British philosopher shares his affinity for the work of Nobel Prize winner
Well, it's going to be a Simon Critchley week after all. I've dredged the archives of Mark Thwaite's excellent literary website, ReadySteadyBook, and dug up an interview with Critchley published back in 2006. (The reality is that very little dredging or digging has been done: I saw the link in one of Mark's recent postings.) The interview, conducted before the release of Infinitely Demanding - A Political Ethics, offers an interesting overview of Critchley's work to date.Simon Critchley also speaks about his key influences, including Samuel Beckett and Maurice Blanchot among his favourite writers:
Mark Thwaite: Who is your favourite writer/book? What is the best thing you have read recently?Simon Critchley: Easy question. My favourite writer is Beckett and I keep going back to wallow in his work like a deep pool of dark humour or like an oxygen tank when you can’t breath in a world consumed by piety, hypocrisy and self-satisfaction. At the moment, I am reading lots of different things: Rousseau, as I have unfinished business with him; Pessoa in order to try and see how he complicates the approach to poetry I started in Things Merely Are; and I have Ibsen open on the desk at the moment and I’m trying to gather some thoughts on what I see as the uncanny background noise of Ibsen’s universe, particularly in Hedda Gabler and Ghosts.
