Zero Point by Slavoj Žižek

  It’s been a while since I’ve read any of Slavoj Žižek’s work一by my reckoning, 2020 when I reread Welcome to the Desert of the Real in the hopes that it would help with my Master’s thesis for some reason. I’m revisiting some of his work via this short book of essays, Zero Point, which has proved serendipitous to some of my more recent reading memories, which I’ll circle back to shortly.

Zero Point is divided essentially in two sections. The first set of essays deals primarily with the (re)rise of Donald Trump from a Marxist-psychoanalytical lens. Of the early essays, the most interesting claim I thought Žižek presented was how the purported left has fed into the rise of Trump particularly by capitalizing on his flaws. Consider, for example, how late night comedians have routinely pointed to Trump’s personal and moral flaws. They’re not wrong about their assessment, but Žižek suggests that their form of critique actually exacerbated his supporters’ feelings of identification. Essentially, the argument runs that people identify more with others’ failures than with their successes, so that by highlighting all of Trump’s flaws, people came to see him as more reflective of their interests (while that factually remains untrue). 

Some of Žižek’s claims about Trump are frustrating and run counter to “common sense” understandings of political phenomena. In particular, Žižek objects to calling Trump a fascist and instead suggests that Trump is an extreme liberal on the grounds that he prioritizes letting big business do as they please. I’m not sure I agree, especially when considered in light of Trump’s tariffs. I also find some of Žižek’s claims about the Right and Left dubious. At one point he points to what appears to me a misinterpretation of the Left. I forget if he suggests a contradiction because the Left supports both Israel-Ukraine or Palestine-Russia; whichever the combination was, I think he’s wrong on that front. In other respects, Žižek is prescient. For instance, in one essay he predicts that the United States is setting up Iran to be their next enemy and tease war. And, well, here we are.

The second and more substantial section of the book is an exploration of the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Like the conflict, the inception of this Žižek collection requires some contextualizing. In 1949, a bedouin girl between the ages of 10-15 was gang raped and murdered by twenty men in the Israeli Defence Force. In 2017, Palestinian author Adania Shibli wrote the book Minor Detail based on the event, which I read by coincidence in 2024. In 2023, Shibli was awarded the 2023 LiBeraturpreis but the Frankfurt Book Fair ceremony at which she was to be honoured was “postponed” and then canceled with the excuse to not overshadow the then-recent Hamas attack against Israel.

Žižek’s collection of essays here is a response to these events, namely because he was delivering a speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair when he was heckled and ushered offstage. That piqued my curiosity. The essay is replicated in full at the end of the book and, honestly, it’s a lot less controversial than I expected. Essentially, following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th, Žižek suggests that we ought to also consider the plight of the Palestinians. He was told that this was not the time to talk about it.

So, when is the right time to talk about it?

Arguably, Žižek essentially takes a middle-ground. He opposes antisemitism, of course. He also opposes the slaughter of Palestinians. There are some controversial claims, like how Netanyahu (whom Žižek refers to as a war criminal) wants and requires war, how he is happy to have Hamas as an enemy that justifies all his own horrors. At the core, he suggests that mutual recognition is required to move forward, but that there are factors that obscure that possibility. Paradox runs through the text: Germany reinscribes antisemitism in the unequivocal support it provides to Israel while the United Nations, precisely because they have no power and are not formally accountable, provide the hope of speaking the truth. Solutions are not forthcoming.

I appreciate that Žižek has a degree of focus in this collection, even if his usual topic-hops still crop up. What is a bit of an issue is that Žižek repeats himself across the essays, even going so far as to repeat some anecdotes word for word (e.g. the one about Biden embarrassing himself by claiming to have seen pictures of beheaded children following Hamas’ October 7th attack only for Israel to admit that no such pictures ever existed). Žižek has always had a bit of a repetitious streak; across books, including this one, he repeats the same jokes to illustrate points. The repetitiousness becomes more noticeable in a short collection. Yet, for all that repetition, there is very little by way of definitive, declarative, unambiguous conclusions. The essays do not feel actionable in the same way that more polemical texts sometimes do.

