SOURCE: A review of Glas and Glassary, in The Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol. LXXV, No. 3, August, 1989, pp. 355-57.

In the following review of Glas, Aune remarks that its barriers to comprehension are even greater than in Derrida's earlier books, yet he praises it for its erudition and scholarly rigor.

My first reaction upon receiving Glas in the mail was that it may have inaugurated a new literary genre: the coffeetable book for academics. Elegantly printed (in several different typefaces, which correspond to the multiple "voices" of the text) and 10 1/4 inches square, Glas looks like the sort of book one would display or read in, but never read.

And, alas, Glas probably will remain unread by most readers…. Conversation between American-style rhetoricians and deconstructionists seems impossible, and the recent de Man case may well serve as a convenient excuse for evading such a conversation indefinitely. Thus far, David...