A Dutiful Son

Book Title A Dutiful Son
Author Name Pascal Bruckner
Publishing house Dedalus Ebooks
Country – city USA
Date of issue 2015
Number of pages 176

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Description

A Dutiful Son

Pascal Bruckner’s memoir reads like a novel, a Bildungsroman which charts his journey from pious Catholic child to leading philosopher and writer on French culture.

The key figure in Bruckner’s life is his father, a virulent anti-Semite, who voluntarily went to work in Germany during the Second World War.

He is a violent man who beats his wife.

The young Bruckner soon reacts against his father and his revenge is to become his polar opposite, even to the point of being happy to be called a ‘Jewish thinker’, which he is not.

‘My father helped me to think better by thinking against him. I am his defeat.’
Despite this opposition, he remains tied to his father to the very end.

He has other ‘fathers’, men such as Sartre, Vladimir Jankélévitch and Roland Barthes who fostered his philosophical development, and describes his friendship with his ‘philosophical twin brother’, Alain Finkielkraut.

A great read for anyone interested in the 1960s, the intellectual life of France and the father and son relationship.

A Dutiful Son

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Additional information

الابن المطيع

عندما تقرأ مذكرات باسكال بروكنر كأنك تقرأ رواية فهو يرسم فيها رحلته من طفولته حتى أصبح فيلسوف وكاتب عن الثقافة الفرنسية، فقد كتب عن والده انه شديد العداء للساميين الذين ذهبوا طوعا للعمل في ألمانيا خلال الحرب العالمية الثانية. وإنه رجل عنيف كان يضرب زوجته، لذلك كان يكرهه وكان ضده لذلك أصبح نقيضا له، وأضاف أن والده قد ساعده على التفكير بشكل أفضل من خلال التفكير ضده ، فكان يفعل عكسه تماما وكان يعتقد أمه بذلك يهزمه . وعلى الرغم من هذه المعارضة، فقد قال انه لا يزال مرتبطا بوالده حتى النهاية.

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