Genealogy is history in the form of a concerted carnival.

Ever since Madonna Louise Ciccone took it over the border line, I have always felt for the transgressors, the transgressive, the interlopers. Michel Foucault began before I did. He also held the Infinite in esteem. I sigh in response. I would like to make a few points about this collection, this assemblage. I could start by questioning the validity of points or facts. Aren't they just interpretations? Don't such efforts only maintain the power relationships? Shouldn't we pursue a more abortive endeavor, an archive of missteps, missed exits and naive backtracking?

Most pieces collected between these covers were simply maddening, to be honest. I read everything at least twice. I was not looking for a distilled Foucault. My purpose wasn't to form a conceptual whole, a sweeping theory. No, totalizing wasn't on my agenda. Finding coherence was. I remain in the camp of anti-essentialist investigation, that hasn't changed. I highly recommend two essays in the book: What Is an Author and Nietzsche, Genealogy, History. The others served best to baffle and dishearten. I just told my wife that self-awareness is often a certain agent of depression. So it goes.

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