Apparently you can't be much of an intellectual if you haven't finished even one book from the Deconstructionist movement, and I have to plead guilty. But there is hope for me, because I've read enough of _The Time of Tea_ (photos by Suet, text by Pasqualini) to have confidence I'll eventually finish it.
Pasqualini obviously knows a vast amount about tea, even if some of it isn't true. But informing the reader in any linear way is very low on his agenda. It's the (usually hidden) *meanings* of things he's principally after, representations within representations, and the pursuit gets pretty dizzying, maddening, even. But there are gems in the text, too, like his hymn to gongfu preparation around p. 160 (sorry, I don't have the book handy.)
Anyway, it was rather amazing the other day to hit what may be the climax of the whole book (a page where he quotes both Derrida and Proust) on the same day I read Derrida's obituary.
/Lew