3 Writing Itself 1965–1966
However great the quality of his fi rst publications, Derrida was
still in a very fragile state of mind. The encouragement of friends
was essential to him – that of Gabriel Bounoure fi rst and foremost.
As Derrida wrote to him in the fi rst days of 1965: ‘Everything you
tell me about the essay on Levinas encourages me, and gives me a
great deal of strength. I need it, of that I am sure. And perhaps the
strength that you claim to perceive is merely the strength of this
need, in other words a great infi rmity that in some way is crying out
for help.’ Derrida felt that the place in which he was working was
that ‘of an evasion, of a dissimulation where everything suddenly
hazes over in a sort of black clarity’. Bounoure’s support enabled
Derrida to venture into those zones where the older man had gone
before him:
You have been there before me, and better than me – there at the
centre of this experience (let’s call it by the names of those who
have risked body and soul to explore it: Nietzsche, Heidegger,
Levinas, Blanchot). You have seen me coming. Writing for
you, I would henceforth be better able to guide my fumbling
words. You see, I am still seeking serenity, and seeking to be
understood. What else can one do? But I know that the serenity
you bring me now is by no means a comfort, and to be under-
stood as one fumbles one’s way along doesn’t mean settling
down into certainty. The other serenity, probably the bad kind
of serenity, is that of the university, the École where my teach-
ing consolidates me in another way, duller and more eff ective,
although this serenity tries to meld with the other sort.^1Another, much younger person who shared Derrida’s interests
was assuming great importance for him, as a friend and a writer:
Philippe Sollers. Derrida had been deeply moved by his new book,
Event; he sent him a long letter, timid and really rather awkward,
apologizing for his ‘phrase-making’: