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Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003)

Author of The Space of Literature

100+ Works 3,729 Members 30 Reviews 24 Favorited

About the Author

Maurice Blanchot, 1907 - Novelist and critic Maurice Blanchot was born in 1907. Some of his works in translation include "Death Sentence" (1978), "The Gaze of Orpheus" (1981), "Madness of the Day" (1988), "The One Who Was Standing Apart From Me" (1993), all of which were translated by Lydia Davis, show more and "Michel Foucault as I Imagine Him" (translated by Jeffrey Mehlman, 1987). (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Maurice Blanchot

The Space of Literature (1955) 438 copies
Death Sentence (1948) 389 copies
The Writing of the Disaster (1980) 326 copies
Thomas the Obscure (1941) 264 copies
The Infinite Conversation (1969) 188 copies
The Book to Come (1959) 164 copies
The Unavowable Community (1983) 154 copies
Madness of the Day (1973) 130 copies
The Work of Fire (1949) 115 copies
Lautréamont and Sade (1949) 92 copies
Friendship (1971) 89 copies
The Step Not Beyond (1973) 80 copies
Faux Pas (1943) 58 copies
The Last Man (1957) 56 copies
De Kafka à Kafka (1816) 50 copies
When the Time Comes (1951) 49 copies
Vicious Circles (1983) 47 copies
A Voice from Elsewhere (1992) 40 copies
Essäer (1990) 13 copies
Le Dernier à parler (1984) 12 copies
Het moment van mijn dood (2012) 8 copies
Het beest van Lascaux (1983) 7 copies
Amistad,La (2014) 4 copies
Conversa Infinita (2009) 4 copies
De idylle (2016) 3 copies
書物の不在 (2007) 3 copies
Innriss. Essays i utvalg (1996) 2 copies
Traduire Kafka (2019) 2 copies
Joë Bousquet (1987) 2 copies
Sur Lautréamont (1987) 2 copies
La Risa De Los Dioses (1976) 2 copies
The Gaze of Orpheus (1981) 2 copies
言語と文学 (2004) 1 copy
カミュ論 1 copy
マラルメ論 (1977) 1 copy
Eseji izbor 1 copy
Sade (1986) 1 copy
Michel Foucault (1987) 1 copy
Vergehen (2011) 1 copy

Associated Works

Fictions (1944) — Introduction, some editions — 7,566 copies
Justine, Philosophy in the Bedroom, and Other Writings (1791) — Introduction, some editions — 1,231 copies
Writing Degree Zero (1953) — Contributor, some editions — 717 copies
On the Marble Cliffs (1939) — Afterword, some editions — 609 copies
Nights As Day, Days As Night (1961) — Foreword, some editions — 110 copies
Demeure : Maurice Blanchot (1998) — Contributor — 14 copies
Igitur ou A Loucura de Elbehnon (1974) — カバー紹介文, some editions — 13 copies
Balaabilou (1985) — Contributor — 7 copies
デリダと肯定の思考 (2007) — Contributor — 2 copies
ロートレアモン詩集 — Contributor — 1 copy
詩と思想 1989年 03月号 — Contributor — 1 copy
ユリイカ 詩と批評 1985年 05月号 — Contributor — 1 copy
リテレール (6) (1993) — Contributor — 1 copy
白夜評論 1962年6月創刊号 — Contributor — 1 copy
形成 第7号 — Contributor — 1 copy
形成 第8号 — Contributor — 1 copy
白夜評論 1962年7月号 — Contributor — 1 copy
世界の文学〈38〉現代評論集 (1978年) (1978) — Contributor — 1 copy
現代フランス文学13人集〈第4〉 (1966年) (1966) — Contributor — 1 copy
ロートレアモン論 (1970年) (1970) — Contributor — 1 copy
季刊 審美 第十五号 — Contributor — 1 copy
現代詩手帖 1964年 07月号 — Contributor — 1 copy
実存と虚無 — Contributor — 1 copy
海 1969年06月 発刊記念号 — Contributor — 1 copy
フランシス・ポンジュ詩選 (1982年) (1982) — Contributor — 1 copy
マイノリティは創造する — Contributor — 1 copy
思想 2007年 07月号 (2007) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Blanchot, Maurice
Birthdate
1907-09-22
Date of death
2003-02-20
Gender
male
Nationality
France
Birthplace
Devrouze, Saône-et-Loire, France
Place of death
Le Mesnil-Saint-Denis, Yvelines, France
Places of residence
Paris, France
Èze, Alpes-Maritime, France
Education
University of Strasbourg (BA | 1922)
University of Paris (MA | 1930)
Occupations
philosopher
literary theorist
writer
novelist
journalist
Relationships
Bataille, Georges (friend)
Organizations
Nouvelle Revue Française
Short biography
Maurice Blanchot lived in Paris during the German Occupation of World War II, and was active in the French Resistance. In June 1944, shortly before the Liberation, he was close to being executed by the Nazis, which he described in his book The Instant of My Death. His work on the questions of language and meaning had a strong influence on post-war French literary theory and criticism.

