Walter Benjamin. Storia di un'amicizia

A solid enough look at Benjamin's life, obviously slanted by Scholem's wish to write a slightly different kind of hagiography than Benjamin's other hagiographers. Despite the fact that Scholem only saw Benjamin once in the very productive, final seven years of his life, he would have us believe that Leggi tutto

Obviously only part of the Benjamin Saga but it is certainly an enjoyable if tragic narrative. Reading this also brings Scholem’s correspondence with Hannah Arendt to the fore. Synopsis: Scholem claims that Benjamin was always a god fearing Jew, potentially a Zionist and that it was only his pecunia Leggi tutto

Just as the title says - the story of a friendship between two brilliant intellectuals. I had to constantly remind myself that I wasn't reading the critical opinions of Benjamin and at many times I wished I was instead. But this is no fault of Scholem - it is a shortcoming of my own. I mention this

"Bene, io tocco un estremo. Un naufrago alla deriva su un relitto e che si arrampica sulla cima dell'albero ormai fradicio. Ma di lassù egli ha la possibilità di dare un segnale che lo può salvare." -Walter Benjamin, lettera a Gershom Sholem, 17 aprile 1931 (cit. a p. 361)

Interessante e frustrante na mesma medida. Apenas para fãs de Benjamin e do caráter mais místico de Benjamin. É como se WB estivesse cindido entre duas pulsões - de um lado, a secularização do mundo, promovido pelo marxismo à moda de Frankfurt; de outro, o messianismo judaico, puxado pelo Scholem. B Leggi tutto

Enjoyed this book even within my difficulty in understanding and my lack of experience and knowledge regarding Judaism and the European experience between the world wars and the journey up to the beginning of another war to end all wars. Gershom Scholem was an engaging writer who did have an underst Leggi tutto

Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem were German Jewish intellectuals who met in college and continued their friendship until Benjamin’s death. Scholem wrote this book about their relationship because he didn’t feel that a proper portrait of his friend had been written, and to dispute accounts that B Leggi tutto