The Parallax View Book

Zizek reminds us, on nearly every page, that he's read Hegel. That much must be certain. I even assume he's read Hegel multiple times. And by Hegel, I mean Hegel, the Hegel-est of Hegels, or perhaps I am conjuring up a Big-Hegel-Other by invoking his name to represent the body of work. Not only has Zizek read Hegel, but very few people have read Hegel other than Zizek. What they read instead was, probably, l'objet petit H, which is precisely Hegel's point anyway (weren't you listening?). Of course, the average Hegel reader wouldn't know that -- Zizek, on the other hand, does.

I was told that this would be the most comfortable introduction into Zizek, but no, sorry, I don't know what he's talking about half the time. I almost do better when he doesn't define his terms. Anything Lacanian is expected to either be absorbed through context or through example, i.e. "it's just like this anecdote, or this short story, this piece of music, this historical event, this movie, this artistic sub-genre, this political figure, this..."

That's not to say it's not smart, or I didn't get anything out of it, because I got a lot out of it, and I am happy to have read it. But at the present time, I'm not sympathetic to what my professor would call "sexy" Hegel, this nouveau Hegel that seems to be have been lifted wholecloth from the Hegel of yore. On the other hand, I am sympathetic to what Zizek writes about and attributes to nouveau Hegel. Perhaps, as he is wont to say, Hegel wasn't Hegelian enough. Regardless, it's clear to me that the world still hasn't seen enough Hegel. Hegel is here, here to stay.