even for his own love of Cervantes and Dostoevsky?
In this severity, Girard reminds me of two other exacting 20th-century French thinkers. First is the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu with his thesis that the aesthetic can only ever be a counter in the social game of distinction inaugurated by modernity. For Bourdieu, Flaubert invents autonomous art, whose formal marker is its flagrant linguistic artifice, to create a space in the market where the not-conventionally-productive members of the bourgeoisie can profitably convert their spiritual goods into haute couture. As in Girard, motivation tends to be extrinsic, social, and selfish. The second thinker Girard recalls for me is Simone Weil, specifically the air of Catharism—an utter refusal of the things of this world, in defiance of at least Catholic orthodoxy's injunction to appreciate God's creation—that Czesław Miłosz detected in her work. In all three intellectuals, we find an implicit judgment of the social world as a nightmare where monstrous egos devour one another for the vain glory of social, economic, or sexual primacy—and more than this, such thinkers also tend to cut off most roads out of the social nightmare, such as love or art or nature, which they unmask as further appetitive delusions. That Weil and Girard at least leave us with God is a relief, whereas a friend of mine once remarked in a discussion of Bourdieu's ideas, "Oh, if I believed all that, I'd just kill myself!"
My second question follows from the first. Mimetic desire is real in part, and we are no doubt encouraged in what we want by the people and institutions that form us; hence I read Girard because it suddenly seemed everyone else was reading him. But is it really so horrifying, always so bound to rivalry and violence? Just as Girard makes erotic love sound almost impossible since it will always partake of double mediation, he also seems to rule out benign influence or genuine tutelage. Yet it's good for a young person to want to adopt the vocation of an admired teacher—as long as it's a good vocation—and it's good for me if I read good books because a person I admire recommends them. Girard criticizes the modern ideal of individual autonomy, but stigmatizing all mimesis, as if there were any other way to become a person than by modeling oneself on other people, seems only to validate it.
To end where I began, Girard premises his social theory on a literary theory, and here too I have some questions. His principles of exclusion and inclusion to the category of great fiction seem arbitrary or at least under-defined, for one thing. While based on the old contest between romance and novel, Girard's canon is nevertheless very narrow: only five novelists make the cut, though a few asides suggest that Madame de Lafayette, Tolstoy, and Camus (but only had he lived to write better novels than his earlier Existentialist romances) might also be included. Criteria so demanding should be more clearly explained.
Furthermore, exemplifying what I've always found to be the worst trait of the critic-as-theorist, Girard is uninterested in and seemingly unable to account for features of the literature he studies if they don't obviously support his thesis—or, worse, contradict it. Where is his explanation of Cervantes's complex metafiction, of Stendhal's romantic irony as shown in his amusing mock-epigraphs to the chapters of The Red and the Black ("'She isn't pretty, she wears no rouge'—Sainte-Beuve"), of Dostoevsky's experiments with time and perspective in The Idiot, of Flaubert's straining to eliminate cliché and attain le mot juste in describing the phenomenal world? Girard barges past these curious aesthetic phenomena in his haste toward his theory of everything. While he seems to grant tremendous authority to literature in seeing the greatest works as bearers of the truth missed by every other discourse, he actually slights the literary by subordinating its particularities to a total theory.
Girard's reproof of romantic individualism is compelling given some of the exaggerated forms it's taken in the French avant-garde, but can we really be persuaded that there is no glory whatever in Don Quixote's or Julien Sorel's or Emma Bovary's doomed quest to triumph over a society too cruel or banal to appease their desires? By insisting that their longings have no legitimacy, Girard deprives their stories of tragedy—their flaws become merely faults, and sordid ones at that, rather than the shadow-side of their outsized virtues. This brings me to my final point. Many Goodreads reviewers, probably drawn to Girard for the same reasons I was, mention reading this book without having read any of the novels it critiques. (I am not wholly innocent of this either: I never went past Swann's Way in Proust, so I skimmed or skipped some of Girard's long chapter on the Recherche.) But to read literary theory without reading literature is like reading a cookbook instead of eating. Don Quixote does contain what Girard sees in it, but it contains plenty more besides, so there is every reason, if we want to understand ourselves and our societies, to read the novel before the theory of the novel.
February 26, 2024
Idfw his Christian reactionary bent or the right wingers who worship him, but damn can Girard close read
February 10, 2024
I attempted to read this book to get an understanding of mimetic desire and after one chapter I was left with the desire to throw this book into my Weber grill and cook a nice steak over it.
