Do you know of Althusser's book, "The Future Lasts Forever" (The New Press
New York 1993)
I picked it up second hand because I thought I ought to be able to read his
account of the death of Hélène, but it looked a big read to be able to have
an informed opinion, and I have not got into it.
In a way it is not relevant to the psychosocial relevance of his
interpretation of marxism, since I do not see that he can be accused of
bringing sadistic perspectives to political practice. Depressive ones,
possibly.
Do you know of any serious opinions on this book, or have any yourself?
How has the Rethinking Marxism group dealt with it?
I append the Amazon reviews
Chris
__________________________________
Book Description
The Future Lasts Forever is the famous French philosopher Louis Althusser's
memoir written during his years of confinement in a mental hospital after
murdering his wife. Reminiscent to many readers of Strindberg's Diary of a
Madman and Styron's Darkness Visible, The Future Lasts Forever is a
profound yet subtle exercise in documenting madness from the inside. This
paperback edition also includes Althusser's earlier autobiographical essay
"The Facts," as well as a preface by Douglas Johnson, Emeritus Professor of
French at London University.
Synopsis
On November 16, 1980, Louis Althusser, while massaging his wife's neck,
discovered that he had strangled her. The world-renowned French philosopher
was immediately confined to an insane asylum where he authored this
memoir--a profound yet subtle exercise in documenting madness from the
inside.
Reviews
Los Angeles Times Book Review
Chilling. . . What Althusser proves in The Future Lasts Forever is
that in addition to his talents for theoretical work, he had a real
genius for storytelling. . . As a reader I had the uncanny feeling
of inhabiting Althusser1s thoughts; repulsed and fascinated by him,
as he was by himself, I was terrified and compelled to read on.
Booknews, Inc., May 1, 1995
The memoir of one of the most influential French thinkers of the post- war
period, written while he spent the last decade of his life in an asylum for
murdering his wife. An introduction puts the memoir in historical and
biographical context.
>From Kirkus Reviews , November 15, 1993
In a curiously lucid and compelling narrative, Althusser (1918-90), a
distinguished neo-Marxist French intellectual, explains his life,
philosophical career, politics, recurrent depressions, and therapies--and
how, on the morning of November 16, 1980, he discovered that he'd strangled
H‚lŠne, his wife and companion of 30 years. Having murdered the one person
he could relate to--and on whom he totally depended--Althusser was
confined, in spite of public outrage, to an insane asylum, deprived by his
mental condition of a public trial and defense. Was he sleepwalking when he
killed H‚lŠne, as Douglas Johnson improbably claims in an introduction? Was
he acting on his wife's wishes, as Althusser says at one point, or was he
in an ``intense and unforeseeable state of mental confusion,'' perhaps
caused by antidepressants, as he claims at another? The motive is
uncertain, but about Althusser's depressions there's no confusion: As he
sees it, he spent the major part of his life--spawned by a missing father
and an emotionally castrating mother--fathering himself (through
philosophy) and fulfilling his mother's desires. Althusser traces a bizarre
emotional choreography of alternating compliance and rebellion, seeing his
immensely influential philosophy as a working out of childhood problems,
with a subsequent fear of exposure as a fraud. He met H‚lŠne, eight years
his senior, when he was nearly 30, and recently released from German prison
camp. She became the first woman he would ever kiss, initiating a
tumultuous sado-masochistic relationship between them. Meanwhile, leading
French thinkers--Foucault, Lacan, Derrida- -briefly appear in the text, but
Althusser, insulated by his self- preoccupation and misery, reveals little
about them or the intellectual ferment of his times. A disturbing,
demanding memoir that illustrates the alliance of genius and madness, the
delusive clarity of which the insane are capable, and the enormous
influence they can acquire over the thinking of others. -- Copyright ©1993,
Kirkus
Chicago Tribune: Spellbinding.
Voice Literary Supplement: Harrowing.
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
