My take on The Future Lasts Forever is that Althusser murdered Helene
because he could not bear what she was telling him: that he had sold out
the revolution to save the Communist Party.
His theory of history as a process without a subject is summarised in
the murder: Helene is the subject that he has to expunge from history.
She stand for the historical subject of the French working class that he
denies. His defence against culpability is to deny his subjectivity,
through the plea of insanity.
And then the miserable little pig has the nerve to complain that he has
no rights. He should have been hung. Helene is the real hero of the
book, whose voice Althusser must obliterate.
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Chris
Burford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>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.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Jim heartfield
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