July 30, 2020
Mentira romántica, verdad novelesca: René Girard es un filósofo no tan apreciado en Latinoamérica. Quizá en España es más leído y estudiado, pero acá en el culo del mundo se lo ha dejado de lado por ser “cristiano”. Soy ateo, así que empiezo por ahí: la filiación religiosa de un autor no lo hace mejor o peor. En esta línea, Girard es genial y debería ser más leído porque su pensamiento comprende desde teoría literaria hasta teoría filosófica, con ciertas licencias que lo hacen no tan ortodoxo. Este libro esboza lo que en el futuro será la teoría mimética de Girard. Vemos algunos indicios como el deseo triangular, el deseo metafísico, el mal ontológico, el deseo mimético, estudiados a partir de obras literarias clásicas de Cervantes, Flaubert, Stendhal, Proust, Dostoievski, Camus, Sartre, entre otros. Es notoria la división entre mediador externo e interno del deseo metafísico. Asimismo, la religiosidad que quizá le inserta Girard hacia el final puede ser considerada desde el secularismo, ¡he ahí mi ateísmo! He disfrutado durante varios meses la lectura de esta obra. La recomiendo para todo aquel que esté loco por la Literatura y que guste de combinarla con un poco o mucho de Filosofía.
July 12, 2022
I found this to be simply unreadable. I've read much Girard (I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, Things Hidden.., The Scapegoat, La route antique des hommes pervers, and I'm sure another one or two I'm forgetting), in both English and French, but this work felt nigh-unbearably tedious from the moment I opened it. A big problem for me was that I've read none of the works studied carefully throughout it, aside from Don Quixote, and have zero desire to, but nearly all the text revolves around specific, minute analyses of these works.
When it comes to Girard, I recommend people read I See Satan Fall.. and La route antique des hommes pervers, which are IMO highly-developed and self-contained works that by far capture the best of his thought, while skipping his more egregious missteps. I wouldn't recommend approaching this book unless one is familiar with and interested in the novels it studies, or is particularly interested in Girard's typical style of literary analysis.
When it comes to Girard, I recommend people read I See Satan Fall.. and La route antique des hommes pervers, which are IMO highly-developed and self-contained works that by far capture the best of his thought, while skipping his more egregious missteps. I wouldn't recommend approaching this book unless one is familiar with and interested in the novels it studies, or is particularly interested in Girard's typical style of literary analysis.
December 11, 2012
Not an easy read but a seminal book in literary criticism & the beginning of Girard's formulation of what he called mimetic theory. The theory being that people imitate the desires of other people much more deeply than we copy the actions of others. What this book shows is that Girard did not invent the concept of mimetic desire or discover it; he discovered OTHER people's discovery of mimetic desire. In this book he traces this discovery in five great novelists: Cervantes, Flaubert, Stendhal, Proust & Dostoevsky. Further discussion of Girard's thought can be found on my blog "Imaginary Visions of True Peace" at bit.ly/Tqbeqw
February 19, 2022
A masterpiece of literary critique, this book will forever change how you read high literature. The main case studies of the book are the works of Cervantes, Stendhal, Dostoevsky, and Proust (in that chronological order). Girard's main thesis is that the unifying theme of all great literature is the deceitful nature of desire. His insights on how our desire has changed from ancient to modern times is revelatory, and he shows how these changes are reflected in world literature. The book can be - and has been - a great lesson to writers.
July 1, 2014
Per quanto molto interessante, a volte l'ho trovato un pochino ripetitivo, specialmente nelle parti che riguardavano Proust e Dostoevskj. Comunque l'idea del mediatore che sceglie l'oggetto del desiderio mi é piaciuta molto e con essa tutte le varie riletture dei classici presi in considerazione, a partire dal Don Chisciotte.
February 7, 2014
الكتاب جميل جدًا، استمتعت به كثيرًا. لغته وأفكاره ليست بالسهولة المتوقعة، وقراءته تتطلب بعض المعرفة ببعض الروايات والروائيين العالميين، ديستويفسكي مثلًا. أعتقد بأنني تحمست في بعض الأوقات لقراءة بعض الروايات التي ذكرها واقتبس منها
July 18, 2013
Description et analyse du désir mimétique dans la littérature de Stendhal, Dostoïevski, Proust et Flaubert.
La lecture n'est pas facile mais l'analyse est brillante. Avis aux amateurs...
La lecture n'est pas facile mais l'analyse est brillante. Avis aux amateurs...
October 17, 2007
perfect for the beach
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