Members

Reviews

"[And] she stared at me, but in a strange way, as if I had been in back of myself, and infinitely far back."

Precious: sending plaster casts of a hand to a palm reader. Decadent the first time, but when it happens twice in the same novel (against all odds!) one thinks this surely must be a trope of Huysmans's (Huysmans sentenced to death the same year Blanchot sentenced to be born), or is the mechanical conveyance of plaster a conceit to avoid the dread-ful fortune-teller scene (Impossible to pull off in literature, not even by Kleist.)

Compared to the stupefied physicians of the early 20th century, overwhelmed by the pathophysiology of disease and an obligation to tonal fidelity at bedside, modern physicians are perhaps better on the margins. (Surely more accurate at prognostication than the palm read, though likely hardly less halting.)

"[Infidelity's] merit is to keep [a] story in reserve,"
On infidelity to a tone. A sad moment becomes happy, or there is a moment of comedy or delirious-transcendence ("A perfect rose"), but only to return to a greater silent despair; though Blanchot may not be aware that the sadness turned to humor turned to sadness can become (burnt) humor again at the final moment. (Compare this to the vision of 'silence beyond silence beyond silence.')

"[But] the road wants to see if the man who is coming is really the one who should be coming: it turns around to see who he is. [. . .] Unhappy is the path that turns around to look at the man walking on it;"
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Joe.Olipo | 5 other reviews | Jan 1, 2024 |
Ok, I'm an unabashed enthusiast for French literature - at the same time that I'm an anti-nationalist. I'm reminded of a French-Canadian friend asserting to me that French culture is much more supportive of language play than American culture is & I find that easy enuf to believe. My friend sd that there're French comedians whose comedy is oriented around complex puns - contrast this to endless dick jokes & you get the idea.

W/ the preceding in mind, I mention that 5 of my favorite writers are French: François Rabelais, "Comte de Lautrémont" (honorary Frenchmen despite his being an Uruguayan expatriate - he wrote & died in France), Alfred Jarry, Raymond Roussel, & Georges Perec. Raymond Queneau is certainly high up there too. many others that I'm probably not thinking of at the moment.

As such, I've definitely read more French writers (in English translation) than most Americans. & I tend to seek out the more experimental ones. & I've found some of them to be colossal bores. On the minus side there's been Michel Butor's "Passing Time" [you can read my shoddy review here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2963301.Passing_Time] & Nathalie Sarraute's "The Planetarium" (don't remember this one at all). I even plowed thru at least 5 novels by Alain Robbe-Grillet. I almost liked those - if only for their formal severity.

& then there's Maurice Blanchot. I read "The Madness of the Day" 1st. It did nothing for me [you can read me saying the same thing in 5 sentences here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1147264.Madness_of_the_Day]. Then I read the considerably longer "Aminadab". I liked that a bit more but still not enuf to really embrace Blachot [See my somewhat more extensive review here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/445745.Aminadab].

