Walter Benjamin is a name, a thinker that I've encountered over and over throughout my years of reading--yet, I've never read his work directly. This, then, was my first experience with the German polymath. Hannah Arendt's 51-page introduction is one of the finest introductions I've ever read-scholarly, compassionate, engaging; it is not to be skipped, though I suggest that it be read after the compendium of Benjamin's essays. Arendt sheds light on the crucial fact that Benjamin was nearly unclassifiable, especially in his lifetime. He did literary criticism but was not a literary critic; he engaged in theological discourse, but was not a theologian, etc. This (or perhaps Harry Zohn's translation) could account for what I feel to be a lack of congruence in these essays. Out of all 10 essays, I felt that I was in a jungle of thoughts, only to happen upon shining treasure once in a while. I've included some examples below. Overall, his thoughts were stimulating, though they may not last. The best of the lot were his essay on Proust and the essay on art during the age of mass-production, the latter of which I will be returning to when I concentrate on William Gaddis's The Recognitions for my dissertation.

Examples:

Unpacking My Library
- "...the mild boredom of order" (59).
- "Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the [book] collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories" (60).
- "Writers are really people who write books...because they are dissatisfied with the books which they...do not like" (61).
- A theme in this essay, as in others, is that the collector exists inside the collection; the collection possesses the collector.

The Task of the Translator
- "Languages are not strangers to one another, but are, a priori and apart from all historical relationships, interrelated in what they want to express" (72).
- "Where a text is identical with truth or dogma, where it is supposed to be the 'true language' in all its literalness and without the mediation of meaning, this text is unconditionally translatable. In such case translations are called for only because of the plurality of languages" (82).

The Image of Proust
- "...from the honeycombs of memory he built a house for the swarm of his thoughts" (203).

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
- "A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it...the distracted mass absorbs the work of art" (239).

I feel like this book is a compilation of greatest hits for Benjamin, but he writes about a lot of different things, so I don’t think it’s necessarily characteristic of all his work. I know a number of leftists who are fairly indifferent or unsympathetic to Benjamin or the Frankfurt School more broadly. Perhaps you’re more likely to find sympathetic readers among liberal academia, but I happen to love his stuff. I’m a little embarrassed how much I enjoy his writing. But I just think he’s fun to read.

I bought a used copy of this book back in February of 2020. There were only 5 known covid cases in Canada at the time, and my friend convinced me to take a trip to the Yukon to visit a mutual friend of ours who was working out in Whitehorse at the time. We bought tickets for this 6AM flight and we got to the airport at like 3:30AM or something lmao. We boarded the plane, I think boarding was delayed by an hour. We sat in the airplane for like 2 hours while it remained grounded, then they got everyone off the plane. The airline gave us food passes because of the delay (which only covered the cost of part of a sandwich). And we had to wait multiple hours for a substitute plane to arrive.

This classic Air Canada delay meant we missed our connecting flight at our transfer point in Vancouver. While we lost a day in Whitehorse, we gained half a day in Vancouver, waiting for our connecting flight. We decided to make a trek out to the city from the airport and visited a cute bougie cafe called Hunnybee (where I had some of my favourite coffee ever, I think it was roasted by Luna when we were there), and wandered around Chinatown after, stumbling into Massy Books (a completely unplanned visit to what we did not know at the time was an Indigenous-owned bookshop). The worker at the shop that day told us a story about how Samuel Beckett used to drive Andre the Giant to school. Anyway, it was at Massy that I bought a copy of Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations (my friend bought a copy of Bachelard’s Poetics of Space, on a complete whim because I mentioned in passing to them that Foucault was very influenced by Bachelard’s work in the philosophy of science). The worker also mentioned the previous owner of this copy of Illuminations was a feminist activist who was involved in publishing or something like that (I have the old blue cover one, not this new orange one, which I actually like a lot). Afterwards, we hung out at one of the rail blockades that had sprung up at the time in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders. A couple Wet’suwet’en activists spoke while we were there, as people snacked on slices of pizza and stared down cops and journalists milling around. We did eventually get to Whitehorse, very late, and our friend picked us up and brought us to his cozy little home.

I first heard of Walter Benjamin when I took an English literature course as an undergrad student. It was my first elective course I took as an engineering student, and I enjoyed the course a lot. One of the assigned readings was Benjamin’s essay "Unpacking My Library," which I recall enjoying at the time. This was not always the case for essays I was assigned to read. I still recall the thing in the essay where Benjamin confesses to not having read most of the books he owns (something I very much resonate with):

“And the non-reading of books, you will object, should be characteristic of collectors? This is news to me, you may say. It is not news at all. Experts will bear me out when I say that it is the oldest thing in the world. Suffice it to quote the answer which Anatole France gave to a philistine who admired his library and then finished with the standard question, "And you have read all these books, Monsieur France? "Not one-tenth of them. I don't suppose you use your Sevres china every day?””

