Published by Faber and Faber, 2002, hardcover, 204 pages, condition: as new.
Already a European bestseller, this text is a reassessment of our day-to-day engagement with life. In 101 short texts, Droit invites us to reconsider our most ordinary actions as unexpected philosophical events. Peeling an apple, trying to lie in a hammock, watching someone sleep, hearing your voice on a answering machine, playing with a small child - activities that, when considered outside of their routine, invite us to experience the familiar in startling ways. Droit encourages us to go further: pretend to be an animal of your choice, create a wall with your hands, try to walk around your room in total darkness, spend time in the subway system - and observe your oddity. Each exercise takes a specific time, uses materials that lie to hand, and has a designated effect upon the spirit. Our simplest actions come to seem metaphysical, refashioning our sense of the commonplace as an altogether more surprising and provocative landscape. This book encourages astonishment, unwedges us, topples the world a little, unscrews the coffin of habit. Influenced by Zen thought, it is a course in philosophical fitness, conducted in the gymnasium of what passes for ordinary life.
Roger-Pol Droit was born in Paris in 1949, and is a philosopher, a researcher at the Centre de la Recherche Scientifique, and a columnist for the French daily, Le Monde. He is the author of La Compagnie des Philosophes.
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