Translation II

[Michel Ryckx]

Dear Sir:
Jessica and Roger Mexico drive 'to the country'.  What does that mean?  Depending on where one is used to live, it can mean something completely different.

In Belgium, my country, one cannot walk for an hour 'in the country' without meeting someone, or without discovering a human trace.  In Britain, where the aforementioned action takes place, the landscape is mainly tamed by humans.  In the United States, there still can be found some wilderness (nature, and, besides, in human beings, but that is another discussion).  What does an Iraqi reader see when 'the country' is mentioned?

This is my point: though it is to be admired that someone devotes 60 pages explaining 'différance', I don't know whether the reader will see things more clearly.  I remember it was very hard to understand  the concepts of 'signifiant' and 'signifié', while one over here is supposed to be more or less bilingual (Dutch and French).

Since Heidegger began playing with words, and often incorrectly, and after he was introduced in France,  and knowing that French philosophy (nowadays) is merely an intellectual play, without any absolute value at all, but just a parttaking in a public discours, I think it is even irrelevant to make such an effort as you mentioned.  But the exercise must be exciting.

Michel Ryckx.