Desire for a Beginning/Dread of One Single End [Paperback]

Rosmarie Waldrop (Translator), Edmond Jabes (Author), Ed Epping (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2001

"Published for the first time in English, this is the last substantial work by the late French author Edmund JabAs, presented here with the subtle digital images of Ed Epping. In a series of short aphorisms, JabAs continues his lifelong interrogation of 'The Book' both within the Jewish cultural tradition and twentieth century modernism. JabAs' life work is driven in part by Mallarm 's concept of the limit, of the space beyond limits, and the space defined by such a limit. His work is pervaded by a sense of melancholy and loss, and never so much as in Desire for a Beginning/Dread of One Single End, as its title would suggest. Even in his last work, JabAs continues to struggle admirably with questions of being and not-being, of life and art, displaying the intelligence and passion of a great writer."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Also from Granary, a New York art book publisher headed by Steve Clay, come two related poems by Edmond JabŠs, Desire for a Beginning and Dread of One Single End, presented with digital art work by Ed Epping, director of the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois, Chicago, in this small, glossy-paged book. Translated from the French by poet and Burning Deck books publisher Rosmarie Waldrop, JabŠs's aphoristic sentences and fragments take us from seeing that "A block of ice is nothing but a limited quantity of water surprised by cold" to the realization that "At death's door, it is not the future of the soul that worries us, but how the body behaves."

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

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Product Details

• Paperback: 48 pages
• Publisher: Granary Books; First Edition edition (February 2, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887123385
• ISBN-13: 978-1887123389
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,424,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Last substantial work? In content not size, March 3, 2001

By 

M. J. Smith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Desire for a Beginning/Dread of One Single End (Paperback)

Jabes is rarely easy to read - his demands on the reader are too high. In this slim volume, this is even more true for, if one has not read other works by Jabes, it would be difficult to place his primary vocabulary - page, book, Nothingness, etc. - in the intended context.

If you are familiar with his work, however, you will find all the usual reasons for loving the book. An example of an unforgettable image: "Serpent may be a word so drawn out that it cannot help crawling along its own shadow".

His look at death and freedom is etched in thought provoking images of frail birds that provokes a deep melancholy, an emotional thread much stronger than in his other works.

There is a mention of Auschwitz as a formative moment for those living in the second half of the twentieth century, but the Holocaust does not inform the whole work as it does in the Book of Questions. Rather, these aphorisms reflect on the inevitable, individual death in the face of the only truth known to us - Unknowability.

An absolutely brilliant book that marketed as his "last substantial work" reminds one how great a writer was lost in his death.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Edmond Jabes, March 16, 2009

By 

Bert (Pittsburgh PA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Desire for a Beginning/Dread of One Single End (Paperback)

Desire for a Beginning/Dread of One Single End
Jabes is endlessly exploring the Word as cause, proof and question in the enigma of existence, particularly the existence of the individual. The Word as a primal element in Judaism is caught, examined and revered in all his works. The near-universality of the Word as a primal element in religions and cultures gives Jabes' work enormous breadth beyond the Jewish tradition in which it begins. This is, however, probably not the book with which to begin reading Jabes; it is even more cryptic than most of his other works. Start with The Book of Questions.