An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida - Peter Salmon

Published in 2020 by Verso, London, UK; New York, NY

312 pages

ISBN: 978-1-78873-280-2

LCCN: 2020021106

LCC: B2430.D484 S275 2020

Jacques Derrida remains a contentious figure in the world of philosophy. Along with his colleague Jacques Lacan and contemporary philosophical firebrand Slavoj Zizek, Derrida’s reputation is divided among scholars. Is he a genius, a charlatan, or somewhere in between? He was certainly an intellectual rockstar (again, like Lacan and Sarte), but is this immense attention deserved? Derrida’s theory of deconstruction has been lambasted by critics as being intellectually impenetrable and contributing to our “post-truth” culture of epistemological and ethical relativism, while his disciples have developed and transformed his ideas in new and innovative ways. Those who loathe Derrida often point to him as an exemplary case of everything that’s wrong with French philosophy, while his avid fans (both in his lifetime and afterward) spend hours pouring over his incredibly dense texts, often with intimidating titles such as On Grammatology. 

These critiques are nothing new, as allegations of fraudulence surrounded him during his life and have continued after his death, even to the point of being a cliche. Regardless of what you think about the man, one thing remains certain: Derrida’s ideas have had an enormous influence on a wide array of fields over the past half-century or so, finding their way into English departments, philosophy classrooms, anthropology lectures, and film studies textbooks alike. Even so, his ideas remain obscure to almost all but the most motivated of readers, so how does one even begin to write about the life and thought of such a figure? In his 2020 book, An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida, Peter Salmon gives us a highly readable and gentle introduction to the life and philosophy of the contentious thinker. 

Overview: 

An Event Perhaps follows the life and thought of Derrida, and is organized both chronologically and thematically as it follows the development of Derrida’s philosophical project. Born in Algeria in 1930 to secular Jewish parents, Jacques (named after Jackie Coogan, the child star of Charlie Chaplin’s film The Kid) was deeply shaped by his childhood, especially the colonial French language and culture that surrounded him. Born just ten months after the death of his older brother (who was only three months old), Jacques lived in a world of the in-between. His parents strived to be a part of the French aristocracy and culture but were always treated as second class citizens, Arab Jews who, during the Second World War, were stripped of their French citizenship. Due to anti-Semitic quotas, Jackie was then expelled from school for a year, all the while being bullied and threatened due to his Jewish heritage. The first chapter sketches out more of Derrida’s upbringing, including his struggle to pass his exams, and highlights the motif of disorder and a divided sense of self that shaped Derrida. 

The second chapter follows Derrida’s time at the Paris École (ENS) where he grew obsessed with the phenomenology of Husserl and the literature of Joyce. While he struggled at the ENS (indeed, his mentor, Althusser, noted that Derrida’s dissertation was ungradable, as “it’s too difficult, too obscure,” ultimately handing it off to Foucault, who concluded, “Well, it’s either an F or an A+”) (57), Derrida eventually graduated and started his prodigious academic career. Throughout the next several chapters, Salmon follows Derrida as he confronts the dominant philosophical school of thought in France: structuralism. This put him at odds with many thinkers, such as Lacan and Foucault, as Derrida began to form the basic tenets of deconstruction. In its basic sense, deconstruction posits that anything that is constructed can ultimately be deconstructed, including words like “truth,” “God,” etc. These words are surrounded by cultural, social, and political scaffolding, and we can take these things apart, examine them, and see how these words came to possess meaning. This, importantly, does not mean that deconstruction is destructive. It does not happen from an external source. Rather, deconstruction arises from within the text, within the gaps and tensions inherent in a text, and the concept remains even after the process of deconstruction. 

Along the way, we see Derrida’s obsession with writing, both as theory and practice. While he wrote over 40 books (impressive even by today’s standards), Derrida was preoccupied with writing (and language) as an object of philosophical inquiry. This comes to a head in his work On Grammatology (detailed in Chapter 6), which Salmon notes is “a gloriously bonkers book” (127). In it, Derrida furthers his assault against structuralism, critiquing Levi-Strauss and his anthropological project as well as Rousseau's contradictions in elevating speech above writing. For Derrida, we must understand forms of writing beyond our Western conceptions, and not elevate speech over the act of writing. Here, Derrida begins to hesitantly enter the world of politics, specifically in the May 68 protests in Paris. In Chapter 7, we are given Derrida’s interactions with feminism and psychoanalysis, his friendship (which later deteriorated) with Julia Kristeva, and his strained relationship with Lacan. Speaking of strained relationships, we are also confronted with Derrida’s marital affair with 27-year-old Sylviane Agacinski, which inspired his work Postcards. We also see the tender care he provided for his former mentor Althusser, helping him seek treatment after Althusser experienced a mental breakdown and murdered his wife, Helene. 

