On Bowie

Resumen del libro

What made Bowie special? What made him the cultural icon he is today? And what made millions of people around the world tune into his peculiar wavelength and find exactly what they'd been looking for all along? These are the questions asked by Simon Critchley in this keen-eyed, moving and textured tribute to Bowie. Each of the two dozen deceptively short chapters looks at Bowie from a new angle, slowly unfolding the enigma that was his artistic life into a celebration of what made him unique. From the author's earliest childhood exposure to the bizarre musical and sexual contours of Ziggy Stardust right through to the supernova glow of Blackstar, and covering everything in between, Critchley traces the development of Bowie's music and lyrics to tell the story of how he tapped into zeitgeist - and into our hearts.

Growing up in working-class suburban England, the young Critchley was instantly drawn to this creature from another planet, 'so sexual, so knowing, so strange'. Now a celebrated philosopher who Jonathan Lethem has called 'a figure of quite startling brilliance', Critchley draws on a plethora of cultural and philosophical touchpoints, as well as his own intensely personal response to the music, to paint an essential portrait of Bowie as songwriter, poet, performer and icon.

Biografía del autor

Titular de la cátedra de Filosofía Hans Jonas en la New School for Social Research de Nueva York, enseña filosofía en la Universidad de Tilburg (Países Bajos) y es colaborador habitual de The New York Times. Tras sus primeros trabajos dedicados al horizonte ético-político de la deconstrucción, ha explorado las diversas caras de la muerte y el humor, para finalmente preguntarse por la actualidad de la tragedia en el mundo moderno. Prueba de esto último es Tragedia y Modernidad (2014), publicado en esta misma Editorial. Entre sus libros traducidos al castellano cabe mencionar también Muy poco casi nada (2007), El libro de los filósofos muertos (2008), La demanda infinita (2010), Sobre el humor (2010) y Apuntes sobre el suicidio (2016).