Читать книгу Deconstruction Is/In America - Anselm Haverkamp - Страница 14

1. Trans. Nicholas Royle, in Jacques Derrida, Acts of Literature, ed. Derek Attridge (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 419.

2. “The fourth reason is that of a singular circle, one which is ‘logical’ or ‘vicious’ in appearance only. In order to speak of ‘deconstruction in America,’ one would have to claim to know what one is talking about, and first of all what is meant or defined by the word ‘America.’ Just what is America in this context? Were I not so frequently associated with this adventure of deconstruction, I would risk, with a smile, the following hypothesis: America is deconstruction [I’ Amerique, mais c’est la deconstruction]. In this hypothesis, America would be the proper name of deconstruction in progress, its family name, its toponymy, its language and its place, its principal residence. And how could we define the United States today without integrating the following into the description: It is that historical space which today, in all its dimensions and through all its power plays, reveals itself as being undeniably the most sensitive, receptive, or responsive space of all to the themes and effects of deconstructon. Since such a space represents and stages, in this respect, the greatest concentration in the world, one could not define it without at least including this symptom (if we can even speak of symptoms) in its definition. In the war that rages over the subject of deconstruction, there is no front; ther are no fronts. But if there were, they would all pass through the United States. They would define the lot, and, in truth, the partition of America. But we have learned from ‘Deconstruction’ to suspend these always hasty attributions of proper names. My hypothesis must thus be abandoned. No, ‘deconstruction’ is not a proper name, nor is America the proper name of deconstruction. Let us say instead: deconstruction and America are two open sets which intersect partially according to an allegorico-metonymic figure. In this fiction of truth, ‘America’ woud be the title of a new novel on the history of deconstruction and the deconstruction of history” (Memoires for Paul de Man, rev. ed. [New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), pp. 17–18.

3. Since then, this reading has become a book. It will appear this year in France and next year in the United States. Once again Peggy Kamuf did me the favor of translating it, a favor I will never be able to match with my gratitude.

4. Le pas au-delà (Paris: Gallimard, 1973), p.107.

5. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1967), p.60.