Reviews for The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading

The average rating for The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-24 00:00:00 Sizo Deeaz The Purloined Poe is at once astonishing and frustrating. It is incredible to read Poe's "The Purloined Letter" and then watch how the story unfolds in the hands of critics like psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and deconstructionist Jacques Derrida. I've gone through the experience of reading the short story, Lacan's seminar, and Derrida's "Purveyor of Truth" twice now, and both experiences were astonishingly similar. I began reading the criticism incredulously. How can he honestly make this short story be about that? And then I finish reading each piece almost entirely convinced, suspecting some sort of conspiracy between critic and author that is at the root of this whole literature thing. It upsets me how easily I'm manipulated by these thinkers' fancy words and theories, but I am. Though I suppose it's okay that I can't keep up with one of the foundational writers of psychoanalytic literary theory and the father of deconstruction. I end up siding with Derrida, by the way. Though that may only be because he had the last word. I wish Lacan would have responded in writing. The book is frustrating because the criticism is, at times, horribly inaccessible (at the other times it's just very inaccessible). It's one of those books that, as I'm reading, I feel the need to force anyone around me to listen to a sentence, just to try to illustrate how challenging the writing is. The editors, John P. Muller and William J. Richardson, do a fairly good job of supplying materials explicating and commenting on the different texts, though I wish they would have included an overview of some more psychoanalytic terms, because I had to use other supplementary materials to understand the supplementary materials included.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-02-05 00:00:00 David Zielinski When I picked up The Purloined Poe, I expected to be given a new series of perspectives on Poe and Lacan. After the editor's introduction, however, I came to the first chapter - the text of "The Purloined Letter," which I don't feel the need to reread yet again. Skip. What comes next? Jacques Lacan's famous seminar on Poe's story, which I have read both in The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954-1955 (twice) and Écrits. Skip. The next three chapters are detailed notes on Lacan's seminar. I don't need such editorial help, thank you very much. Skip. Chapter 6 consisted of selections from Marie Bonaparte's book on Poe, which is completely nuts and only worth reading for the Schadenfraude. I first became aware of Bonaparte's book from Shoshana Felman's chapter on Poe in Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of Insight: Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture. Guess what? That chapter is reprinted here too. Skip. The third section of the book focuses on the deconstructionist response to Lacan's seminar. I started in on an uncannily familiar essay by Derrida - and yes, you guessed it, it was reprinted from The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. Skip. The chapter after that is by Barbara Johnson, a response to Derrida. I actually read that YESTERDAY in Literature and Psychoanalysis: The Question of Reading: Otherwise. Skip. Johnson's chapter is followed by an essay by Irene Harvey. I read every last word of that dull piece, but I wish now that I had skipped it. The final chapter in this section is by Jane Gallop, whose work on Lacan is simply brilliant. Sure enough, it was a reprint of a chapter from Reading Lacan. Gallop is always worth rereading, but I don't have time right now. Skip. The last section of the book is clearly an afterthought by the editors, so much so that they simply titled it "Other Readings." I liked the first piece here by Ross Chambers, but the remaining chapters are anything but groundbreaking. I read them, but they can probably be skipped. I suppose this book might be useful to someone new to this topic, but it really doesn't offer much to the more advanced reader. This is especially true if you have already read Poe, Lacan, Derrida, Johnson, Felman, and Gallop, then I strongly suggest you just, well, skip it.