Nein. A Manifesto

"Oh, the joys of negativity! Eric Jarosinski, a self-proclaimed failed intellectual who leapt off the tenure track in modern German critical theory, has made it his mission to fight “a world of yes. A tyranny of yes.” This profoundly clever chapbook of brainy, nihilistic, dour but playful aphorisms began as work-avoiding tweets. With the stern-faced, monocled German Jewish philosopher Theodor W. Adorno as his avatar, Jarosinski riffs succinctly and brilliantly on Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, philosophy, and language as he gleefully plumbs the sinkhole of existential hopelessness. A few favorites: “-Ologies: Are usually taut,” and “Telling a tale full of sound and fury: Idiot-proof. Signifying nothing: Harder than it looks.” An aphorism, he writes, is “Philosophy’s ship in literature’s bottle.” In my book, Nein is a big Yes."