Maurice Blanchot

Christophe Bident, John McKeane

Description

Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) was one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. His novels, shorter narratives, literary criticism, and fragmentary texts exercised enormous influence over several generations of writers, artists, and philosophers. In works such as Thomas the Obscure, The Instant of my Death, The Writing of the Disaster, The Unavowable Community, Blanchot produced some of the most incisive statements of what it meant to experience the traumas and turmoils of the twentieth century.As a journalist and political activist, Blanchot had a public side that coexisted uneasily with an inclination to secrecy, a refusal of interviews and photographs, and a reputation for mysteriousness and seclusion. These public and private Blanchots came together in complicated ways at some of the twentieth century's most momentous occasions. He was among the public intellectuals participating in the May '68 revolution in Paris and helped organize opposition to the Algerian war. During World War II, he found himself moments away from being executed by the Nazis. More controversially, he had been active in far-right circles in the '30s.Now translated into English, Christophe Bident's magisterial, scrupulous, much-praised critical biography provides the first full-length account of Blanchot's itinerary, drawing on unpublished letters and on interviews with the writer's close friends. But the book is both a biography and far more. Beyond filling out a life famous for its obscurity, Bident's book will transform the way readers of Blanchot respond to this major intellectual figure by offering a genealogy of his thought, a distinctive trajectory that is at once imaginative and speculative, at once aligned with literary modernity and a close companion and friend to philosophy.The book is also a historical work, unpacking the 'transformation of convictions' of an author who moved from the far-right in the 1930s to the far-left in the 1950s and after. Bident's extensive archival research explores the complex ways that Blanchot's work enters into engagement with his contemporaries, making the book also a portrait of the circles in which he moved, which included friends such as Georges Bataille, Marguerite Duras, Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida.Finally, the book traces the strong links between Blanchot's life and an oeuvre that nonetheless aspires to anonymity. Ultimately, Bident shows how Blanchot's life itself becomes an oeuvre-becomes a literature that bears the traces of that life secretly. In its even-handed appraisal, Bident's sophisticated reading of Blanchot's life together with his work offers a much-needed corrective to the range of cruder accounts, whether from Blanchot's detractors or from his champions, of a life too easily sensationalized.This definitive biography of a seminal figure of our time will be essential reading for anyone concerned with twentieth-century literature, thought, culture, and politics.

Sujets

• Córcega
• Corsica
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Fordham University Press
• Date de parution: 20 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780823281787
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

M a u r i c e B l a n c h o t

Maurice Blanchot A Critical Biography

Christophe Bident Translated by John McKeane

f o r d h a m u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s New York 2019

Copyright © 2019 Fordham University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

This book was originally published in French as Christophe Bident, Maurice Blanchot: Partenaire invisible; Essai biographique, Copyright © 1998, Éditions Champ Vallon.

Cet ouvrage, publié dans le cadre du programme d’aide à la publication, bénéficie du soutien du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et du Service Culturel de l’Ambassade de France représenté aux États-Unis.

This work received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States through their publishing assistance program.

Fordham University Press gratefully acknowledges financial assistance and support provided for the publication of this book by the University of Reading and by the Centre de recherches en Arts et Esthétique, Université de Picardie Jules Verne.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bident, Christophe, 1962– author. Title: Maurice Blanchot : a critical biography / Christophe Bident ;  translated by John McKeane. Other titles: Maurice Blanchot. English Description: New York, NY : Fordham University Press, 2019. | Includes  bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018011232| ISBN 9780823281763 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN  9780823281756 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Blanchot, Maurice. | Authors, French—20th century—Biography. Classification: LCC PQ2603.L3343 Z55 2019 | DDC 843/.912 [B] —dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018011232

Printed in the United States of America

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First edition

Translator’s Note Preface

c o n t e n t s

Part I1907–1923  1. Blanchot of Quain: Genealogy, Birth, Childhood (1907–1918)  2. Music and Family Memory: Marguerite Blanchot in Chalon (1920s)  3. The Fedora of Death: Illness (1922–1923)

