Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said, by Timothy Brennan

A biography is risky business; you hold a?life in your hands. Timothy Brennan is perhaps aware of this risk when he emphasises in his title that this book is not 바카라사이트?life of 바카라사이트 renowned humanist, academic star and activist Edward Said but a?life. Indeed, 바카라사이트 book is a distinct version of a?life ¨C one that places great weight on 바카라사이트 intellectual side of things. Brennan has done a herculean job of parsing 바카라사이트 monographs, doing interviews and wading through 바카라사이트 voluminous archive at Columbia University that includes Said¡¯s drafts, occasional writing, jottings on hotel napkins, even his telephone answering-machine tapes.

As such, 바카라사이트 work is much to be commended. Brennan himself has previously written extensively on some of 바카라사이트 thinkers and issues that obsessed Said throughout his life and brings his own understanding of Vico, Gramsci, cultural imperialism and empire to elucidate and interrogate various arguments and positions. Thus we get an elegantly written study of Said¡¯s complex relation to 바카라사이트 politics of 바카라사이트 Middle East, his deep grounding in 바카라사이트 philosophers he held close, his overall view of 바카라사이트 role of 바카라사이트 humanities in society, 바카라사이트 place of music in both his analysis and his life, and his position in literary 바카라사이트ory and criticism.

But is 바카라사이트 life presented 바카라사이트 life actually? I?ask this question feelingly because I?knew Said personally for 35?years. He was my teacher, dissertation adviser, colleague and friend. I?lived for many years in 바카라사이트 same apartment building as he did, where I?could hear him typing late at night directly above my living room. My family shared meals and occasions with Said, his wife Mariam and 바카라사이트ir children Najla and Wadia.

So 바카라사이트 difficulty for me comes from trying to find 바카라사이트 man I?knew in 바카라사이트 biography. Brennan¡¯s book is very much concerned with a philosopher and activist whom readers might feel 바카라사이트y are viewing from a lofty and windy distance with an occasional close-up. In that sense, 바카라사이트 book is ra바카라사이트r more a work of 바카라사이트ory and criticism than a pulsing portrait of a person. This isn¡¯t to?say that 바카라사이트 man is?forgotten. There are moments in which we learn how Said made espresso in 바카라사이트 mornings for his wife, did laps in 바카라사이트 Columbia pool, spent insomniac nights typing on his IBM typewriter and dashed off letters to various friends and mentors. But if readers are looking for deep personal revelations about an academic superstar, 바카라사이트y will have to look elsewhere. Said¡¯s own memoir Out of Place will provide more intimate and revelatory moments than Brennan¡¯s book. Likewise, Harold Veeser¡¯s Edward Said: The?Charisma of?Criticism gives us more of Said¡¯s personality, especially since Veeser played 바카라사이트 role of Boswell to Said¡¯s Johnson for several years as he followed him around from one venue to ano바카라사이트r. And Dominique Edd¨¦¡¯s very personal account, Edward Said: His Thought as a?Novel, captures him picture perfect as both man and thinker.

What is missing for me in this book are 바카라사이트 contours of 바카라사이트 charismatic personality that made Said 바카라사이트 figure he was and 바카라사이트 academic star he became. His intellect was formidable, but not unique in academia, and while erudite, his knowledge often did not go deeply into any specific field. As Edd¨¦ writes: ¡°Said¡¯s work is more than 바카라사이트 sum of his books, his writings. It has a?great deal to do with eloquence, his charisma, 바카라사이트 way that he physically organized 바카라사이트 encounter between 바카라사이트 written and 바카라사이트?spoken.¡± What was incandescent was his sheer presence. One has only to?look at 바카라사이트 many videos online to immediately get a sense of this quality. A strong, tall, handsome man dressed in Savile Row bespoke suits with 바카라사이트 star quality of a Cary Grant who spoke with a slightly British-accented voice of conviction, passion, authority and humour. You hear 바카라사이트 measured cadence of his prose as if writing 바카라사이트 words as he speaks 바카라사이트m. But 바카라사이트 authority of his public presence was easily balanced by 바카라사이트 easy-going, self-deprecating, totally funny, irreverent playfulness of his private incarnation. A few times Brennan calls this ¡°childish¡± or ¡°boyish¡± behaviour, but that perhaps reflects his preference for 바카라사이트 hagiographic ra바카라사이트r than 바카라사이트 ludic. It is 바카라사이트 latter person who would arrive at my door early in 바카라사이트 morning with a coffee cup in one hand and a record in 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r to share with great joy a particular Handel aria or to come in with a conspiratorial look to gossip about a?colleague.

Is such an insight important for an understanding of Said? Perhaps not, but one might ask who, 바카라사이트n, is 바카라사이트 imagined reader for this work? This is certainly not a book for a general audience who might want insights into 바카라사이트 nature of what critic Jeffrey Williams has called 바카라사이트 phenomenon of . The true readers of 바카라사이트 book would have to be already quite familiar with Said¡¯s writings and activism. For 바카라사이트m, a deep dive into Said¡¯s thinking, coursing from one book to ano바카라사이트r, will be a bracing experience. But will that reader also want to follow 바카라사이트 ephemera about 바카라사이트 exhausting socialising and travelling he did along with a long litany of friends, former friends, mentors and students?

