Filosofu Dialogas Su Rašytojais
The Dialog between Philosophers’ and Litterateurs

Summary/Abstract: The review of: “Philosophy And Literature: Contrapositions, Parallels, Intersections/Filosofija Ir Literatûra: Priešpriešos, Paralelës, Sankirtos” by Jûratë Baranova; Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2006, 452 p. In her monograph Philosophy and Literature: Contrapositions, Parallels, Intersections, Jûratë Baranova analyses the problem of the relationship between philosophy and literature, which has become very relevant in the postmodern discourse. She posits that philosophy does not coincide with literature and that literature cannot be reduced to philosophy. Still she finds as much as five possible points where philosophy and literature approach each other. The first chapter “The Philosopher and the Writer” gives the methodological ground and the jumping-off point for the analysis of the problem. This chapter deals with two possible approaches to literature that view literature as a similar kind of cultural expression as philosophy. Each approach proclaims the experience of the parallelistic writing of texts (Derrida) or the structuring of the chaosmos (Deleuze). Derrida and Deleuze also return in the third chapter of the book in which Baranova considers different postmodern receptions of Marcel Proust and Franz Kafka. The second chapter of the book “The Philosopher or The Writer” deals with the phenomenon of when the same author is both a philosopher and a writer. Baranova’s theoretic works show a specific interest in the contemporary philosophy. Her originality lies in her capacity to maintain a theoretical distance and yet to create a special approach to postmodernism. This enables her to see the contemporary Lithuanian philosophy in a very unexpected way. In this book the phenomenon of Arvydas Šliogeris is treated as maybe the only original creator of post-Nietzschian (postmodern) philosophy in Lithuania. The most original part of this monograph is the one where the author herself analyzes some Lithuanian literature by using the cumulative prism of philosophical research. This book shows the erudition and bravery of the author because Baranova always oversteps the limits of disciplines.

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