344 Derrida 1963–1983
with these situations – I can’t exclude the possibility that it will
all come to a very sticky end.^4This did not stop Derrida accompanying Jack Lang to Mexico at
the end of July for the world conference of ministers of culture. In
a memorable speech, Lang denounced American cultural imperial-
ism. Derrida thanked him a few days later for what had been, for
him, ‘a very enriching experience, an opportunity and an honour’.
He was very happy about the ‘friendly complicity of these few days’,
and hoped that the Collège International de Philosophie would be
able to count on his advice and support.^5
Pierre was really rather precocious and passed the exam for Normale
Sup at his fi rst attempt, at the age of nineteen. For Derrida, this
brought back many memories: ‘Exactly thirty years ago, to the
day, I entered the same establishment, at the age of twenty-two,
after two failed attempts and what suff ering... a strange experi-
ence, a strange situation, isn’t it?’ he wrote to Paul de Man.^6 After
hesitating between literature and philosophy, Pierre fi nally chose
philosophy, since the classes seemed to him more open and inter-
esting, even if literature remained his predominant passion. But
becoming a philosopher when you have the name Derrida was far
from self-evident. ‘When I told one of my teachers that I’d made this
decision, he told me I was committing suicide,’ Pierre remembers.^7
Unfortunately another piece of bad news cast its shadow over
the end of the summer. Although Paul de Man had not been well
for several months, he could not make his mind up to seek medical
advice. In July 1982, worried by his state, Geoff rey Hartman and his
wife arranged for him to see a doctor, who immediately sent him to
New Haven for a proper examination. An inoperable tumour was
diagnosed, right next to the liver. Derrida was among the fi rst to be
informed by de Man, initially by telephone, then in a letter that was
almost serene in tone:
Since I’ve been back home, I’ve been much better and I’m
starting to eat, to sleep, to walk a bit, and to enjoy the discreet
pleasures of convalescence. All this, as I was telling you [on the
phone], seems prodigiously interesting to me and I’m enjoying
myself a lot. I knew it all along but it is being borne out: death
gains a great deal, as they say, when one gets to know it close
up – that ‘peu profound ruisseau calomnié la mort’ [shallow
stream calumniated as death].* Anyhow, I prefer that to the
brutality of the word ‘tumeur’.^8- A quotation from Mallarmé’s sonnet in homage to Verlaine. – Tr.