An even-handed account of the great literary critic's unlucky life,
from his birth into Berlin's Jewish upper middle class to his
suicide while in flight from the Nazis. Though he was little known
during his lifetime (1892-1940), Walter Benjamin has emerged since
the 1960s as one of the century's preeminent literary critics. The
reasons for his obscurity make him a good subject for a biography.
He was an eccentric and highly original thinker whose work was
rejected by the rigid academic establishment of his time. He was a
German Jew whose adult life coincided with the rise of fascism. And
his major writings, not all of which are available in English
(though an effort to publish them is now underway - see Benjamin,
p. 1435), remain fraught with difficulties. Brodersen's life of
Benjamin, which supersedes all previous works in both scope and
authority, is in large part an intellectual biography. Its strength
lies in the way he relates Benjamin's life (unlucky in love, failed
academic aspirations, and an antifascist outsider) to his literary
writings. Benjamin's subtle theories are lucidly explained by the
author, who teaches German literature and cultural history in Italy
at the University of Palermo. In addition, his presentation of
Benjamin's Berlin childhood breaks fresh ground in clarifying the
foundations of his thought, especially with regard to his
relationship to Judaism. And not least of all, Brodersen adds a
tantalizing element of mystery when he writes this
anti-acknowledgment: "My work received no support whatsoever from
the trustees of the Benjamin estate in Frankfurt. My numerous
requests for information and access to certain documents were all
flatly refused." He does not speculate on the archivists' motives
for concealing the materials in their care. Brodersen's book is the
best life of Benjamin we have and the best we are likely to have,
until the archives are finally opened to scholars and biographers.
(Kirkus Reviews)
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) is now generally recognized as one of
the most original and influential thinkers of this century. In
Britain and the United States in particular, he has acquired a
status unlike that of any other German philosopher, as successive
generations of readers find their own paths through the endlessly
fruitful ambiguities of his work. The conflicts and conjunctions
between Benjamin's Marxism and his messianic Judaism, between his
fascination for surrealism and his explorations of the Cabbala,
between the philosopher of language and the ever-observant flaneur
on the streets of Berlin or Paris-all these have inspired a wealth
of interpretations and critical studies. Widely acclaimed in
Germany, Momme Brodersen's Walter Benjamin is the most
comprehensive and illuminating biography of Benjamin ever
published. Not only does Brodersen provide a fuller and more
coherent account of Benjamin's nomadic career than has any previous
scholar, he also demonstrates the fallacy of the popular,
romanticized notion of his life as the sorrowful progression of a
melancholic personality. The only real tragedy, he argues, was
Benjamin's suicide at Portbou on the Franco-Spanish border in 1940.
Using previously unavailable material, Brodersen pays particular
attention to Benjamin's childhood in Berlin, to his conflicts with
his bourgeois, Jewish family, his activities in the German Youth
Movement, and the formative, irreconcilable influences of idealism,
socialism and Zionism. He gives an exceptionally vivid picture of
Benjamin's life during the Weimar Republic, of his success as a
literary critic and his work as a translator and radio journalist,
as well as of his friendships and love affairs. Finally, he follows
Benjamin's harrowing journey through exile, internment and flight,
and for the first time unravels the mysteries surrounding his
death. At the same time, Brodersen provides a fresh and lucid
presentation of Benjamin's written work, and of the extraordinary
range of his ideas and enthusiasms. Thoroughly revised and expanded
for this edition, and accompanied by more than a hundred
photographs, this biography is an essential study of the man who
himself remains an indispensable guide to the ruins and
enchantments of the twentieth century.
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