As a philosopher and a novelist, Tristan Garcia inhabits two worlds, metaphysics and literary fiction, like an amphibious creature moving between the land and the sea, breathing in both air and water. He is drawn to metaphysics because, as he puts it, metaphysics is the edge of the abyss of thought, the unstable frontier of indeterminacy where thinking is no longer constrained by the principles of logic or the law of non-contradiction. Metaphysics seeks to describe the world from outside one's own point of view. It aims at an ecstatic reconstruction of what keeps us locked up in our conditions, in our time and place, here among the living, with our subjectivities and within our situations. It gives us an idea of all constraints from a point of view that posits the possible absence of the constraint of having a point of view.

The ambition of this slender book - which is at the same time a concise introduction to Garcia's work and thought - is to help us grasp and transform the conditions of our existence by paying equal attention to what is ending and what is just beginning, to the dusk and to the dawn. Until we cannot hold our breath any longer.

About the Author
Tristan Garcia is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lyon and a prize-winning novelist. He is the author of Form and Object: A Treatise on Things, The Life Intense: A Modern Obsession and We Ourselves: The Politics of US, among other works. In 2008 he won the Prix de Flore for his first novel, Hate: A Romance.

Reviews

"The primary trait of Tristan Garcia as an author is his consistent freshness: to read him is to press the reset button in your brain and awaken with a new hope. In this book, his most personal so far, he pulls off the impressive feat of reviving the reader's courage while speaking primarily of himself. Such is the disarming modesty of this multi-talented thinker."
Graham Harman, Southern California Institute of Architecture

Book Information
ISBN 9781509552245
Author Tristan Garcia
Format Paperback
Page Count 153
Imprint Polity Press
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Weight(grams) 204g
Dimensions(mm) 213mm * 137mm * 15mm