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Review
“Fragmentary writing is, ultimately, democratic writing. Each fragment enjoys an equal distinction. The most banal one finds its exceptional reader. Each, in its turn has its hour of glory. Of course each fragment could become a book. But the point is that it will not do so, for the ellipse is superior to the straight line.” “Another promise of fragments is that they alone will survive the catastrophe, the destruction of meaning and language, like the flies in the plane crash which are the only survivors because they are ultra-light...the lightest items sink the most slowly into the abyss. It is these one must hang on to.” Baudrillard’s collection of fragments, ideas, and poetic musings were written as he was composing The Illusion of the End and The Perfect Crime. While it is difficult (and kind of missing the point) to simply summarize Baudrillard’s ideas in Cool Memories, he has created a work that takes several tantalizing and provocative flights into the world in which we live today. Baudrillard surveys a modern world characterized by an empty political, artistic, and intellectual life , “This society is like a vessel whose edges move ever wider apart, and in which the water never comes to the boil.” There is, however, throughout the work, Baudrillard’s sense of humor and, to a certain degree, sense of enjoyment in today’s congested, fast-moving world.
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