32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Space of Absence, April 5, 2000
By A Customer
Better to read this than to read ten manuals on the subject of writing.
Blanchot evokes the non-presence of death in writing, writing's necessary complicity with death. This death, however, is not the Hegelian death that would negate and finalize the subject (cf Arendt), fixing it in a form on which judgement could finally be passed. No, true to his essay on the absence of any right to death (which appears in _The Work of Fire_ and _The Station Hill Blanchot Reader_), this death never occurs. This death is never present, happens at no particular time, and happens to no one (see also _The Writing of the Disaster_). It cannot be said to happen or occur at all. It is never present, and being so, shares with writing the latter's most unearthly, strange quality - the absense of the writer and of that about which has been written.
In addition to being the most profound book on writing about which I can write with any knowledge, this is also Blanchot's most coherent and accessible set of essays. They possess something of a centrality of purpose and, together, make up something of a book, rather than the collections which make up the remainder of his critical and quasi-critical work. This may be a failing in the eyes of most Blanchotophiles, but it provides a bridge from the normal style of scholarly exposition to his more challenging investigations, and can be recommended as a first approach for the reader who is unfamiliar with his work. Nevertheless, some prior acquaintance with Rilke, Mallarme, Hoelderlin, and Kafka will be of immeasurable aid.
Most importantly, this one stands as its own example of writing that utterly lacks completion, that is haunted throughout with a palpable sensation of absence, a sensation that is at once as appealing as it is astonishing and unsettling.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkably Valuable Text for 20th Century French Philosophy, April 4, 2010
Ann Smock's qualities as a translator shine through in Blanchot's earlier theoretical work, wherein one encounters a variety of themes that preoccupy him for the remainder of is literary life. Except for "Literature and the Right to Death", this is--in my opinion--the best starting point for anyone who is newly discovering Blanchot, but it remains significant and important for even the most well-read Blanchot scholars!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best Blanchot study, May 1, 2009
A great classic on the subtle workings of the minds of poets and writers and on poetry and writing in general. Like the title aptly puts it, it is a study of the interior space of Literature through studies of great poets like Mallarme, Rilke, Novalis and Holderlin and author-philosophers like Nietzsche and Kafka. Extremely perceptive approach with all the extreme analyses that characterize French thought. Mostly philosophical and intended for Poetry and Philosophy buffs. Excellent translation.
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