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Faux Pas
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by Maurice Blanchot,
Translated by Charlotte Mandell
Stanford University Press
Due/Published
April 2001, 336 pages,
paper
ISBN
0804729352
Published in France in 1943, Faux Pas is the first collection of Blanchot's essays on literature and language, consisting of fifty-four short pieces that were originally issued as reviews in literary journals, and one long introductory meditation that defines the trajectory of the whole volume. These essays include reconstructions of the main tenets of both literary and theoretical texts--classical and modern--as well as readings of authors as diverse as da Vinci and Kierkegaard, Melville and Proust, Molière, Goethe, and Mallarmé. The book, however, is not a miscellaneous collection of essays. The first section of the volume, "From Anguish to Language," indicates the relative unity of its trajectory and its special moment in the development of Blanchot's thought. "Anguish" was a prominent notion for the existentialist philosophies of the period of his first work, and in this book Blanchot reflects on the necessary transition from the paradoxes of anguish to a focus on the paradoxes of language. He does so without ever betraying the affective tensions that attach themselves to linguistic utterances, but he also insists that the pathos of anxiety is, in the last resort, comical. Whoever writes "I am lonely" can judge himself to be quite comical, as he evokes his solitude by addressing a reader and using means that make it impossible to be alone. This comedy of language is retraced in Blanchot's essays on poetry and narration, on silence and symbolism, the novel and morals, the stranger, the enigma, time, and the very possibility of literature in the works of Blake, Balzac, Rimbaud, and Gide, Bergson and Brice Parain, Rilke and Bataille, Sartre, Camus, Queneau, and so many others. Series: Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics |
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Review
“The writer finds himself in the increasingly ludicrous condition of having nothing to write, of having no means with which to write it, and of being constrained by the utter necessity of always writing it.” – Maurice Blanchot, from the essay “From Anguish to Language”
Published in France in 1943, Faux Pas collects over 54 of Blanchot’s essays that originally appeared in literary journals. While touching on a variety of concerns, Blanchot’s extraordinary critiques are shaped by his interest in the possibility and impossibility of writing. This framework leads to insightful, rich, and surprising critiques of the works of Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Melville, Ernst Jünger, Molière, Goethe, Gide, Proust, Paul Claudel, and others. Blanchot never lets his approach become dogmatic; instead he seeks out the complexities and problematic natures of the writers and works he is discussing. This openness is also evident in his discussions of more general literary issues, including the philosophical implications of literature and language, enigma, myth, and literary genres. Also of particular note is the inclusion of “From Anguish to Language,” an essay that outlines the trajectory of the collection. In it Blanchot explores, among other issues, the paradoxical nature of writing, and how anguish, nothingness, and despair compels the writer to write. This is an intriguing, evocative, and challenging collection that frames literature in a new light and adds to our appreciation of Blanchot’s thoughtful and rich body of work. Also recently from Maurice Blanchot For recent titles in related subjects: |
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