The Fate of the Self: German Writers and French Theory

Rating:
Summary: The fate of the self-indulgent
Review: Although Mr. Corngold writes with all the outward flags of intense academic prowess (the rhetoric is spot on), his book is weak in the sense that it hasn't got any really new point to make. Or rather, if a new point is being made....The book refers to all the right things, and yet seems to say nothing. Perhaps the parameters are too general. I find works like these, full of the correct discourse presented in the correct way, but without any insight, tell us more about self-indulgence of the author than about the problematic question of the self in Western discourse.

Rating:
Summary: intelligent, well-balanced
Review: Stanley Corngold's FATE OF THE SELF is an intelligent volume which, despite its age, still has quite a lot to say. Besides being one of the few books that seriously consider the connections between French and German thought, it carefully weighs existing debates and philosophical/philological legacies of the past century. The chapters on Nietzsche, on Freud as literature and on Mann's reading of Nietzsche are invaluable, and present serious contributions to the study of these authors. The overall treatment of questions of self, poetic self-presentation and presentation of selves, narration, and subjectivity, though contentious, is very provocative and should be read closely, again and again, especially given the vogues of -vogues toward which Corngold stands in careful critique. Though written over a decade and a half ago, this book remains pertinent to the evolution of debates since that time. A must for comparative literati.