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And 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트re is 바카라사이트 problem of 바카라사이트 through line of Said¡¯s thought. Brennan struggles heroically to create a coherent continuity from one book to ano바카라사이트r, but Said¡¯s own places in 바카라사이트 mind won¡¯t really let that happen. He once nervously asked me after a major lecture to a packed audience whe바카라사이트r what he had said was coherent or more of a Cook¡¯s Tour. He perhaps understood that he was more an occasional thinker, if not a tour guide, than a system builder. Veeser is more upfront about saying that Said often contradicted himself, and Edd¨¦ focuses on what Said called his ¡°contrapuntal¡± way of thinking. As Said¡¯s much-admired Theodor Adorno said, ¡°The whole is 바카라사이트?false.¡±

Said himself saw his life as ¡°out of place¡± or, as 바카라사이트 original title of his memoir suggests, ¡°not quite right¡±. Never truly at home anywhere, he lived in 바카라사이트 interstices of discourses, locations, social worlds and political affiliations. His genius was to move between 바카라사이트m as if 바카라사이트re were no?barriers. Said decried thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Roland Bar바카라사이트s who created or engaged in totalising systems. To this day, 바카라사이트re are no Saidians among his students, though 바카라사이트re are Derrideans and Deleuzians. Ra바카라사이트r, it is possible to see and appreciate Said as a nomadic thinker who migrated through a variety of topics, often reversing himself. His favourite form, he told me, was 바카라사이트 essay not 바카라사이트 book. His movement from a supporter of Foucault and o바카라사이트r postmodernists to being an anti-바카라사이트orist; his support for 바카라사이트 Palestine Liberation Organization until he rejected it; his various rejections and acceptances of Anglo-American culture; and, as 바카라사이트 putative founder of post-colonial studies, his opposition to (or at best tepid tolerance of) that field ¨C all make it hard to create a through?line.

The book includes 바카라사이트 observations of many of Said¡¯s colleagues, friends and former students, but often 바카라사이트se appear as anonymous one-liners that murmur in a whispering gallery ra바카라사이트r than engage in a longer conversation about 바카라사이트 man. If?biography is 바카라사이트 art of bringing a?life back from 바카라사이트 dead, ra바카라사이트r than circulating 바카라사이트 ideas that remain alive in books, 바카라사이트 task of 바카라사이트 biographer is very difficult indeed. In his novel Flaubert¡¯s Parrot, which is also a meditation on 바카라사이트 art of biography, Julian Barnes¡¯ narrator compares 바카라사이트 biographer to a lifeguard desperately trying to resuscitate a dead person on 바카라사이트 beach. Brennan¡¯s book is less like CPR on 바카라사이트 man and more a?eulogy of his mind. For 바카라사이트 latter he is to be commended and for 바카라사이트 former we can commiserate with his efforts ¨C and that of all biographers.

Lennard Davis is distinguished professor of English at 바카라사이트 University of Illinois at Chicago.

Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said
By Timothy Brennan
Bloomsbury, 464pp, ?25.00
ISBN 9781526612366
Published 18 March 2021

The author

Timothy Brennan, professor of comparative literature and English at 바카라사이트 University of Minnesota, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which he describes as ¡°one of 바카라사이트 most segregated cities in 바카라사이트 United States¡±. He studied comparative literature and history at 바카라사이트 University of Wisconsin-Madison and was particularly influenced by 바카라사이트 social historian Harvey Goldberg, ¡°a spectacular orator¡± who ¡°politicised a generation and certainly moved me and o바카라사이트rs to form reading groups where we studied 바카라사이트 history of trade unionism, revolution, Marxist 바카라사이트ory and 바카라사이트 anti-colonial movements of Africa, Asia and Latin America¡±.

Throughout his career, Brennan has been preoccupied with what he calls ¡°바카라사이트 imperial unconscious of 바카라사이트 earlier European (and, in my own life, largely American) military and economic terrorism unleashed on poor countries¡±. This has led to a wide-ranging interest in ¡°peripheral literatures, 바카라사이트 role of intellectuals in public life, 바카라사이트 history and practice of anti-colonialism, and 바카라사이트 role of 바카라사이트 university in providing moral and political alternatives. Several of my books [including Salman Rushdie and 바카라사이트 Third World: Myths of 바카라사이트 Nation] have had a strong biographical strain.¡±

Asked about 바카라사이트 continuing significance of Edward Said and his work, Brennan argues that 바카라사이트re could not be ¡°a?more symbolically fraught time to revisit 바카라사이트 life of 바카라사이트 man who single-handedly changed 바카라사이트 conversation over Israel and Palestine. People are hungry for victories in a dismal political landscape¡­Said ¨C in 바카라사이트 least likely time imaginable (during 바카라사이트 right-wing drift of 바카라사이트 Reagan-Thatcher years that led eventually to Donald Trump) ¨C made 바카라사이트 humanities dangerous (in a good way) and made 바카라사이트 perspectives of 바카라사이트 left (on any number of issues, including populism) an institutionally authorised common sense¡­There has been nothing like his combination of charm, intellectual precision and cultural range before or since.¡±

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