I renounce all my early books and writings. — Joseph Suglia

IF YOU ARE AT LEAST TWENTY-EIGHT (28) YEARS OF AGE, CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO READ MY NOVEL WATCH OUT: THE FINAL VERSION.

I renounce all my early books and writings — including Hölderlin and Blanchot on Self-Sacrifice (2004), Years of Rage (2005), and the first and second editions of Watch Out (2006; 2008).

I no longer endorse any of these works. They no longer represent me as an artist, as a scholar, or as a human being.

Table 41 (2019) and the final version of Watch Out (2022) are the only books that I take responsibility for. I endorse Table 41, Watch Out: The Final Version, and my more recent literary-critical writings — that is all.

— Dr. Joseph Suglia

* * * * *

Joseph Suglia is a novelist, a literary critic, a playwright, a philosophical commentator, and, some years latterly, a video-maker.

He is an exegetist and a creator who effigiates figures that suggest his darkest feelings. His figures—they are effigurate, not effuse.

CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO READ MY MASTERPIECE TABLE 41:

32 thoughts on “I renounce all my early books and writings. — Joseph Suglia

  1. Pingback: The Collected Essays and Squibs of Joseph Suglia | drjosephsuglia

  2. As a former used bookdealer, the answer is possibly 2 things. One, the most likely, there are more people looking for the books than there are copies readily available. Or, two, that the only way they’re available is thru a print on demand service and there are not many used copies. (With a POD, the used copies are usually cheaper.)

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  4. man i got so baked last night i don even no what im doin here who am i i like don even no what im sayin right now

  5. I thought “Watch Out” contained some excellent writing and I want to read more of your work. I’m sure you know the part I didn’t like and I don’t want to beat that dead horse (oops) but by all means, carry on, Dr. S!

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  8. my goodness. i have just read the passionate rant, QUENTIN TARANTINO IS AN ANTI-BLACK RACIST. and then i click onto this page….unsettling!

  9. Usually (to my experience, anyway) when people renounce ‘all previous’ they’ve had an epiphany of some kind. Often religious, but there you go …

    In my own case it was decades ago that I read some very unPC stuff which clashed head-on with the popular ‘thinking’ of the time.
    But it made excellent sense, made me think (for myself, a novelty) and turned me through one-eighty (degrees).

    Now I call it as I see it and to hell with what passes for Thought with the masses.

    Good luck with your own course—are you any ‘righter’ now than before?

  10. Pingback: Selected Essays and Squibs by Joseph Suglia: Table of Contents | Selected Essays and Squibs by Joseph Suglia

  11. I remember back when I worked as a library cataloger we would joke about never accepting someone else’s catalog records -and be highly suspicious of those that you cataloged yourself that were more than a year old.

  12. Dr. Suglia:

    I am a graduate student in Performance Art Studies. We are doing a podcast on Deleuze and want you to write an essay for us.

    We expect you to make a number of changes to your blog.

    Write back immediately.

    Jason Jackson

  13. Pingback: I renounce all my early books and writings. — Joseph Suglia – The Tao of Prayer

  14. Hey Dr.,

    How’s the “world’s greatest writer” doing these days? I hope you haven’t renounced that title. In the time immediately after every good and even great book I finish, your self-characterization floats to the top of my head and I think, well can this author really compete with the world’s greatest author? You have given me this sticky thought and that is worth a lot in my book. It is right up there with “and so it goes” and “everybody dies” and “catch 22”. Thanks. Duke

  15. Hmm. I ended up here all the way from Finland in the search of Empedokles and Moby Dick with the help of Straub&Huillet and found out that you renounce Hölderlin and Blanchot on Self-Sacrifice which I can’t get in my fingers. I feel I’m somehow mislead by cosmos since its themes touch upon my artistic research and now I can’t even disagree on the text – or then it is hello desoeuvrement my old friend.

    Anyhow, not knowing you, your figure or your greatness in the field of textual expression and conceptual thinking, I’d like to ask you to help me with my working. Could you send me a text where you open the reasons why you box the compass with Hölderlin and Blanchot on Self-Sacrifice?

  16. Pingback: Table of Contents: SELECTED ESSAYS AND SQUIBS by Joseph Suglia | Selected Essays and Squibs by Joseph Suglia

  17. I’m curious why you would renounce your previous writing. Everything you wrote reflects a certain part of your life leading up to who you are in the present. Regardless of whether it reflects who you are at the moment.
    Of course each person is different, but personally I like to look back and see how far I’ve come in personal growth and evolution of thought.
    Just sayin 🙂

  18. Unfortunately I haven’t read your books or much of your essays yet. I will.
    I relate to your description of your creation process–from “random images” of dreams and daydreams to intellectualized representation–and to your citing of Schelling’s “Art is the making conscious of the unconscious”. This is what I do with my ideograms (samples at neoideograms.com.) Actually, I have a two-sided approach: mapping the “obective” structure of reality, as well as giving expression to inner conceptual structure, which also has some “objectivity”. The latter consists of spontaneously creating and then being artistically pleased with my creations, of feeling that they somehow to “click” and are right. As for the role of the unconscious in the process, I think very much in terms of the outlook in George Lakof’s book “Philosophy in the Flesh,” according to which thought is considered to be overwhelmingly (over 90%) unconscious and largely metaphorical.
    I draw much in my approach also from Alfred Korzybski (“The map is not the territory” –the word is not the thing.) He advocated “silence on the obective level”. I extend that to “silence on the subjective level”–I silently acknowledge, validate, and use the products of my subconscious, but then give them intellectualized form, as you do.
    As for the motif of “being ‘god’,” and the attendant “complete freedom,” my favorite work giving witness to that experience is “I Am That”–conversations with Nisargadatta Maharaj–which I highly recommend. I believe you have hit on and given expression to some of this truth in delightful manner with “Watch Out”.
    As you say, excellent insight into and exploration of this outlook is also contained in “The Ego and His Own” by Max Stirner–Der Einzige u. Sein Eigentum in German (I think you called it “Der Ego u. Sein Eigentum in the interview.)
    I’ll make some posts on my site re the above.

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