I suppose I’m also ambivalent. Žižek’s work often inspires reflection, and he’s not someone I can wholeheartedly endorse nor dismiss out of hand. His perspective is worth considering and, for a few hours’ worth of reading, Zero Point offers a reasonable, if repetitious focus. It’s contemporary and timely—a blessing and a curse for a work of philosophy. 

Happy reading!

Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra

There are times when the length of a review is a clear indicator of a reviewer’s feelings. I know from my own experience that my lengthiest reviews are the books I most adore or the books that inspire the most ire. This leaves me in an odd position for Alejandro Zambra’s Chilean Poet, a novel about which I took precisely zero notes but which I nonetheless see as essentially perfect.

Despite being published a mere four years ago (!), Chilean Poet already feels timeless, eternal, classic. It inspires a feeling I haven’t had towards contemporary novels very often, though Zadie Smith’s White Teeth comes to mind. I’m trying to identify why Zambra’s work feels like a classic already and I think it comes down to the fundamentals of novel writing just being done extremely well. Chilean Poet has a flexible, lively style that adapts itself to the purpose of scenes. The characters are all fleshed out beautifully and they feel authentic and relatable, even and especially in their flaws—at the core, they are all likable. The plot and structure provide the right balance of forward momentum whilst not abandoning the reflective interiority of the characters. There’s also something about the omniscience of the narrator that speaks to the timelessness of the tale.

It could be argued that the novel has three main characters: Gonzalo, Carla, and Vicente. Gonzalo and Carla are teenage lovers sneakily touching each other under a pancho who inevitably break up—partly because of Gonzalo’s love of poetry and Carla’s complete disinterest. Roughly six years later, the two reconnect and Gonzalo quickly and correctly deduces that Carla has a son, Vicente. The following six years are the flourishing of the trio’s domestic life, which is replete with the beauty of small moments and the quiet tragedies that undercut our bliss.

Zambra’s capacity for selection, for focus, is stunning. Each scene, even the quotidian, is critical. For instance, there’s a scene in which Gonzalo and Vicente are caught off guard by a clerk to name their bond. Awkwardly, they describe themselves as “friends” and then have a discussion about the connotations of the word step-father in different languages (stepfather in Spanish holds a diminutive). There’s a tragic moment where Carla miscarries and it sets off a sequence of events that feels (narratively satisfyingly) inevitable in the way only carefully constructed novels achieve. There’s a whole sequence in which Gonzalo reads his poems to Carla, who is unimpressed, and then plagiarizes poems from other poets, who impress her. He gets caught in a lie about publishing a book and he commits to the falsehood, which also forces him to withhold the information that destroys his relationship with Carla: he has been accepted into a PhD program in New York and it is time to leave.

Each of the characters are so distinctive and beautiful and true in all of their weird little details. Vicente, for instance, needs to be weaned off of his addiction to cat food when he’s six years old. The interiority of the characters makes them so rich and likable. Seeing their inner tensions is insightful about how people are while also being compelling in terms of the conflict. In the final movement of the book, Zambra reunites Gonzalo and Vicente after years of separation. The two discover a great deal of experiential overlap, both being passionate about poetry. In the final sequence, there’s a tension of whether the two will ultimately reconcile. There are some truly excellent lines of dialogue where they offer barbs alongside praise, and sometimes the comments are both praise and disparagement at the same time. Their fates are left ambiguous, and it feels so beautiful to see their own uncertainties emerge. The last page of the book, without ruining anything, is mischievously evasive, which gives readers a kind of uneasy optimism about their futures.

Gonzalo, Vicente, and Carla are my favourite characters. There is, however, a fourth main character—Pru. She’s an American journalist in her thirties that finds herself in Chile for a story following a messy breakup with her girlfriend. Her section gives more insight into Vicente, of course, but also she ends up on a story where she interviews all kinds of Chilean poets. Zambra has a real knack for being able to describe literary culture. Again, it’s riddled with tensions of people who like each other’s work but whose jealousy prevents them from open admiration and they pretend to read each other’s work to seem enlightened but also are trying to eschew everything in the name of a new generation of poetry. The whole culture of poetry is depicted as a bit of a farce and, like his character, it feels completely real.

