The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Over-Sensitivity by Jalal Toufic
Allen Hibbard

Jalal Toufic. Over-Sensitivity. Sun & Moon, 1996. 312 pp. Paper: $ 13.95.

A question which naturally arises with a consideration of this book is how to classify it. My first thought was that it belonged to the domain of film studies since film is so obviously a central concern to Toufic. Indeed, the range of films he deals with is impressive. (Among his favorite directors are Hitchcock, Passolini, Resnais/Robbes-Grillet, Deren, Lynch, Herzog, Tarkovsky, Buñuel, Solas, Godard, Wenders, Kurasawa, Parasher, and Ray.) Yet Toufic’s work is not content to stay within these boundaries. He shifts (seamlessly) to consider painting (Van Gogh, Magritte, and Bacon), photography (Sherrie Levine and Man Ray), psychology (particularly schizophrenia and madness), and political events such as the Civil War in Lebanon and the Gulf War.

Toufic’s book defies strict generic classification as well. He has in fact created here a new kind of book. The lack of distinct chapter headings (in contrast to the fragmented epigramatic style of his earlier book, Distracted) makes for densely packed prose, placing unusual demands on readers. (Where does one stop for a break, for a breath?) The abundant, copious notes function uniquely, more as extensions of points, so integral to the text that the reader is apt to keep two bookmarks—one in the text and one in the notes—and flip frequently back and forth from text to note. (References to his two previous works, Distracted and (Vampires): An Essay on the Undead in Film are common, noting overlapping arguments.) Portions of the book (notably toward the beginning) take the form of letters, written to particular people at particular times from particular places. At times autobiographical references erupt in the text.

Perhaps the best means of understanding Toufic’s project is to attend closely to the book’s title—Over-Sensitivity. The hyphen is critical. Toufic offers here an extended meditation on what he terms the “over” mode. The concept (which he spends the entire book demonstrating) resists simplification. This over mode, however, might be understood as any situation in life, in film, in literature, in photography where one thing is going on at the same time as something else, or where an interiority and an exteriority contend with one another, or where media and world intermingle, where one part moves and another is immobilized, where two channels play simultaneously. He thus is particularly interested in voice-overs, dance films with distinct “immobilizations,” film allusions, and various other sorts of disjunctive juxtapositioning. Toufic’s discussion subtly and logically slides in the end to a discussion of works of art demonstrating “radical closure,” seemingly hermetically sealed, seemingly cut off from the world. “In the case of radical closure,” he writes in the book’s last line, “there is an enigmatic direct influence of the artwork on the world.” [Allen Hibbard]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Over-Sensitivity by Jalal Toufic Allen Hibbard Jalal Toufic. Over-Sensitivity. Sun & Moon, 1996. 312 pp. Paper: $ 13.95. A question which naturally arises with a consideration of this book is how to classify it. My first thought was that it belonged to the domain of film studies since film is so obviously a central concern to Toufic. Indeed, the range of films he deals with is impressive. (Among his favorite directors are Hitchcock, Passolini, Resnais/Robbes-Grillet, Deren, Lynch, Herzog, Tarkovsky, Buñuel, Solas, Godard, Wenders, Kurasawa, Parasher, and Ray.) Yet Toufic’s work is not content to stay within these boundaries. He shifts (seamlessly) to consider painting (Van Gogh, Magritte, and Bacon), photography (Sherrie Levine and Man Ray), psychology (particularly schizophrenia and madness), and political events such as the Civil War in Lebanon and the Gulf War. Toufic’s book defies strict generic classification as well. He has in fact created here a new kind of book. The lack of distinct chapter headings (in contrast to the fragmented epigramatic style of his earlier book, Distracted) makes for densely packed prose, placing unusual demands on readers. (Where does one stop for a break, for a breath?) The abundant, copious notes function uniquely, more as extensions of points, so integral to the text that the reader is apt to keep two bookmarks—one in the text and one in the notes—and flip frequently back and forth from text to note. (References to his two previous works, Distracted and (Vampires): An Essay on the Undead in Film are common, noting overlapping arguments.) Portions of the book (notably toward the beginning) take the form of letters, written to particular people at particular times from particular places. At times autobiographical references erupt in the text. Perhaps the best means of understanding Toufic’s project is to attend closely to the book’s title—Over-Sensitivity. The hyphen is critical. Toufic offers here an extended meditation on what he terms the “over” mode. The concept (which he spends the entire book demonstrating) resists simplification. This over mode, however, might be understood as any situation in life, in film, in literature, in photography where one thing is going on at the same time as something else, or where an interiority and an exteriority contend with one another, or where media and world intermingle, where one part moves and another is immobilized, where two channels play simultaneously. He thus is particularly interested in voice-overs, dance films with distinct “immobilizations,” film allusions, and various other sorts of disjunctive juxtapositioning. Toufic’s discussion subtly and logically slides in the end to a discussion of works of art demonstrating “radical closure,” seemingly hermetically sealed, seemingly cut off from the world. “In the case of radical closure,” he writes in the book’s last line, “there is an enigmatic direct influence of the artwork on the world.” [Allen Hibbard]

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