To fully appreciate the value of this book, it seems that the reader has to have already read Zizek's earlier key books. What The Parallax View does is to proffer an invisible Hegelian thread to further systematize his philosophy, to pull it all together, to abridge its various components, and to bring in additional bricks (such as Thomas Metzinger's articulation of the ontological absence of the Ego). True, Zizek does put forward in this book his key concepts inherited (descent with modification, that is) from Lacan, Freud, and Marx, but the book is not self-contained in the sense that you would get from it alone a clear layout of Zizek's system. And I am not sure Zizek would admit to doing anything like system-building, but the book has left me with a strong suspicion that Zizek is, after all, a closet Hegelian above being anything else, including a Lacanian.



Overall, I believe the book does succeed in offering us a system, but not as a ready-made product but is instead a box of Legos you have to put together following the instructions (often vague) scattered all over the place. But that is what makes books like this fun. It seems that Zizek has so much to say that he does not think he has time or space to glue it all together let alone build inert transitions -- he trusts you to do that. And what is the system that I think he is building? If you have read his earlier books, you already know its core and will get from this book further fleshing-out and consolidation. If you have not, I would not rely on this book to express its core to you in a self-sufficient manner. You would still enjoy it though, and would feel interested enough to go to his earlier books.

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