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Markus Meckl
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Markus Meckl
To cite this article: Markus Meckl (2014) Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with
Documents, The European Legacy, 19:3, 398-399, DOI: 10.1080/10848770.2014.898951
Download by: [University Of Akureyri], [Markus Meckl] Date: 20 May 2016, At: 02:51
398 BOOK REVIEWS
In this concise, intelligent and provocative were not “anti-film” per se; indeed many
volume, an October imprint of MIT Press, Mal- avant-gardists borrowed shrewdly and heav-
colm Turvey raises a bold challenge to com- ily from mainstream narrative techniques.
monly accepted wisdom about key European While tracing the antecedents of style and
avant-garde films and filmmakers dating from imagery can be knotty (as when Turvey dis-
the 1920s. A Sarah Lawrence film professor cusses the “anti-subjectivist subjectivism” of
and editor of the October academic journal, Dada), the author’s always intelligent prose
Turvey sifts the various strands of Dadaism and is supported by lovely layouts of frame cap-
Surrealism, and examines silent film era con- tures. Scholars drawn to the avant-garde will
text and syntax, in order to locate nuance, find here an indispensable addition to the
complexity and distinctions in the ways the niche.
avant-garde—artists, musicians, photographers
Downloaded by [University Of Akureyri], [Markus Meckl] at 02:51 20 May 2016
a chronicler of the events, not their judge: “I that Nietzsche saw published, and this fact is
consider Zionist and Palestinian attitudes to reflected in the secondary literature. As Mon-
be equally comprehensible in the context of ika Langer explains in her Introduction, pre-
their respective histories and cultures” (vi). vious commentators have almost unanimously
Since no other conflict in the second half of maintained that The Gay Science lacks any
the twentieth century has drawn so much kind of sequential coherence or systematic
attention and emotion as the Arab-Israeli unity. The most common view is that the
conflict, an approach which does not judge entire book consists of a collection of apho-
but tries to understand it is already an risms that have little sequential logic and that
achievement. evidence no thematic cohesiveness whatso-
In order to understand the conflict Smith ever. As Langer notes, the most sympathetic
takes the reader on a tour de force through recent interpretations are those of Kathleen
Downloaded by [University Of Akureyri], [Markus Meckl] at 02:51 20 May 2016
the history of Palestine in the last 3,000 years, Higgins and David Allison: Higgins suggests
starting from ancient Israel and ending with that Nietzsche, with his fragmentary style,
Benjamin Netanyahu forming a coalition in “directs our thinking into specific sequences,
2009. Nearly two-thirds of the book is dedi- manipulating our experience of reflecting to
cated to the post-1948 period, following the provoke certain associations” (xii), and Alli-
creation of the State of Israel. son “contends Nietzsche intentionally made
The weak point of the book, conceived the work nondirective, to achieve ‘the exis-
as a textbook for university students, with a tential effect’ of having to ponder and
selective choice of historical documents on respond to a world with no ultimate purpose
the topic treated in each of its eleven chap- or moral absolutes” (xiii).
ters, are its sources. For example, while one Langer takes a courageous step in placing
would expect an author of the history of herself in direct opposition to the entire
French-German relations to know both tradition of interpretation. She argues that the
French and German, for a history of the aphorisms, sections, and parts of The Gay
Israeli-Arab conflict this does not seem neces- Science are interconnected, and that
sary. Smith does not use any literature from Nietzsche’s text in fact embodies a coherent
these languages, he relies almost entirely, with whole the integral unity of which can be
a few French exceptions, on English sources. revealed through “a detailed, sequential read-
ing of the entire work as it appeared in its
MARKUS MECKL second edition” (xiv). Langer maintains,
University of Akureyri, Iceland moreover, that “The Gay Science arguably
markus@unak.is has three main, interconnected themes: the
© 2014, Markus Meckl de-deification of nature, the world, morality,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10848770.2014.898951 and knowledge; the naturalization of our-
selves; and the beautification of our lives”
(xv).
Regrettably, Langer’s “sequential read-
Nietzsche’s Gay Science: Dancing Coher- ing” fails to reveal any unity in Nietzsche’s
ence. By Monika M. Langer (Hampshire, text, and even the thematic unity we might
UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), xviii + 275 expect from her mention of the “main, inter-
pp. £18.99 paper. connected themes” never appears. The struc-
ture of The Gay Science poses insuperable
As Walter Kaufmann self-consciously difficulties for such a “detailed, sequential
observed regarding Nietzsche’s writing style, reading” as that followed by Langer: Nietz-
“As soon as one attempts to penetrate beyond sche’s text contains a Preface, a Prelude con-
the clever epigrams and well turned insults to sisting of 63 poems, a First Book of 56
grasp their consequences and to coordinate aphorisms, a Second Book of 51 aphorisms, a
them, one is troubled” (Nietzsche: Philosopher, Third Book of 168 aphorisms, a Fourth Book
Psychologist, Antichrist, 3d ed. [Princeton, NJ: of 67 aphorisms, a Fifth Book of 41 apho-
Princeton University Press, 1968], 72). The risms, and an Appendix of 14 “songs.” In her
Gay Science has always proved in this regard attempt to proceed “sequentially” through this
to be the most troubling of all of his works text, from beginning to end, she obviously