I think it’s really hard to be funny in literature. Zambra, though, has great timing and great turns of phrase. There’s a playfulness to the text that gives it a light touch. The fact that the tone isn’t overly serious makes some of the dramatic moments hit that much harder. Who would have imagined that the simple act of rearranging a fridge magnet would have such a heartbreaking quality? (Incidentally, Zambra explores some translingual meditations, one of which is about how adjectives in Spanish are gendered—except for triste (sadness), implying that sadness knows no gender or bounds). 

Chilean Poet has some elements of the Künstlerroman tradition (novels that focus on the artistic development of its main character from their youth to adulthood). Think: James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or perhaps The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov. Throughout the book, we are treated to poems that the characters have written. Particularly in the final movement, the poems once again elevate the conflict and the insight into the characters. The commentary that runs alongside the poems and offers to the audience moments of such wonderful tenderness.

Against John Keats, I’d argue that beauty and truth are sometimes mutually exclusive. Not so here. The book is beautiful and true and touching. It’s gorgeous and sad and funny and moving. It had everything I would want from a genuine classic and offered, on top of that, surprise. I adored it. I hope at some point I’ll read this one again and feel the same magic and the same heartbreaking beauty the next time around.

Happy reading!

Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games by Mike Drucker

  I continue to find myself compelled to read books about video games and people reflecting on their experiences. As such, I’ve most recently read Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games by Mike Drucker. The book is exactly as it professes: it’s a collection of Drucker’s memories and experiences of games.

The tone is mostly light and jokey—Drucker is a comedian, after all—as Drucker recounts anecdotes like showing up to his crush’s house in a homemade Super Mario 3 costume. There are some overtly comedic interludes, like a series of bad summaries of famous games or mock Steam reviews. There are also some moments of surprising tenderness, too. In one chapter, Drucker tells the story of his sister having a party at their house and his video games being stolen. His dad, at this point in the book, had been continually described as distant and uncomprehending to his son’s passion for games. When Drucker cried over his stolen copy of Street Fighter 2, his dad drove him around town and spoke to store employees, putting his pride on the line and asking or begging for a discount to replace his crying son’s game.

The most powerful chapter, in my view, is the one that got the most serious. Perhaps it’s because so much of the book is written in an overtly comedic tone that when Drucker describes the loss of his friend and their connection over the game Nier Automata, it hits hard. His friend was in a horrific car accident that killed her boyfriend and left her with serious challenges for the rest of her life. She developed other health complications and passed away. Drucker juxtaposes the story of their friendship and the loss of her alongside the existential themes of Nier Automata, a game that has 26 endings and, if you get the best of them, asks you to delete your save file. It’s a game about loss that serves as a tragic partner to Drucker’s memoir.

Granted, books like this are partially nostalgia bait. When I hear Megaman, my ears perk up, when someone references Silent Hill 2 I feel that special kind of magic that brings me back to my attic bedroom in Kingston, navigating the unsettling foggy streets. I recognize that my extant interest in games draws me to books like this and it’s okay to read a bit of fluff once in a while, right?

What was kind of cool is that Mike Drucker was unknown to me before I started the book, but has actually had a pretty prolific career. It was kind of cool to hear about how his writing career took off. He wrote for Saturday Night Live, he worked for Nintendo doing localization work (so cool!), he did reviews for IGN, did stand-up comedy, worked on a few other shows, including Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and others. A surprising side effect reading about video games was getting to hear a bit more about the process of developing a career in both comedy writing and video games.

I don’t really have a ton of commentary for this one. Good Game, No Rematch is a collection of accessible, generally humorous, stories. It felt like a light read and it was a nice trip down memory lane for myself while learning about Drucker, too.

Happy reading! Insert coins to continue.