Later on, in Chapter 8, we see Derrida’s deconstruction start to gain mainstream momentum (which is also blunter and cruder than Derrida’s original formulation). It starts to gain traction in a wide array of fields and also comes under sharper criticism by many analytic philosophers. Derrida also begins to talk more about the role of ghosts/specters and its relation to the cinema (even starring as himself in a film called Ghost Dance). During this time, the popular opinion on Derrida is becoming increasingly divided. 

In Chapter 9, Derrida makes a turn toward ethics and the law, introducing the concept of justice into his philosophy. This turn towards law and justice was precipitated by an event that would leave a lasting impact on Derrida: his arrest and brief imprisonment by the Czech government for trafficking drugs (which were planted on him). This chapter also highlights the scandal that arose after the discovery that the recently deceased Paul de Man, one of Derrida’s close friends, was a virulent Nazi and academic fraud, falsifying papers and credentials under everyone’s noses. Derrida’s defense of Paul de Man (including his insistence that the articles Paul wrote in the Nazi publications were over so over-the-top that they must have been a parody of anti-Semitic beliefs) did not help Derrida’s reputation. But through it, we see Derrida’s consistent stance of golding friendship to be a personal ethic. 

Finally, in the last chapter, we see Derrida’s theological turn, as he begins to write about concepts such as “the unconditional gift,” “forgiveness,” and “´á venir” (“to come”), as he interacts with the writings of Maimonides and Walter Benjamin. Derrida’s writing begins to become more autobiographical, and even amidst the Cambridge scandal (a group of 18 academics who wrote to The Times decrying Derrida’s work, arguing that he was not deserving of an honorary degree), keeps contemplating the roles of law and justice in the political realm, as well as attending to his dying mother. The book ends with Derrida contemplating his death, using the familiar language of ghosts and the haunting of death, as he receives his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He contemplates the concepts of mourning and time as he writes reflections on the passing of his colleagues and friends, such as Barthes, Foucault, Althusser, Lacan, Levinas, Deleuze, and Kofman. Before his death, we also see Derrida’s continual engagement with politics, especially his reaction and thoughts to 9/11, Islam, hospitality, and reconciliation. 

Commendations: 

An Event, Perhaps, above all else, serves as an exemplary introduction into the life and thought of Derrida. Not only does Salmon focus solely on Derrida’s life, but he also digs into the threads of French philosophy in the mid-late 20th century, briefly explaining these schools of thought before relating them to Derrida’s intellectual development. Salmon succinctly, yet thoroughly explain the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger, the structuralist approach of Levi-Strauss and Foucault, the psychoanalytic flavors of Lacan and Kristeva, and much more as we see how Derrida responded to these strands of philosophy that surrounded him. Yet, even with the threat of being bogged down in too much dense philosophy, Salmon still manages to interweave the narrative of Derrida’s life in a seamless and deeply engaging way. By and large, Salmon’s ability to connect these complex systems of thought and clearly explain how they influenced Derrida while also keeping the text relatively light and easily readable is quite an impressive feat. 

In many ways, by connecting the personal and the intellectual, this book reminded me of Sarah Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Cafe, which was one of my favorite reads of 2019. Like Bakewell, Salmon openly acknowledges the limitation of any biographer, as they prioritize certain events and information over others. Yet, with Salmon’s selections, he makes Derrida seem approachable, which is impressive in its own right (especially since Derrida’s work is often overwhelming and quite intimidating for beginners). While assuredly some of the finer detail of Derrida’s thought is smoothed over in the process, this work still serves not only as an accessible introduction to Derrida but to 20th-century philosophy and critical theory as well. While it is an academic book and can be rather dense in places, An Event, Perhaps helps to make Derrida much more accessible to a wider audience. I found the book hard to put down, and for an academic, biographical work, the text is vibrant and immensely fun to read. For those who just want to lightly dip their toes into Derrida’s ideas, I can think of no better starting point. 

