Walter Benjamin

Double book review by Stewart Home from Datacide Eight. Leslie’s Marxist reading of Benjamin contrasts sharply with Olson’s anti-Marxist take on comedy. Leslie, a British Socialist Workers Party activist, seeks to reclaim Benjamin for Trotskyism, critiquing both philosophical appropriations of Benjamin and the cult around him. Olson, an old-fashioned liberal with anarchist leanings, critiques the shift from a classical to a neo-Marxist literary canon, though his grasp of Marxism is flawed. While Olson’s work lacks Leslie’s rigor, both books offer corrective insights when read together, illustrating the tensions between politics, aesthetics, and ideology.