Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard (Studies in Violence, Mimesis & Culture)

I loved reading this new book about my hero, Rene Girard. It was a delicious treat for someone who has experienced him as a life-changing thinker. I have devoured nearly every book he wrote, with deep insight following deep insight- about literature, culture, history, mysteries of human behavior, and my personal experience of life. It confirms my own memorable brief encounter with him - his kindness, modesty, his simple, unassuming power and depth. The biographical details, including the intellectual context for his discoveries, and the slender but satisfying story of his spiritual conversion, just riveted me. I will mention one aspect of the book which was vastly informative for me: the background story of his regrettable (unwitting) involvement in the advent of anti-structuralism and "deconstruction" - that weed acknowledged to be almost impossible to eradicate from our degraded worldview. I read the book intently and fast, pushing away distractions. Now I am going back into it to mine those subjects for as much as I can find. It is a very fine introduction to Girard, but also a feast for anyone who does know him. Rene Girard should be read as one of the few truly great thinkers ever in the world.

I am currently reading this wonderful book. After I finish it, I will post my own review. Until then, I am happy to provide readers here of the comments I just received from this book’s very first reader (in manuscript form) whom the author thanks in her Postscript and Acknowledgements:Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard by Cynthia Haven is a remarkable achievement even for an already accomplished author of skillful essays on major literary figures such as Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky. This even though she had gotten to know Girard only in the last years of his life. In often sparkling prose Haven has been able to interweave the personal and the scholarly into an illuminating and I think unique biography. Of course, there will be many substantial studies to be published on Girard in a number of languages. There have to be. But I cannot imagine their authors not benefiting from familiarity with Haven’s full and beautiful portrait of the man. (Richly augmented with photographs covering nearly a century of life.) —Paul CaringellaNow my own review (posted 5-06-18):Few books in recent memory have given me as much pleasure as this intellectual biography of the literary theorist, René Girard. For those unfamiliar with the work of the great French thinker, this book will serve as a marvelous and captivating introduction. For those already acquainted with Girard’s works, much more will be gained. Haven’s biography draws heavily on Girard’s books, his published conversations with colleagues and friends, the secondary literature, and most importantly the author’s own conversations with Girard and those who knew him. Haven met with Girard regularly for extensive conversations over the last eight years of his life, developing a friendship that deeply informs her writing. She also interviewed fellow scholars and colleagues of Girard in Europe and America.The book covers the course of Girard’s life from his origins in Avignon, his early formation and experiences during WWII, his emigration to America, his years at Indiana University, John Hopkins, SUNY Buffalo, and finally Stanford, where he died in late 2015. Though no bibliography of Girard’s numerous works is provided, there is a Chronology at the end of the book that identifies all of Girard’s books published in French and English, as well as in English and French translation, along with the major events in Girard’s life and career. Interweaved with the biographical story is a splendid elucidation of Girard’s life-long investigation of human nature and the origins of religion by way of his anthropological analyses of many of the great literary works of Western Civilization. The author fleshes out Girard’s key concepts of mimetic desire, scapegoating, violence, sacrifice, etc., seeking to root them where she can in Girard’s own personal experiences.The book is filled with pleasurable nuggets: stories, anecdotes, and insights from Haven’s personal recollections and those of family, colleagues, and friends of Girard. One delightful example (from page 201) casts light on the peculiar relation between the competing truths of fact and fiction that every biographer and every historian (and indeed every literary theorist like Girard himself) must confront. Recounting a story she received from eyewitnesses, Haven writes, “In 2004, social and political philosopher Jean-Pierre Dupuy was attending a conference in Berlin when he was confronted at a café by a man who asked, ‘Why did you become a Girardian?’ He responded in a beat, ‘Because it’s cheaper than psychoanalysis.’” When she sought to confirm this story from the Dupuy himself, he said in effect, “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”Haven’s own reading of Girard’s life and thought is duly sensitive and often keen—some interpretations are unmistakable and some cautiously proposed but none gratuitous or unjustified. Her account is well-researched and reflects the labor of love that the writing of this book must have been for her, no doubt inspired by her love for the man himself (which, of course, as she quips in her dedication, was “not the triangular sort”). Both fans and critics of Girard, one of the truly great thinkers of the twentieth century, will benefit greatly from the story told by this gifted writer. None can ignore her authoritative account of the man and his work. Highly recommended!

Having only read Violence and the Sacred — and this quite a few years ago — a review of this biography in the NYRB persuaded me to revisit Girard’s thought with an eye to further reading.I must say I am disappointed.The first half of Haven’s book does what one would expect: it nicely chronicles Girard’s personal and intellectual development from childhood up through the insights presented in his opus, Violence and the Sacred.Yet, after this, Girard apparently stopped developing intellectually—just kept churning out variations on the same themes. This is hardly uncommon in academia, but it does make for a disappointing biography; I had been hoping for rather more of the “evolution” promised by the title.Absent theoretical development, Haven’s preoccupation in the second half of the book, which documents Girard in his intellectual maturity, is to establish that he has been insufficiently appreciated—and that the reason for this is anti-Christian bigotry in the academy.Her aim would have been much better realized had she simply presented the theories we are all supposed to admire. For I cannot be the only non-religious reader who knows Girard was Catholic and is still curious about his ideas, ready to assess them on their merits. I picked up the book wanting to know what else, post-V&S, by Girard I should read. The answer it provides is, until my road-to-Damascus moment, nothing; afterward, absolutely everything. Yet, if that is true, critics are quite right to file him in a Christian niche. And I do not know whether to trust Haven on this or not.In short, if you are not disposed to believe that a decline in the world’s largest religion is responsible for the major social ills of the 21st century — and that maybe a few French theorists (Derrida, Lacan) are responsible for this (in some unspecified way) — you will find much of this volume highly grating. Seek out a scholarly monograph instead of this biography.Girard would have been better served by a biographer who admired him just a little bit less. Haven writes for an audience of disciples.

Reading Rene Girard can be intimidating. His works are complex, and he was prolific. Fortunately, in this new biography of Girard, Haven proves a reliable, critically sympathetic, and widely learned guide to his life and thought. While this is not an exposition of his works, Haven provides the framework of his thought, how it evolved, and how it changed, and as such provides an excellent grounding for taking on some of Girard's most compelling works, especially his late work, Battling to the End (Achever Clausewitz). There are also insightful portraits of Girard and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins, Buffalo, and Stanford and some of the seminal moments in the development of post-war critical movements, especially the "French invasion" and the storming of the structuralist ramparts by the likes of Derrida and Lacan. Haven has a sharp eye for irony and humor in these passages. She connects the man and his thinking with warmth and affection without losing sight that Girard's theories were far from universally acclaimed, and some of the reasons why this was so. Girard's thought will endure long after the ephemeral approaches of Foucault and Derrida have vanished, and as one of the seminal thinkers of the 20th century (along with Eric Voegelin, inter alia, another thinker who struggled for acceptance) it is worth reading this fine book, even if you think you know Girard's thought already

questo libro si tratta del desiderio di Griard, soprattutto, si tratta della teoria del desiderio trianolgoare di Girard! è un libro che ha ricercato bene sul desiderio!

Fantastic read!!!