I Want to Die, I Hate My Life

Three Essays on Tragedy and One on Beckett

Simon Critchley (The Stone / The New York Times)

$39.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

ERIS
31 July 2025

Phenomenology & Existentialism; Philosophy: aesthetics

""There is a common fallacy that is oddly and sadly even more widespread amongst non-philosophers than philosophers, that art is somehow explained by philosophy. It is not.""

The philosopher Simon Critchley has long been drawn to the distinctive questions raised by tragedy. In this major new work, conceived as a sequel to his Tragedy, the Greeks and Us (2019), he describes the power of tragic drama as deriving from its depictions of 'stuckness': of the inescapable situation of being oneself. In readings of Jean Racine, Henrik Ibsen, and Samuel Beckett, Critchley offers an exceptionally perceptive account of how tragedy dramatises this irreducibly absurd condition.

I Want to Die, I Hate My Life is at once a searching philosophical engagement with tragedy and a bracing argument against the widespread tendency to reduce literary texts to mere illustrations of philosophical ideas. Critchley's exposition of the ambiguities that lie at the heart of tragic drama-of tragedy's resistance to the kind of rational explanations that philosophers have sought to impose upon it-doesn't just enhance our understanding of literature; it also points towards a wiser, more subtle, and more dynamic way of doing philosophy.

By: Simon Critchley (The Stone / The New York Times)
Imprint: ERIS
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 127mm,
ISBN: 9781916809710
ISBN 10: 1916809715
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 31 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Simon Critchley has written over twenty books, including studies of Greek tragedy, David Bowie, football, suicide, Shakespeare, and how philosophers die, as well as a novella. He is the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York and a Director of the Onassis Foundation. As co-editor of The Stone at the New York Times, Critchley showed that philosophy plays a vital role in the public realm.

Reviews for I Want to Die, I Hate My Life: Three Essays on Tragedy and One on Beckett

Pay attention and you can reinvent your life * The New Yorker * Critchley is a figure of quite startling brilliance, and I can never guess what he’ll do next, only that it is sure to sustain and nourish my appetite for his voice. -- Jonatham Lethem Critchley is an international treasure—that rare and real philosopher who embraces Rousseau’s ‘feeling of existence’, David Bowie’s vision of love, and Philip K. Dick’s genius with genuine wrestling and a soulful smile! -- Cornel West