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DAVID KLEINBERG-LEVIN
BECKETT’S WORDS. THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS IN A TIME OF MOURNING
London and New York. Bloomsbury, 2015. ISBN 978-1-47421-685-2

Abstract
The review is devoted to the book of American philosopher D. Kleinberg-Levin Beckett’s Words. The Promise of Happiness in a Time of Mourning. The book presents an analysis of the contemporary post-religious and post-metaphysical situation in Western culture, which was became known as nihilism in the 19th century. “The Death of God” has become a historical, cultural and intellectual trauma, which requires the “work of mourning” in order to cope with its consequences. The author analyzes the causes of this situation and possible positions for philosophers and writers. Guided by the late works of Heidegger, D. Kleinberg-Levin argues that the path in a world without grounds is possible due to a promise that calls us from the essence of the language. Beckett’s work is interpreted as an example of the writer’s struggle with the forces of nihilism in the name of the “promise of happiness”, which is inherent in the very language as such. Therein lies the messianic dimension of language that can be freed from religious doctrines and retain its importance in the “disenchanted” modern world. In the epoch of nihilism, after the death of God, there is the last remaining hope of the immanent power and responsibility of a writer, true to his paradoxical vocation – the impossibility and necessity of expression. In the review Kleinberg-Levin’s book is considered in the context of studies of nihilism as a cultural trauma of modernity.

Key words
Trauma, nihilism, modernity, Beckett, Heidegger, language, promise.

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