cinaedussinister's review
3.0
3.5 Stars
Good at identifying flaws, and very insightful, but not very constructive in its criticism. Also on a side note, the writing style was extremely and almost unbearably dry. 1 out of 5 for accessibility, which is ironic given the subject matter.
Good at identifying flaws, and very insightful, but not very constructive in its criticism. Also on a side note, the writing style was extremely and almost unbearably dry. 1 out of 5 for accessibility, which is ironic given the subject matter.
krj's review
3.0
I can't finish Minima Moralia. I've been working on it since—February? March? something like that—only some seventy pages left now. It's odd—there will be a streak of aphorisms that I love, that are brilliant—but then I'll slog through half a dozen misreadings of Freud or rants about how pretty women are vain and stupid. I feel like I like Adorno (even in spite of his misogyny)—I feel like I would enjoy his company, and we could talk about Proust and our contempt for popular culture and the bourgeoisie. But even when I feel like Adorno is onto something brilliant, when one of the aphorisms in this book really hits me close to home, I feel like I've already read it before, and read it said better: really, Minima Moralia's best aphorisms are the ones in which Adorno just regurgitates, almost verbatim, Marx. I don't feel like there's anything new that I'm getting from Adorno—and while I sympathize frequently with his cultural malaise, I just can't bring myself to read those last seventy pages: time is limited, a precious commodity in our world of late capitalism, and I'd rather spend mine reading Marx. At least Marx offers a way out of capitalism, of the dictatorship of the bourgeois. I suppose that is Adorno's "new" contribution: he is Marx, resigned. The world is fucked, people: that's all Adorno has to offer.
nickramsey's review
5.0
Imagine your grandfather complaining about how the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. Then, imagine that your grandfather is the most well-read and erudite German bro. That's what this book is.
tdwightdavis's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
3.25
I’m a lot more lukewarm on Adorno than other people because I think he’s really amazing on stuff like fascism and philosophy and the nature of thinking but he’s garbage on cultural issues (and pretty right wing and conservative tbh) and absolutely shit on women’s issues (sorry that I can’t buy the argument that “harlots” can’t be human unless they stop being harlots!). Adorno would have been a top tier shitposter tho.
lucien_david's review against another edition
4.0
Adorno’s tendency to jump from topic to topic without ceremony or warning is initially a challenge but ultimately gives the book a great deal of weight. His reflections on fascism and its antecedents alone are enough to recommend this to a modern audience.