Legacies of anti-semitism in France

These four essays - on Blanchot, Lacan, Giraudoux, and Gide - have as their focus the barely imaginable coherence which the writings of four major contemporaries take on when read in the light of France's pre-World War II heritage of anti-Jewish thought. As the essays delve into such crucial topics as the inaugural silence in Blanchot's sense of literature, the "style" of Lacan, Giradoux's relation to Racine, and the sexual politics of Gide, they engage a realm that at times seems, or seemed, anti-Semetic in its essence. Negotiating the complex ramifications of a lost tradition and the structure of its obliteration, Jeffrey Mehlman, in his conclusion, speculates on the emblematic value of Walter Benjamin's perpetually deferred "journey to Palestine via France" and its import for textual interpretation. --publisher description.