There is a quote my advisor has in an old paper he wrote that is related to this problem:

“How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!”

I love this quote because it reminds me of my time in Seattle, when I was there for an academic conference, and after it was over, I wandered to different bookshops around the city, carrying books around and one of my bag straps broke. Thankfully my most recent trip to Mexico City did not involve such temptations as there were much less English language books around to buy.

Returning from this digression, the Introduction by Arendt was actually very enjoyable and interesting (I say this as someone who has mixed feelings about Arendt that generally lean less favourable):

“For from the outset the Habilitation had only been intended to call his father "to order" by supplying "evidence of public recognition" and to make him grant his son, who was in his thirties at that time, an income that was adequate and, one should add, commensurate with his social standing. At no time, not even when he had already come close to the Communists, did he doubt that despite his chronic conflicts with his parents he was entitled to such a subvention and that their demand that he "work for a living" was "unspeakable" (Briefe I, 291). When his father said later that he could not or would not increase the monthly stipend he was paying anyway, even if his son achieved the Habilitation, this naturally removed the basis of Benjamin's entire undertaking. Until his parents' death in 1930, Benjamin was able to solve the problem of his livelihood by moving back into the parental home, living there first with his family (he had a wife and a son), and after his separation-which came soon enough-by himself.

It is evident that this arrangement caused him a great deal of suffering, but it is just as evident that in all probability he never seriously considered another solution. It is also striking that despite his permanent financial trouble he managed throughout these years constantly to enlarge his library. His one attempt to deny himself this expensive passion-he visited the great auction houses the way others frequent gambling casinos-and his resolution even to sell something "in an emergency" ended with his feeling obliged to "deaden the pain of this readiness" (Briefe I, 340) by making fresh purchases; and his one demonstrable attempt to free himself from financial dependence on his family ended with the proposal that his father immediately give him "funds enabling me to buy an interest in a secondhand bookstore" (Briefe I, 191). This is the only gainful employment that Benjamin ever considered. Nothing came of it, of course.”

I loved reading Benjamin in this book expounding on literature, art, Goethe, theology, eschatology, language, translation, poetry, and all the other exalted and beautiful places his mind likes to wander towards. At risk of turning this review into a long list of quotes, I will just end with a lovely quote I enjoyed about Kafka and prayer:

“Even if Kafka did not pray—and this we do not know—he still possessed in the highest degree what Malebranche called "the natural prayer of the soul": attentiveness. And in this attentiveness he included all living creatures, as saints include them in their prayers.”

I'm not too much a fan of literary criticism, so a good chunk of these essays were uninteresting to me. I really liked the lengthy introduction by Hannah Arendt, and a couple of the literary pieces contained entertaining snippets, but it's Benjamin's philosophical writings that stand out. Both The Work of Art... and On the Concept of History, though incredibly dense, present thoughts that have complicated the way that I think of the world. These two pieces are, without a doubt, some of the best philosophy I have ever read, combining my interest in Jewish mysticism with a Marxist analysis (and critique) of society. Unfortunately, I find the Harry Zohn translations to be a bit harder to follow than the more recent one(s).

While I anticipated "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (located at the back of my version) to be my favourite essay, I worked through "Illuminations" and was more blown away by his essays on Leskov and Kafka. Benjamin's integration of theological language breathes new life into the essayistic form, or perhaps warrants their categorization as "reflections." As a result, Arendt's introduction by comparison can be described as nothing except "dead."

Some great quotations that he concludes essays with:

On Translating:
"For to some degree all great texts contain their potential translation between the lines; this is true to the highest degree of sacred writings. The interlinear version of the Scriptures is the prototype or ideal of all translation.

On Storytelling:
"The storyteller is the figure in which the righteous man encounters himself."

On Kafka:
"To do justice to the figure of Kafka in its purity and its peculiar beauty one must never lose sight of one thing: it is the purity and beauty of a failure. The circumstances of this failure are manifold. One is tempted to say: once he was certain of eventual failure, everything worked out of him en route as in a dream. There is nothing more memorable than the fervour with which kafka emphasized his failure."

مثل همیشه، موضوعاتی ناب از ذهن پردغدغه‌ی والتر بنیامین بیرون ریخته‌اند. ترجمه نیز به‌حد کافی خوب است.

Reading literary and aesthetic criticism with barely any context is a habit I've picked up in these strange times; with Illuminations, this exercise has been fairly rewarding and quite frustrating in equal measure.

