The Missing Pieces

Henri Lefebvre, David L. Sweet, Hedi El Kholti (Semiotext(e))

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English

Semiotext(e)
24 October 2014

Theory of art; Philosophy; Western philosophy, from c 1900 -

Series: Semiotext(e) / Native Agents

"An incantatory catalog of cultural artifacts either lost to time or never realized.. A boarder for two years following a national funeral, Mirabeau is removed from the Pantheon and transferred to the cemetery of Clamart when his pornographic novels are discovered . A photograph taken by Hessling on Christmas night, 1943, of a young woman nailed alive to the village gate of Novimgorod; Hessling asks his friend Wolfgang Borchert to develop the film, look at the photograph, and destroy it . The Beautiful Gardener, a picture by Max Ernst, burned by the Nazis -from The Missing Pieces The Missing Pieces is an incantatory text, a catalog of what has been lost over time and what in some cases never existed. Through a lengthy chain of brief, laconic citations, Henri Lefebvre evokes the history of what is no more and what never was- the artworks, films, screenplays, negatives, poems, symphonies, buildings, letters, concepts, and lives that cannot be seen, heard, read, inhabited, or known about. It is a literary vanitas of sorts, but one that confers an almost mythical quality on the enigmatic creations it recounts-rather than reminding us of the death that inhabits everything humans create.

Lefebvre's list includes Marcel Duchamp's (accdidentally destroyed) film of Man Ray shaving off the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven's pubic hair; the page written by Balzac on his deathbed (lost); Spinoza's Treatise on the Rainbow (thrown into a fire); the final seven meters of Kerouac's original typescript for On the Road (eaten by a dog); the chalk drawings of Francis Picabia (erased before an audience); and the one moment in Andre Malraux's life in which he exclaimed ""I believe, for a minute, I was thinking nothing."" The Missing Pieces offers a treasure trove of cultural and artistic detail and will entertain even those readers not enamored of the void."

By: Henri Lefebvre
Contributions by: Hedi El Kholti (Semiotext(e))
Translated by: David L. Sweet
Imprint: Semiotext(e)
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 137mm, Spine: 6mm
Weight: 113g
ISBN: 9781584351597
ISBN 10: 1584351594
Series: Semiotext(e) / Native Agents
Pages: 88
Publication Date: 24 October 2014
Recommended Age: From 18
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Henri Lefebvre, born in 1959 in Salon-de-Provence, lives and works in Paris. He founded and directs Les Cahiers de la Seine, a publishing house devoted to contemporary poetry.

Reviews for The Missing Pieces

The Missing Pieces is a list not only to be read an item at a time, but, as the very cover of the book itself might imply, to be viewed as a mishmash of things forgotten, and of things we need to dutifully remember. -- Micah McCrary Bookslut