Žižek's architectural book arriving at the right moment
anecdote · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 4 talks
While approaching his computer to decline an architectural conference invitation, a colleague's gift of an architecture book arrived by bell, Žižek interprets this coincidence as almost proving God exists as a 'secret master.'
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“Details like this make you believe that maybe God exists because at the very point... a bell rang in my apartment and somebody brought me a present from a colleague, a book on architecture.”
“When I read the book, there was no kindness in me... it was envy and hatred. Why wasn't it me who wrote such a beautiful book?”
“I warned him I told him you are playing with the devil I'm an idiot I take things literally if you mean obscene you will get it obscene”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Marcion of Sinope1Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge1Theodore Sturgeon1Bryan Ward-Perkins1Charles Freeman1Dietrich of Bern1Jacques Cousteau1Alan Weisman1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
While approaching his computer to decline an architectural conference invitation, a colleague's gift of an architecture book arrived by bell, Žižek interprets this coincidence as almost proving God exists as a 'secret master.', illustrating miracle,contingency
Žižek offers an unusual personal proof of his admiration for Tupinamba's book: not kindness but envy and hatred, 'Why wasn't it me who wrote such a beautiful book?', which for him is the ultimate honest proof of genuine admiration., illustrating honest intellectual engagement,Lacanian desire/envy
A fan asked Žižek to write an obscene dedication; Žižek warned him twice he takes things literally, then wrote genuinely extreme obscenities. The fan was hurt. The point: everyday extreme language (insults, obscenities) functions by not being meant literally, the idiot is whoever takes it literally., illustrating speech act theory,literal vs. performative language,everyday language