Book!

My advance copies of Zizek's Politics arrived today. Apparently, books will be in the warehouse in two weeks.

It's weird. On the one hand, I'm happy to have the book out. On the other, I feel a kind of pit in my stomach, anxiety over the book's appearing. Somehow, the appearance of this book makes me feel more exposed than I have with other books and articles. It may be that this sick feeling is linked to the difficulties during copyediting, a process that was more complicated than usual because I had to make a bunch of alterations after Parallax View appeared.

The sick feeling was confirmed and heightened just now when I discovered that the last sentence of the book makes no sense (a word is missing or one word should be changed), that there is a mistake in it. The mistake is, of course, mine. But I wish I had caught it.  Or that one of the various copyeditors had. Oh god, this makes me feel so completely ill. I'm afraid of looking through it and finding more errors.

Comments

[McKenzie Wark]

There's always a typo or two. The good thing is you have a book out on SZ that is so up to date!

[Kaj]

It really sucks that the mistake had to be in the crucial last sentence. What if Marx had written “Techno dancers of the world unite,” or something? The consequences could have been disastrous…

Don’t worry; I’m sure it’s a fine book. Congratulations!

[Jodi]

Thanks Ken, Thanks Kai. Kai--I agree; having the mistake in the last sentence really does suck. It also marks how terrible I am with conclusions. Generally, I give drafts of stuff to friends who always say, fine but where is the conclusion? Then I pathetically tack on something, wondering why I need to since I've already said what I wanted to say.

[Jodi]

Update: Paul just read the last sentence and says that it does make sense--particularly if one is reading quickly. He couldn't find the mistake. I love him.

[Amish Lovelock]

Congrats Jodi! Cool! In 2 weeks time all of us who have pre-ordered it on Amazon can also read the mistake in the last sentence! Anyway, looking forward to the book!

[Jodi]

Amish,
Yet again you have demonstrated your unsurpassed mastery of the art of blog commenting: pithy, complementary, yet generating an ultimate tension or insecurity in the object. I admire this ability. Perhaps the enigmatic last sentence will function as the book's objet petit a.

[Jodi]

Amish--or, more likely, readers will divide between the mentioned and the unmentioned, some coming to hate me and others feeling compelled to criticize me harshly as a way of distancing themselves. There may actually be good reasons not to combine blogging with publishing books.

[s0metim3s]

Well done Jodi, - er, I mean, bat killer.

Btw, I've always loved the 'consign this book to the gnawing of mice' - or however that phrase goes. It's a good way to let go, which can be difficult.

[Lynn]

I'm buying it, no matter what typo is in the last sentence. I hope my reading of it does it justice.

[Amish Lovelock]

Famous last words.

(seriously, from what I've read of those early drafts on Zizek and democracy I know this is going to be the best book on Zizek out there).

[Jodi]

Amish, Lynn, even Bat-Lover, thanks for your supportive words. I hope folks won't be disappointed. And, I think sometimes is right that I have to consign it to mice, as in, let it go and stop worrying about it. Nothing I can do now.

[chris robinson]

Well, this is great news. I'll order my copy today. Hope I can get you to sign it one day.

[Adam Kotsko]

Congratulations. And it's a good thing that it's a typo rather than a perfectly grammatical, yet idiotic statement.

[Padraig]

What we cannot turn about we must pass over in worry; uh, on reflection, that's not a typo but an idiotic mis-statement. (Maybe you could instruct readers not to read the last sentence: a book with a missing/barred last sentence will have Zizek joyously reaching for his favourite vertiginous laxative) ...

[Jodi]

One person's idiotic statement is another's oracular speech. For example, Frederick Crewes once described one my sentences as something like infantile or idiotic babbling (I'm not sure which it was...repression can be really useufl). I thought the repetition performed the point I was trying to make.

Maybe instead of instructing readers not to read the last sentence, I could have a contest: rewrite the last sentence or what does the sentence REALLY mean? (perhaps in its very meaninglessness it functions as my own unconscious effort to undermine precisely the edifice I sought consciously to build in the text; that is to say, is not a mistake in the last sentence but another way of saying, I hereby end with shit, that all that's left, by the time we get to the end, is this little piece of shit?

[Levi]

Jodi, congratulations! I can't wait to read it!

"There may actually be good reasons not to combine blogging with publishing books."

I've thought about this quite a bit: How does the relationship or transference between an author and a reader change when our contact becomes more direct and immediate, as on a blog? Time was when a book was just a physical object that we held in our hands and an author was a shadowy creature that we were never likely to meet. As a result, texts became idealized objects and authors were thought as containing knowledge just as it is written in the text. I recall, for instance, the trauma of encountering some young graduate student who had read my MS on Deleuze knowing the book I had written better than I, and expecting me to have all these things at my fingertips and even being a little irritated that my positions had changed and evolved. With net interaction you now encounter authors as divided subjects like the rest of us, and books become more like conversational episodes rather than positions fixed once and for all.

I'm not at all sure this is a bad thing. A number of revolutions throughout history have followed revolutions in communications technology such as the invention of writing or the printing press. With each new development, things heat up because connectivity is increased and we get a proliferation of new ideas. It seems to me that the world of blogging and lists, crazy and sloppy as it often is, is playing a huge role in this "heating up" today. One need only look to CT two days ago or ask Dan Rather why he left 60 Minutes to see this.

[Alain]

Jodi, I have been away for a while - So a belated congratulations, and I am definitely buying the book. Whatever the reaction of others, I am very excited to see the fruits of all of your hard work. I think the fact that you developed your thoughts (in part) within the environment of the blogosphere makes this project rather unique. Cheers!

[Nate]

Congrats Jodi. I look forward to reading it.

[Simon H]

I'm buying it so I can find out what the typo is ...

[Jodi]

it makes a good party game--get a bunch and invite friends over for a kegger.

also, I should specify--it's not a typo; it's a mistake (syntax)

[Lowell]

Jodi:

I have been lurking on your site for over a year now. I am reading your Zizek book and enjoy your no-nonsense approach. I saw Zizek for the first time in October 2003, and bought the Puppet and the Dwarf at his talk. I understood about 30% of it because of my background in theology and political theory in college, but the Lacan-Hegel stuff through me. Anyway, I hope you get this comment, and I would also like to ask you a question: I would very much like to have Zzizek read at our wwedding in June 2007. Any passages you could recommend?

[Jodi]

Thanks for your kind words, Lowell. I worry (a tiny bit) that you might be joking about Z being read at your wedding. However, I will take your request completely seriously and make two suggestions--which you will find in a post! (I decided mid comment)