Finally my ("my"!) copy of The Levinas Reader arrives in the post, all the more extraordinary given the weather yesterday. I ordered way back in January so it's arrival is something of an event.

Flicking through between oral exam sessions, I'm struck by a phrase which crops up in an interview and which is used by Levinas at the start of an essay. It derives from Pascal - here's the section in full:

295. Mine, thine.—“This dog is mine,” said those poor children; “that is my place in the sun.” Here is the beginning and the image of the usurpation of all the earth.

"That is my place in the sun" - that's the part that fascinates me. I think I understand the literal meaning - shove over, I was here first - and yet it doesn't stop there. It's a phrase which keeps speaking, deceptive in its very casualness. Why, I suppose, Levinas uses it in the first place.