when discussing plato (whose writings he had spent his life studying and teaching) derrida would always say that reading him was “always before me”, a task yet to be done, never one having been accomplished.

this article gives us (for whom familiarity has bred, if not outright contempt, certainly and unshockable complacency) a way of reading the text and having the text read us. it enables us to be shocked by the loose ends we always supposed were neatly tied. to be confounded, offended, challenged, changed.

as many more eloquent have noted before: scripture is not written as propositional statements, but (to borrow from martin amis) in “the slippery language of story”.

shane magee

director: fake

w: fakerepublic.com