sponding to rumors about him that de Man wrote to Poggioli
in 1955 , during his Harvard years. In fact, Poggioli kept the
letter secret in accord with de Man’s request; it was hardly a
public explanation. And hardly an honest explanation, either:
in his letter, de Man called the suggestion that he had been a
collaborationist a “slander.” He had written for a newspaper in
Belgium during the war, he told Poggioli, but had quit in
protest over German censorship.
In his Critical Inquiryessay, Derrida agrees with de Man’s
self-description in his letter to Poggioli, writing bluntly that de
Man “was aware of having never collaborated or called for col-
laboration” with Nazism ( 150 ). Though it is true that Derrida
had not read all of de Man’s Le Soirwritings when he wrote
this sentence—writings that continually applaud the German
leadership of Europe and urge Belgians to acquiesce in it—he
had read enough to make a more accurate judgment than this.
Why did de Man never speak openly of his wartime writ-
ings? In his Critical Inquirypiece, Derrida delivers two inno-
vative reasons: it would have been immodest, even “preten-
tious” and “ridiculous”; and it would have been a waste
of time. “[De Man’s] international notoriety having spread
only during the last years of his life, to exhibit earlier such a
distant past so as to call the public as a witness—would that
not have been a pretentious, ridiculous, and infinitely compli-
cated gesture?” ( 150 ).
We l l ,no,one is tempted to answer. At any rate (Derrida
continues), after de Man became famous, there was simply no
time for such revelations. “I prefer,” writes Derrida, “that he
chose not to take it on himself to provoke, during his life, this
spectacular and painful discussion. It would have taken his
time and energy. He did not have very much and that would
have deprived us of a part of his work” ( 150 ). In saying that he
208 Gadamer, Celan, de Man, Heidegger