Furthermore, one of the most interesting parts of this account is watching Derrida’s relationships with other philosophers blossom and (sometimes) crumble in the wake of perceived slights or clashes in personality. I was not aware of Derrida’s fallout with Foucault or Lacan, and it reminded me of the often petty nature of overly-dramatized feuds within academia. But even beyond the petty squabbles, we also see Derrida’s tender care for his former mentor and father-figure Althusser. While it is a tragic and tough account to read, it’s also poignantly beautiful to see how Derrida and those around him continued to care for Althusser and show him compassion, even though he had committed a horrific act in a bout of mental illness. Likewise, we also see Derrida’s foibles, such as his extramarital affair and his steadfast (and foolhardy) defense of Paul de Man. Examples like these reveal a different side of Derrida that we usually see: his humanity.

Additionally, to peek behind the curtain of my reading habits, I found that reading this work alongside John Caputo’s On Religion to be an incredibly fruitful enterprise. Derrida’s work has much to contribute to the realm of theology, and Caputo does much to wholesale lift certain ideas from Derrida while transforming and applying them to radical theology (though centered in Christianity). Confessedly, as a radical theologian myself, I find this interaction and application of Derrida’s work to theology to be wholly fascinating and worthwhile. There are many ways to integrate Derrida’s work into the radical theology and Christian framework. We see this in Caputo’s corpus of work, as well as Terry Eagleton’s critical engagement with Derrida’s concept of the “unconditional gift” in Radical Sacrifice. Instead of sparring as enemies (as the conservatives insist), there is much mutual ground to be found between postmodern theory and Christian theology (for an example that even conservatives might jive with, see the work of James K.A. Smith). Likewise, “exvangelicals” can also take a lesson from Derrida by remembering that deconstruction does not mean destruction, and is rather a critique of the metaphysics of presence. While his followers have used deconstruction in blunter and cruder ways to mixed results, Derrida’s theories are still well worth considering within communities of faith. 

Critique: 

Returning to the topic of Derrida’s humanity, despite the few examples scattered through the text, An Event, Perhaps is still largely an intellectual biography, more than a personal one. Salmon tends to err on the side of defending Derrida against almost all of his critics, which raised a red flag or two in terms of objectivity, as it paints a rather sympathetic picture of Derrida as a misunderstood figure (which is certainly true, to an extent). We get small glimpses into Derrida’s motivations and personality, primarily through traumatic events such as the death of his siblings, his expulsion from school, his arrest in Czechia, and his diagnosis with cancer. Much of Derrida’s inner life is regulated to the first chapter of his childhood, before moving on to his interactions and writings that would define his career. Beyond these tiny glances, however, we do not see much of Derrida’s personality beyond his prodigious writing and his shyness around cameras. While Salmon does a commendable job in summarizing Derrida’s thoughts and those who influence him, it always feels like Derrida, as a human being, is held at an arm's length away.

Rather than a deeply intimate portrait of his life, this work is more about the development of his thought and his interactions with those thinkers in his intellectual (and oftentimes personal) orbit. As such, for those who have no background in philosophy, particularly existentialism, structuralism, or postmodern theory, I imagine that they will probably struggle a bit with this volume. The book vacillates between narrativizing Derrida’s compelling biography and summarizing 20th-century philosophical thought, and while Salmon does a great job in balancing these elements, he can sometimes get deep into the weeds, considerably slowing down the pace of the overall narrative. Fortunately, this does not happen too often to detract from the overall flow of the book, but this occasional unevenness is still something to keep in mind as you read. 

Conclusion: 

Overall, An Event, Perhaps is a riveting and engaging intellectual biography of one of the most contentious philosophers in the 20th century. While remaining dense in some places, it is still a genuinely fun and engaging read and is one of the best books that I have read in a long time. While Derrida’s work is often hopelessly obscure, Salmon gifts us with an accessible entry point into his philosophy and thinking, rendering it approachable and engaging. As such, I highly recommend it to anyone who is even vaguely interested in learning more about Jacques Derrida and do not know where to start. I can think of few better gateways into the basics of 20th-century philosophy and deconstruction than this work, especially if you are a fan of the biographical genre. In an era of post-truth politics, Derrida’s work (along with much of French theory) has been accused of contributing to the rise of relativism and nihilism in our culture, a charge which Derrida would vehemently contest. An Event Perhaps is thus a timely work, introducing us to this philosopher, perhaps for the first time, while encouraging us to read him at his word. Derrida’s writing still haunts us to this day, as all writing does. It would serve us well to listen to the ghosts that surround us, manifesting in ink and digital keystrokes, and the lessons they have to offer us ghosts who still bodily occupy the present.