Service95 Recommends is the home of the books we love and reviews from our contributors. Shipwreck With Spectator by Hans Blumenberg and translated by Steven Rendall is an essay that traces the historical and cultural role of the spectator from ancient to modern times.

What Vincent Delecroix Says: “A short but dense book of philosophy, whose theme was crucial for the writing of my novel. The book traces the historical and conceptual evolution of a metaphor: the guy standing on the shore who looks at a shipwreck on the ocean in front of him. This metaphor initially designates the precise position of the wise one, who knows how to keep distance from the ocean of passions and the disasters these passions inevitably cause. But now we can see it on the contrary as the indifferent position of a soulless spectator, who doesn’t care at all for the agony of abandoned people. This “wise” position, which is, in fact, an irresponsible and cowardly one, could be the one of the main character of my novel. And it could also be ours…”

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