Awaiting Oblivion (French Modernist Library) [Paperback]

Maurice Blanchot (Author), John Gregg (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Series: French Modernist Library | Publication Date: May 1, 1999

Maurice Blanchot has been for a half century one of France's leading authors of fiction and theory. Two of his most ambitious nonfiction works, The Space of Literature and The Writing of the Disaster, are also available from the University of Nebraska Press, as is The Most High, his third novel. John Gregg is the author of Maurice Blanchot and the Literature of Transgression.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Awaiting Oblivion ($26.00; May 15, 1997; 88 pp.; 0-8032-1257-7): Another of Blanchot's almost-fictions (The One Who Was Standing Apart From Me, etc., not reviewed), this 1962 work mingles the briefest of narratives, cryptic dialogue, and even more cryptic aphoristic statements with the myth of Orpheus's descent into the underworld, throwing into deliciously baffling high relief the enigmatic condition of a man and woman alone in a sparsely furnished hotel room who try to remember what has happened to bring them there as they apprehensively await whatever will happen next. Their reserved confusion and quiet desperation eventually impress upon them (and us) the realization that imagination (or, if you will, writing) can create reality--and offer the paradoxical solace that seems to rest at the heart of Blanchot's writing: the sense that even language that expresses meaninglessness can't help but contain and, therefore, convey meaning. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Another of Blanchot’s almost-fictions . . . throwing into deliciously baffling high relief the enigmatic condition of a man and woman alone in a sparsely furnished hotel room who try to remember what has happened to bring them there as they apprehensively await whatever will happen next. Their reserved confusion and quiet desperation eventually impress upon them (and us) the realization that imagination (or, if you will, writing) can create reality—and offer the paradoxical solace that seems to rest at the heart of Blanchot’s writing: the sense that even language that expresses meaninglessness can’t help but contain and, therefore, convey meaning."—Kirkus

(Kirkus )

"This absolutely first-rate translation will not only make Blanchot accessible to many new readers but will also encourage Blanchot scholars and students to reconsider everything they thought they knew about L’Attente l’oubli. . . . This book should be required reading, period."—Choice

(Choice )

"Awaiting Oblivion is one of [Blanchot’s] crowning works . . . a penetrating reflection upon human nature, language, and literature."—Translation Review

(Translation Review )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 87 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (May 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803261578
• ISBN-13: 978-0803261570
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,093,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #7 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods > Modernism

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Openings, not closings..., March 24, 2000

By 

Andrew... (Binghamton, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Awaiting Oblivion (French Modernist Library) (Hardcover)

The text is an intimate engagment with a question of relation. Perhaps it is not in anyone's (including Blanchot's...) interest to somehow portray a more "accurate" picture of the world, to write a "better" narrative or récit, rather, perhaps there is something more fundamental at stake which places even the practice of reading into question. And if this is at all true, it one of the foremost reasons why I hold almost all of Blanchot's texts in the highest regard.

5 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars watching one's wait, June 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Awaiting Oblivion (French Modernist Library) (Hardcover)

Imagine yourself a leading French theorist: here is a recipe for that troublesome new 'recits'- return to an earlier work (in this case, his first, 'Death Sentence'/L'arrete de Mort')- find a germane incident within that book- rip those pages out. Now set up two charatcters in a situation that mirrors the originary fictional incident- have those two characters try to analyze the event's 'implication' from within the same setting. Digress frequently. Sound a little too Stoppardian for you? Not sure you'll find the Godot-like intertextual rib-tickles very compelling? For fiction his short-stories 'The last word', or 'The idyll' are easily a thousand nights more lucid; for heavy theory, 'The Writing of Disaster' is detonative. This work sadly's just oblivious...