La littérature française au présent. Héritage, modernité, mutations (review)

mania’s appeal. The compulsion to organize reality around an absolute springs from an understandable desire to manage the demands inherent in freedom, and may even be necessary to sustained creative efforts. However, as van Zuylen emphasizes, the misuses of obsession lead to numerous ills, including the current monomania for work. Nodding to Nietzsche’s observations on society’s derision of enjoyment for its own sake, van Zuylen underscores the fear of leisure underlying the common compulsion to stay busy and use every minute purposefully. Even if activity succeeds initially in defending against introspection and depression, it eventually provokes exhaustion and the very sense of emptiness it was intended to keep at bay. Every form of monomania that van Zuylen examines proves a double-edged sword. It promises to confer meaning on our lives, but reduces them to a set of repeated gestures; it promises to anchor our sense of self, but only if that self exists in isolation; it promises coherence, but destroys everything that falls outside its plan. That is the unsettling upshot of our longing for absolutes that van Zuylen so wisely takes to task in her elegant, insightful, and eminently rewarding book.