But I'm stubborn. So I just read this 3rd bk b/c I'm curious - he's obviously a thoughtful writer but what can I get out of it? A man goes to a door. He's surprised by who opens it. There's another woman who lives there. Maybe he knew her before, maybe he didn't. He moves in.. or stays there for a little while.. or something.. Maybe he had a history w/ one or both of the women.. Such is the skeleton of the 'plot'. But no 'meat' fleshes out these bones - the rest of the bk is all 'marrow' instead, it's all internal - in the 1st person narrator's excuse for a mind. If this guy were a friend of mine he'd drive me crazy.

The bk seems to be based around canceled-out dualities. "Time has passed, and yet it was not past" The narrator seems to be trapped in some sort of limbo of microscopic analysis - so tedious as to be borderline monomaniacal. As he got thru the doorway & the internal monologue started in earnest I practically groaned w/ the knowledge that, yes, this was going to be a Blanchot novel like the other novels. Was Blanchot like this as a person? Did he spend all his time FIXATED on ideas that he was incapable of putting into any kind of life-affirming action? If so, I'd hate to be him on his death-bed.

All of wch isn't to say that this wasn't 'good' in some sense. As a reader, just navigating the narrative was an interesting challenge: Who are these people? What is their interrelationship? The 1st-person implies things that it doesn't deliver - as if the narrator already knows it so why shd he say anything about it? Then again, who these characters are & what they're doing w/ each other appears to just be a pretext for presenting the narrator's introversion:

"Now I have to say this: even though I saw how real it was, this gesture left me feeling uncomfortable, uneasy. Why? This is hard to understand, but it made me think of a truth whose shadow it would be, it made me think of some sort of unique, radiant thing, as though it had tried to condemn to mere likeness an inimitable instant. Bitter suspicion, disconcerting and burdensome thought."

What's he 'reacting' to? One of the women taking his 2 hands & putting them against her throat. Is he a paranoid?
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tENTATIVELY | 1 other review | Apr 3, 2022 |
I gave a not particularly enthusiastic review to Blanchot's "The Madness of the Day" wch was, at that point, the only thing I'd read by him. Then my respected colleague Franz Kamin sd I shd give him another chance so when I found this bk I picked it up. Others put in a good word for him too. I've read many 19th & 20th century French writers so I definitely have a taste for such things but Blanchot's a writer I never discovered when I was most in the thick of such interests.

Whilst reading it, though, I found myself wondering: Do I even ENJOY reading anymore? Perhaps if I'd read it 30 yrs ago I wd've found it fascinating. As it was, I mostly just found it tedious - much like the only bk I've read by Michel Butor. The back-cover promo for "Aminadab" compares it to Kafka's "enclosed and allegorical spaces" &, yes, it's very claustrophobic - like Kafka, like Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast Trilogy" - wch I loved as a young teenager.

But this is the type of claustrophobia that reminds me of friends making what I consider to be 'bad' decisions - I just felt like saying: "Don't do that!" - like talking to a character in a horror movie about to make a fatally stupid blunder. In other words, as the protaganist goes thru his progressive entanglement, I found myself caring only insofar as I was annoyed.

Also on the back cover blurb it says: "Blanchot's novel functions as an allegory referring, above all, to the wandering and striving movement of writing itself" & keeping that assertion in mind made the bk slightly more interesting to me. Strangely, but as a nice change from the norm, the 'romantic' aspect of it is downplayed to the point of barely a mention in the translator's intro. However, it seems to me that the bk is as much about human relationships as anything more formal - w/ the human relationships not being very appealing to me.

All in all, "Aminadab" is fairly original & unusual - 2 qualities I always search out - but I found myself not caring very much. Blanchot has helped me realize that I want something very different out of writing than what wd've been interesting 30 yrs ago (just based on its difference). Now? It's not so clear what I want - stimulation, of course, but maybe I'm too jaded to receive that easily.
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tENTATIVELY | 1 other review | Apr 3, 2022 |
Station Hill is one of my favorite publishers. They published Franz Kamin's only record, That's enuf to endear them to me forever. This bk, however, didn't really do anything for me. I probably just didn't appreciate it enuf.
 
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tENTATIVELY | 2 other reviews | Apr 3, 2022 |

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Works
100
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Members
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Popularity
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Rating
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Reviews
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ISBNs
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Languages
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Favorited
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