Ecriture Du DäsastreModern history is haunted by the disasters of the century-world wars, concentration camps, Hiroshima, and the Holocaust-grief, anger, terror, and loss beyond words, but still close, still impending. How can we write or think about disaster when by its very nature it defies speech and compels silence, burns books and shatters meaning? The Writing of the Disaster reflects upon efforts to abide in disaster's infinite threat. First published in French in 1980, it takes up the most serious tasks of writing: to describe, explain, and redeem when possible, and to admit what is not possible. Neither offers consolation. Maurice Blanchot has been praised on both sides of the Atlantic for his fiction and criticism. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas once remarked that Blanchot's writing is a "language of pure transcendence, without correlative." Literary theorist and critic Geoffrey Hartman remarked that Blanchot's influence on contemporary writers "cannot be overestimated." Ann Smock is a professor of French at the University of California at Berkeley. She has translated Blanchot's The Space of Literature, also available as a Bison Book. Jeffrey Mehlman, a professor of French at Boston University, is the author of many books and articles on twentieth-century France and French literature. |
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absence absent meaning absolute affirmation alèthéia already ambiguity answer Auschwitz Bartleby the Scrivener becomes bereft Blanchot called cease child comes death demand desire dialectic difference disaster dying effacement Emmanuel Levinas enigma Ereignis Eric Weil escapes eternal eternal philosophy etymology everything exposed expression finite forgetfulness fragment fragmentary Georges Bataille Gérard Genette gift gives Greek language Gulag happen Hegel Heidegger immemorial impossible inasmuch infinite insomnia intensity interruption irony knowledge language Levinas live longer loss madness Maurice Blanchot Messiah multiple myth Narcissus negation negative neutral never Nietzsche night nonetheless oneself Ovid passivity past patience perhaps philosophy Plato possibility precisely present presupposes question refusal relation René Char repetition responsibility rhythm secret seems sense sentence separate sheer silence simply sovereignty speak suffering suicide thereby thing thought tion transcendence translated truth turn un-power unity wake Whence word writing
Popular passages
Page xiii - The wish of all, in the camps, the last wish: know what has happened, do not forget, and at the same time never will you know.