Jacques Derrida has died, aged 74, of pancreatic cancer. Sans souffrir, disait Le Monde. I will pull out my copy of Violence and Metaphysics, his text (in the volume Writing and Difference) on Levinas, and reread it this evening in tribute.

I wonder what his epitaph will be? Part of me hopes for something like deconstruct this.

The BBC relates this, from the recent biographical documentary about Derrida:

At one point, wandering through Derrida’s library, one of the filmmakers asks him: Have you read all the books in here?

No, he replies impishly, only four of them. But I read those very, very carefully.

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