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piccoline's review
5.0
Short first thoughts: Look, I really enjoy reading Badiou. For me, that's a key aspect to start with. I read a bunch of his stuff, and, though I am also quite politically sympathetic to where he's coming from, and I have learned much from him that way, I don't think I would keep reading if it weren't for the fact that, damn it, I find him fun to read. (Mostly. The math gets a little dry at times, even for me, a mathematician.)
And this is mostly quite enjoyable Badiou. He's hunting big game here, but he's also engaging with a lot of different thinkers and writers. And history too. That's another thing that I'm not sure he always gets enough credit for: he's an avid and sharp reader of others. He can engage with Kierkegaard fruitfully. And Sartre's plays, and Pessoa's poetry, and Julien Gracq's novel _The Opposing Shore_ (which I only read because it popped up here -- and it is very good).
He's quite inspiring, too. He challenges you to live, and to live for an Idea. Contrast that to the various sad excuses for life we're told to accept in this dreary and pointless and exploitative and polluted structure we inhabit? I'll take it. So read, and my it help you, too, find ways to live for an Idea, and to identify a Truth to which you can maintain your fidelity.
Note: You can probably read this without reading _Being and Event_. And it has more engagement with works of art and literature, if that's the kind of thing you enjoy. B&E definitely adds to the experience of reading this, but much of this stands on its own.
Note 2: If you *do* know some mathematics, I recommend that you sometimes jump forward to the mathematical details and then circle back to these engagements with poetry and history and battles and books. Badiou does use language that can sometimes be pretty dense. (I reject that he is being deliberately obscure, and find that criticism from others lazy and unconvincing.) But if you know some math and have looked over his derivations, I found it snapped some of the earlier discussions into place for me.
And this is mostly quite enjoyable Badiou. He's hunting big game here, but he's also engaging with a lot of different thinkers and writers. And history too. That's another thing that I'm not sure he always gets enough credit for: he's an avid and sharp reader of others. He can engage with Kierkegaard fruitfully. And Sartre's plays, and Pessoa's poetry, and Julien Gracq's novel _The Opposing Shore_ (which I only read because it popped up here -- and it is very good).
He's quite inspiring, too. He challenges you to live, and to live for an Idea. Contrast that to the various sad excuses for life we're told to accept in this dreary and pointless and exploitative and polluted structure we inhabit? I'll take it. So read, and my it help you, too, find ways to live for an Idea, and to identify a Truth to which you can maintain your fidelity.
Note: You can probably read this without reading _Being and Event_. And it has more engagement with works of art and literature, if that's the kind of thing you enjoy. B&E definitely adds to the experience of reading this, but much of this stands on its own.
Note 2: If you *do* know some mathematics, I recommend that you sometimes jump forward to the mathematical details and then circle back to these engagements with poetry and history and battles and books. Badiou does use language that can sometimes be pretty dense. (I reject that he is being deliberately obscure, and find that criticism from others lazy and unconvincing.) But if you know some math and have looked over his derivations, I found it snapped some of the earlier discussions into place for me.
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