Tuesday 2 September 2008

Whodunnit?


This is very strange. If you can recall Zizek's Parallax View you'll remember that in the introduction he brings up the anecdote that Benjamin was killed by Stalin's agents to prevent him from publishing the extended version of the Theses on the History of Philosophy that he was carrying in his briefcase. A nice tale, but it's all a bit too People's Princess, to be honest. Perhaps a Hollywood film version would be appropriate, but who would play Walter? Perhaps it could be a Brad Pitt vehicle, with Penelope Cruz the Spanish lady entrusted with guiding him safely through the mountainous passages, teaching him a thing or two about love in the process, and Stalin would of course have to be played by Paris Hilton.

1 comment:

manyplies said...

There's a very bad novel based on Benjamin's last days, called _Benjamin's Crossing_, by Jay Parini, in my bedroom back home: I'll fetch it for you next week if you like, if you haven't already snaffled it. No assassins that I can remember, though I've deliberately forgotten as much as possible about the experience. There's a lunatic play based on the last days of Thomas Browne, _Hydriotaphia_, by Tony Kushner, in which Browne is a proto-capitalist mineowner whose sister (he had no sister) has become a member of a Spanish (I think) convent of lethal attack nuns. Perhaps we should cross the two: Penelope Cruz in a wimple...