Minima Moralia

A classic of twentieth century thought, this work is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece. I bought Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia in June 1986 from Compendium in Camden, London (a Mecca, back then, for theory-hungry radicals) and read it, intermittently, throughout the summer in Brixton. Given the diversity of these 'Reflections on Damaged Life' compiled in the molten core of the 20th century it's not surprising that what I recall is less the specific content of the book than the experience of reading it, the current coursing through its pages. Dialectical thought 'an attempt to break through the coercion of logic by its own means. But since it must use these means, it is at every moment in danger of itself acquiring a coercive character' is taken to an extreme that is aesthetic (the first section is 'For Marcel Proust') as well as cerebral. Needless to say, I couldn't understand all of it; still can't, to be honest, but this passage means more to me now than it did 25 years ago: 'Slippers are designed to be slipped into without help from the hand. They are monuments to the hatred of bending down.'