Abstract

Using Amelie Nothomb's 'Stupeur et Tremblements', a novel that appeared in 1999 and shook the waters of the Francophone literary world, I attempt an analysis of the relation between love and law in the form of Kierkegaard's suspension as witnessed in his 'Fear and Trembling'. I find that, in order to 'fulfil' love, which is defined here more in the form of caritas and justice than erotic love, one has to suspend the legal, since the relation is one of mutually exclusive circularity. For this I engage in a critique of Derrida's 'Force of Law', pointing to the omission of the circular and the internal from his analysis of the relation between justice and law. To address this, I draw inspiration from Luhmann's ideas on love and law, and I argue for the suspension of the suspension, which is defined as the perpetual possibility of internalised ignorance of the external other, whether the dyad refers to ethics and faith, law and love, or self and amorous subject.