3 Living Memory 1988–1990
With all his multifarious obligations, his travels, and his increas-
ing correspondence, Derrida was more and more overwhelmed
by work. As Avital Ronell notes, he did not have a position as a
professor in the French university system, so he had no assistant
or secretary to help him, with the result that he had to ‘locate, pho-
tocopy, collate, and carry everything by himself’. She recalled him
‘schlepping his encumbering carton of books to subject himself to
a committee’s interrogation [.. .]. He was, on some days, his own
proletariat, at least according to the standards of American visitors
and inscriptions.’^1
In spite of his stamina, Derrida was sometimes unable to cope.
During the autumn of 1987, he became friends with Elisabeth Weber,
a young woman who was working on the German translation of
Ulysses Gramophone and came to see him on various occasions after
his seminar to discuss the diffi culties she was encountering.
A few months later, as I was fi nishing my doctorate, he asked
me if I might be interested in giving him a hand, especially with
his correspondence. From the beginning of 1988, I went to
Ris-Orangis every Sunday to work with him. In the morning,
Derrida would dictate answers to the letters that had been
piling up during the week. The afternoons were generally kept
for the papers, manuscripts and books that he had received, as
well as for organizing his library.^2But Elisabeth’s role soon became more extensive. As she explains:
After a while, he also entrusted me with the fi nishing touches
and corrections to several books: Limited Inc, which brought
together the pieces of the polemic with Searle, and the big
volume of interviews Points. The initiative for this project came
from me, if I remember correctly. We discussed in detail which
interviews to use from the selection I’d made. I also looked