I picked up this book for the famous essay on art in the age of mechanical reproduction, but I quite enjoyed reading Benjamin's reflections on book collecting; on Proust eating a cookie and stumbling upon lost time; on Brechtian theatre; on the history of storytelling told through Leskov; and on Baudelaire in the crowd . Despite not having read Leskov, Baudelaire, or Proust in any capacity; or perhaps because of it; I found the essays concerning their works and their thematic exploration of time and memory intriguing; Benjamin's essays on Kafka, on the other hand, came off as rather dated and quite hard to get through. The bigger disappointment, though, was "The Task of the Translator," which rather ironically was the one whose eloquence felt tragically lost in translation.

While I probably understood less than half of this book (and have retained even lesser), I feel humbled by Benjamin's range and touched by the way he writes, i.e. in near psychedelic meditations that reflect upon and illuminate some of the most important issues in modernist times — be it memory, art, the aesthetic politics of Fascism, history, or the principles of social democracy.

Equally deserving of praise is Hannah Arendt's brilliant introduction to this book and to the life and work of Walter Benjamin. I particularly liked the section on posthumous fame and the parallels between Benjamin and Kafka, as well as the way Arendt talks about the former's death. It was also in this essay that I found the exceptionally and historically eerie fact of

a report from Vienna dated summer 1939, saying that the local gas company had 'stopped supplying gas to Jews. The gas consumption of the jewish population involved a loss for the gas company, since the biggest consumers were the ones who did not pay their bills. The Jews used the gas especially for committing suicide'

which appeared next to a love poem in Benjamin's collection of quotations. That's one amongst things I feel both guilty and amused to have learnt through this book.

All that aside, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in theory, especially those who have more context to the subject matter than I did. I would also leave the task of assigning this book a star rating to such a reader, or to myself in the occassion I return to this book better-equipped.

Benjamin ist einer der wenigen Philosophen, die nie aus der Mode kommen und immer wieder neu entdeckt werden. Dies liegt daran, dass er insbesondere in seinen - in dieser Sammlung enthaltenen - Aphorismen vor zukunftsweisenden Ideen sprudelt. Vom Blogger bis zu Youtube nimmt er alles vor 100 Jahren vorweg. Überall wo er völlig falsch liegt baut er auf Marx'sche Wirtschaftswissenschaft. Was manchmal erstaut, ist die gedankliche Nähe zu Heidegger.

Sentimentality

I still talk about "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" 30 years after I first read it.

I don't remember it as a purely political tract, even though that is how it is all dressed up.

I think Benjamin displayed some degree of sentimentality and attachment to the original work of art. Its uniqueness, its cult value, its authenticity, its ability to "illuminate".

Ironically, the way that we relate to mechanically reproduced books now replicates this sentimentality, even though it's rare for a book to be a single surviving copy (although I bet that it happens more than we suspect).

Digital Reproduction

If Benjamin were to write his book now, it would probably be called and reconceived as "The Work of Art in the Age Of Digital Reproduction".

Everything now has the ability to be digitally replicated and available.

Even though he might have appreciated the increased access to culture (provided that you have cable), his attachment to his library parallels his appreciation of "illuminations".

I like mine too, just like I love my CD collection.

However, there are many people out there (here) who don't care for CD's and paper inserts, they just want the mp3, the music.

The Container versus the Contents

The method of reproduction is preoccupied with the container, whereas many people are now more interested in the contents.

The wine versus the bottle (I originally thought this analogy was from Nicholas Negroponte's "Being Digital". However, it might actually come from John Perry Barlow's "Selling Wine Without Bottles").

The Future of Sentimentality

Just as we have become sentimental about mechanical reproduction, I suspect that those who follow us will become sentimental about something else.

If we're lucky, it might be the verb (experiencing the act of communication) rather than the noun (the receptacle of the content).

The Message is the Message

Many of us grew up to believe that the medium is the message. One day, the message might be the message again.

I just hope that the quality of the message remains.

From "Unpacking My Library":

"I am not exaggerating when I say that to a true collector the acquisition of an old book is its rebirth. This is the childlike element which in a collector mingles with the element of old age. For children can accomplish the renewal of existence in a hundred unfailing ways. Among children, collecting is only one process of renewal; other processes are the painting of objects, the cutting out of figures, the application of decals—the whole range of childlike modes of acquisition, from touching things to giving them names."

"Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method."

"A man is more likely to return a borrowed book upon occasion than to read it."

"Nothing highlights the fascination of unpacking [one's library] more clearly than the difficulty of stopping this activity."

Walter Benjamin just had that vision to see what was underneth his subject matter. Wonderful writer who can look at each layer of whatever subject matter he's writing about. Cultural critic before there were cultural critics. Now this is a man you would like to sit down and have a glass of wine with him. Alas not here with us anymore, so the second best thing is to have a glass of wine and read this book.

I knew I had arrived when I read Benjamin.

Ugh.