Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (European Perspectives) (European Perspectives Series)

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However, I would quite appreciate anybody to respond with a summary of anything interesting in this book, as I found very little; and I'm very intrigued to find this book got such a high rating from so many readers. If you are horrified at the thought of wearing clothes your mother picked out for you, telling your father about your sex life, and living once again in your childhood home, it’s because you have differentiated yourself. Julia Kristeva's Powers of Horror , which theorizes the notion of the 'abject' in a series of blisteringly insightful analyses, is as relevant, as necessary, and as courageous today as it seemed in 1984. The only real downside to this book is that reading it requires you to translate every damn thing from Freud to Makes-Sense.

Religion, according to Kristevea, is a natural response to the abject, for if one truly experiences the abject, they are prone to engage in all manners of perverse and anti-social behaviors. She explores how art and religion each offer ways of purifying the abject, arguing that amid abjection, boundaries between subject and object break down.Once these items are outside of the body, they are abject due to the threat they pose to the “full” or “complete” subject. You would have the same trouble if you watched someone else expel their spit into a glass and tried to drink that. Then she flushes that idea with a chapter of Lacanian jargon, pretty much the sole academic vocabulary that just reads in my mind as "Bullshit bullshit bullshit. But you'll more than likely be goaded into a second reading anyway by Kristeva's fucking gorgeous writing.

An essential read for those interested in exploring the darker and more unsettling aspects of the human condition. To be clear: there's a high amount of Makes-Sense in this book, but it requires you to read each instance of the word "phallus," for example, as "concept of the law," etc.There were too many instances where the translation was repetitive, felt embellished and was just plain wordy.