Scholar's Life

William Marx holds the Chair of Comparative Literature at the College de France.

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'It would be tempting to regard Marx's book as an equivalent record of a vanishing phenomenon, and indeed he refers to Freud as one of the last "men of letters" in Western culture. Melancholy is, of course, a condition to which scholars are especially prone (as discussed in the chapter on the subject), and an existential consequence of devoting one's life to the temporary resurrection of a lost past. But Marx's own learning, while lightly worn as decorum requires, is clearly the fruit of such devotion. This excellent, hugely informative book makes a quietly eloquent and timely case against the culture of a fundamentalism that looks set to provide limitless access to books, but threatens to destroy the conditions that create the people who know how to read them.' - Ann Jefferson, The Times Literary Supplement