The Territories of Deconstruction 1984–1986 363
that meant that his gall bladder had to be removed at the end of
December. This was his fi rst operation, and the fi rst time he had
been hospitalized – a real ordeal for ‘someone who, in addition, is
terrifi ed by the medical world’.^23 The doctors advised Derrida to
moderate his activities somewhat, especially his travel. But he paid
little attention to this advice.
Among his many other problems, he was worried by publishing
issues. Since Flammarion did not intend to translate de Man’s
Allegories of Reading, he was unwilling to give them the book that
he had written on his friend. At the beginning of 1985, feeling that
he no longer really had a publisher, he discussed with Michel Deguy,
a member of the readers’ committee at Gallimard since 1962, the
possibility of off ering the two volumes to that august company.^24
He knew, however – through Jean Ristat and others – that his stock
there was not high.
Deguy was more than positive in his reaction. But for the project
to be accepted, he would need to fi nd allies. He thought that
Mémoires: For Paul de Man ‘should also be of interest, of special
interest in fact, to what is known as a “historian” ’. This was an
allusion to their old friend Pierre Nora. But the latter showed no
enthusiasm. As for Deguy, though he felt ‘pretty isolated’, he said
he was ready to go ‘as far as possible’.^25 Over and above the book
on de Man, he wanted to get Derrida onto the Gallimard list. But
the latter had no illusions about his chances. Deguy notifi ed the
offi cial refusal to him two months later. In his book The Committee,
published in 1988, he returned somewhat scathingly to this episode:
I phoned Pierre [Nora] – at length – since he refused an ad hoc
interview. I knew that for a second reading we would need
his support and, practically, his agreement. [.. .] Most of his
enemies in the academic and intellectual world, especially
among the hard-line Heideggereans, acted as if all of Derrida’s
ideas were ‘ridiculous’. Sniggering over a short quotation was
their form of argument. I knew, of course, that Pierre Nora
and his advisers did not count themselves among the number of
zealous supporters of ‘Derrideanism’. That was why I wanted
to assure myself of his objective support. [.. .] This was perhaps
to forget too quickly, and among other obstacles, that it is very
diffi cult for contemporaries and friends, who had spent part
of their youthful years together at Louis-le-Grand, then the
Sorbonne, to recognize the value of one of their number, when
they had all been equals, and to contribute to his historical
destiny. Pierre Nora refused to take any interest in the project,
and advised me in conclusion that it was up to me to ‘sort it out
by [myself]’.^26