A. Kiarina Kordela has written a powerhouse of a book. Lately, I have felt that the best work on Lacanian psychoanalysis has been coming from France (Badiou) and Slovenia (Zizek, Zupancic, and Dolar), but very little from the US. This situation has been radically transformed by Kordela's book. Not only because it is intellectually rich. Indeed, the book is only about 140 pages, but you will feel like you have read 300 pages. It is very, very, very dense. But also because it challenges many of the ideas put forth by Zizek et al. In so doing, Kordela, in my mind, moves the psychoanalytic project forward (rather than simply repeating what has already been said).

At bottom, the book argues that Spinoza is not antithetical to Lacan (as Zizek and Badiou have insinuated). And by reading Spinoza with Lacan, Spinoza is saved from his misappropriation by folks like Hardt and Negri. Indeed, Hardt and Negri, along with other interpreters of Spinoza, are torn to shreds in this book. But the book goes far beyond this argument to lay the foundation for a Marxian ontology.

The book puts forward four simply propositions. Spinoza was the first to theorize "secular causality" by bringing cause within substance. Kant moved this forward by showing that every set becomes itself by virtue of an exception. Marx moves this forward by finding the material basis for Kant's idealism. And Lacan moves this forward by giving this exception the name "gaze." The result is that Being is defined by a Nothing that is not nothing but exists positively, i.e. Surplus. Capitalism and language is an attempt to deal with this ontological Surplus. A radical left political project then will not be to try and eradicate this Surplus, but rather, to find a new way of organizing social, political, and economic relations around it.

My one gripe with this book is the subtitle. The subtitle of "Spinoza, Lacan" is really misleading. It sells the title short. The book, as I have said, goes far beyond Spinoza and Lacan to incorporate Kant, Marx, and broader discussions of ethics, ontology, politics, and thought. At the very least all four figures should be enumerated in the subtitle. But if that is my only criticism, then the book is a wide success.

"Surplus" is a book to be reckoned with.

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