The call of character: Living a life worth living
In the Preface, the author Mari Ruti begins by referring to one of the "peculiarities" of the book and follows that up by outlining the three "interventions" which run throughout its pages. The peculiarity relates to the presentation of "relatively complex ideas in relatively simple language." Indeed, the double use of the adjective "relatively" in the first sentence is a perfect introduction to what follows which is the ambiguity of post modern language "in relatively simple language." The reader might ask how complex? or how simple? Well, there is no 'objective' or 'clear' answer or standard. The ambiguity of language is but an expression of the ambiguity of life. And if the reader is confused, then he or she or they are on the right track. The reader will note in square brackets my reactions to the author's relativism. The three "interventions" are all "meant to counter the manner in which the so called good life is usually discussed in our culture." Ruti later goes on to explain that this is the life of conformism, of security, of marriage, of a family with its life long commitments. It assumes that the good life is the socially prescribed life which crushes our desire, our character, our erotic impulses, which struggle against the straight jacket of the ideological impositions by Western, capitalist, consumer society. However, "self cultivation is not a matter of nurturing an essential core of being that makes us who we are, but rather of dwelling in the world in ways that allow us to add ever new layers of meaning into an identity that is always in the process of forming itself." The second "intervention" is based on the recognition that "our quest for existential equilibrium is not only largely [how large? unrealistic, but perhaps also somewhat [how much? undesirable that there may be [how often? something [what? quite hollow [to what degree? about our cultural ideal of a balanced composed, and unruffled life sometimes [how often? it is the most tormented lives [how many and to what degree? that are also the most rewarding [according to what measures?" The third intervention concerns the "almost astonishing specificity to human desire" which underlies our "attempts to actualize our character." She goes on to evoke the name of Lacan to show the reader how Lacan's thinking has influenced her "insights" contained in the book. But she recognizes the "impenetrability" of the rhetoric of those like Lacan who see such impenetrability as "a theoretical intervention in its own right" but admits to her impatience with hundreds of pages of "tortuous" prose when 25 pages of clear prose could render the same concepts understandable since such concepts "are not, in the final analysis, very difficult at all." And so her "deliberately lucid prose is my little act of heeding the call of my character, for I never feel as connected to my writing as when I adopt this style." Furthermore, she rejects another dominant feature of her field which insists "on our lack of agency and disempowerment in relation 1462 Book and Journal Reviews