Ebook: Last works: lessons in leaving

For many today, retirement and the leisure said to accompany it have become vestiges of a slower, long-lost time. In a world where the sense of identity is tied to work and careers, to stop working often is to become nobody. In this deeply perceptive and personal exploration of last works, Mark C. Taylor explores the final reflections of writers and thinkers from Kierkegaard to David Foster Wallace. How did they either face or avoid ending and leaving? What do their lessons in ending teach us about living in the time that remains for us? Some leavings brought relief, even joy, while others brought pain and suffering. Whether the cause was infirmity, impending death, or simply exhaustion and ennui, the ways these influential voices fell silent offer poignant examples of people negotiating the challenges of ending. Throughout this profound and moving book, Taylor probes how the art of living involves learning to leave gracefully.--Jacket.;Machine generated contents note: 1.Completion Søren Kierkegaard (1813 -- 1855) -- The Moment -- Memento Mori -- Secrets -- Existential Pedagogy -- Mission Accomplished -- 2. Immanence Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 -- 1900) -- Ecce Homo, Will to Power -- Living Death -- Swallowing the Sea -- Unhappy Consciousness -- Bacchanalian Revel -- 3. Waiting Maurice Blanchot (1907 -- 2003) -- "The Instant of My Death," Awaiting Oblivion -- Secrets -- Life After Death -- Posthumous Writing -- Living Death -- 4. Ghosts Sigmund Freud (1856 -- 1939) -- Moses and Monotheism, Beyond the Pleasure Principle -- To Stay or to Leave? -- Death as Love as Death -- Surviving God -- 5. Trembling Jacques Derrida (1930 -- 2004) -- The Beast and the Sovereign, II; "Comment ne pas trembler?" -- Gifts -- Parting Words -- Corpse and Corpus -- Fear and Trembling -- 6. Delirium Edgar Allan Poe (1809 -- 1849) -- Eureka, "Annabel Lee" -- Orphan -- Homesickness -- Ecstasy -- 7. Wavering Virginia Woolf (1882 -- 1941) -- Between the Acts;Note continued: Civilization and Its Discontents -- Moments of Being -- Interlude: Marking Time -- Going with the Flow -- Reflections on/of Ending -- 8. Intensity Ernest Hemingway (1899 -- 1961) -- The Dangerous Summer -- Deadly Legacy -- Real Fake -- Violence and the Sacred -- Dancing with Death -- Marked for Death -- 9. Speed David Foster Wallace (1962 -- 2008) -- The Pale King, "Good Old Neon" -- Duplicity -- Total Noise -- Bored to Death -- End of the Line -- 10. Silence Herman Melville (1819 -- 1891) -- The Confidence-Man, Billy Budd -- Place Matters -- The Failure of Success -- Masks -- "Naught Beyond" -- 11. Earth Henry David Thoreau (1817 -- 1862) -- Wild Fruits, "Walking" -- Retirement -- Concord -- Flows -- Apples -- Leaves -- 12. Works Last Lessons Learned -- P.S.