A Year in America 1956–1957 89
Straight after the agrégation, I remember going to see Jean
Hyppolite and telling him: ‘I want to translate The Origin of
Geometry and work on that text’ – because there was a brief
elliptical remark on writing, on the necessity for communities
of scientists and scholars to constitute communicable ideal
objects on the basis of intuitions of the mathematical object.
Husserl said that writing alone could give those ideal objects
their fi nal ideality, that it alone could enable them in some way
to enter history: their historicity came from writing. However,
Husserl’s remark was ambiguous and obscure: so I have been
trying to articulate a concept of writing that would allow me
simultaneously to account for what was happening in Husserl
and, if need be, to raise questions for phenomenology and phe-
nomenological intuitionism, and also tackle the question that
continued to interest me: that of literary inscription. What is an
inscription? When and in what conditions does an inscription
become literary?^20Even though he had not yet registered the subject of his thesis,
Derrida asked Hyppolite whether he would be willing to supervise
it. The director of the ENS immediately agreed. ‘Make the most
of your stay,’ he wrote. ‘As for philosophy, I have confi dence in
you and I know that you won’t forget it. I think your projected
translation of The Origin of Geometry is an excellent idea.’^21
Maurice de Gandillac also remembered Derrida, and gave his
former student some methodological advice that he hoped would
prove reassuring. The contents of the thesis would take shape as
and when required, he assured Derrida. ‘Let its existence precede
its essence. I strongly advise you to start writing without any pre-
conceived plan. As you continue, you’ll see more and more clearly
where you are and where you’re going.’ Gandillac wanted Derrida
to make a start on writing ‘before the long parenthesis of military
service’. The analysis of the Algerian situation which he set out
in the rest of his letter clearly showed a left-wing viewpoint. He
deplored the way the French Communist Party was, in spite of
the eff orts of Althusser and several others, so hesitant. ‘The Party
apparatus paralyses refl ection and the watchword “unity of action”
blocks any real opposition to Mollet’s policies in Algeria.’^22
Derrida was given a much more brutal reminder of the war when
Michel Monory sent him a letter from his barracks in Brazza on 28
April 1957. Jackie was the only person with whom he could share
the atrocious scenes he had just witnessed.
Yesterday we had four dead and eighteen seriously wounded,
victims of an ambush near Berrouaghia. After a night under