Part II1920s–1940  4. The Walking Stick with the Silver Pommel: The University of Strasbourg (1920s)  5. A Flash in the Darkness: Meeting Emmanuel Levinas (1925–1930)  6. There Is: Philosophical Apprenticeship (1927–1930)  7. Aligning One’s Convictions: Paris and Far-Right Circles (1930s)  8. “Mahatma Gandhi”: A First Text by Blanchot (1931)  9. Refusal, I. The Revolution of Spirit:La Revue Française, Réaction, andLa Revue du Siècle (1931–1934) 44 10. Journalist, Opponent of Hitler, National-Revolutionary: Le Journal des Débats,Le Rempart,Aux Écoutes, andLa Revue du Vingtième Siècle(1931–1935) 11. The Escalation of Rhetoric: The Launch ofCombat(1936) 12. Terrorism as a Method of Public Safety: Combat( July –December 1936) Breaking Point:13. Patriotism’s L’Insurgé(1937) 71

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These Events Happened to Me in 1937: Death Sentences (1937–1938) On the Transformation of Convictions: A Journalist of the Far Right (1930s) From Revolution to Literature: Literary Criticism (1930s) Murderous Omens of Times to Come —Writing the Récits: “The Last Word” and “The Idyll” (1935–1936) Night Freely Recircled, Which Plays Us: Thomas the Obscure(1932–1940)

PaIrItI1940 –1949 The Universe Is to Be Found in Night: Resistance (1940 –1944) Using Vichy against Vichy: Jeune France(1941–1942) 127 Admiration and Agreement: Meeting Georges Bataille (1940 –1943) In the Name of the Other: Literary Chronicles at theJournal des Débats(1941–1944) 145 A True Writer Has Appeared: The Publication and Reception ofThomas the Obscure(1941–1942) 160 Lift This Fog Which Is Already of the Dawn: The Publication ofAminadab(1942) Writers Who Have Given Too Much to the Present: NRFCircles (1941–1942) From Anguish to Language: The Publication ofFaux pas(1943) The Prisoner of the Eyes That Capture Him: Quain (Summer 1944) The Disenchantment of the Community: Editorial Activity after Liberation (1944 –1946) The Year of Criticism:L’Arche,Les Temps Modernes, andCritique(1946) Respecting Scandal: Literary Criticism (1945–1948) The Black Stain: WritingThe Most High(1946 –1947) The Passion of Silence: Denise Rollin (1940s) The Mediterranean Sojourn: The Writing of the Night (1947)

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34.SomethingIneflxible:The Madness of the Day, a New Status for Speech (1947–1949) 35. The Turn of the Screw: The Second Version ofThomas the Obscure(1947–1948) 232 36. The Authority of Friendship: The Completion ofDeath Sentence(1947–1948) in the Literary World: Publication37. Quarrels and Reception (1948 –1949)

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PaIrtV1949 –1959 Invisible Partner: Èze, Withdrawal (1949 –1957) The Essential Solitude: Writing theRécits(1949 –1953) The Radiance of a Blind Power: When the Time Comes(1949 –1951) Are You Writing, Are You Writing Even Now? The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me(1951–1953) The Critical Detour: A Few Articles of Literary Criticism (1950 –1951) The Author in Reverse: The Birth ofThe Space of Literature(1951–1953) Always Already (The Poetic and Political Interruption of Thought): TowardThe Book to Come(1953–1958) Of an Amazing Lightness:The Last Man(1953–1957) Grace, Strength, Gentleness: Meeting Robert Antelme (1958) In the Gaze of Fascination: The Return to Paris (1957–1958) Refusal, II. In the Name of the Anonymous: The14 JuilletProject (1958 –1959)

ParVt1960 –1968 Note That I Say “Right” and Not “Duty”: The Declaration on the Right to Insubordination in the Algerian War (1960) Invisible Partners: The Project for theInternational Review(1960 –1965) Characters in Thought: How Is Friendship Possible? (1958 –1971) Act in Such a Way That I Can Speak to You: Awaiting Oblivion(1957–1962)

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The Thought of the Neuter: Literary and Philosophical Criticism — theEntretien–1969)and the Fragment (1959 A First Homage: The Special Issue ofCritique(1966) Between Two Forms of the Unavowable: The Beaufret Affair (1967–1968) The Far Side of Fear: Political Disillusionment (May 1968)

ParVtI1969 –1997 57. Life Outside:The Step Not Beyond, a Journal Written in the Neuter (1969 –1973) 58. Friendship in Disaster: Distance, Disappearance (1974 –1978) 403 59. The Last Book:The Writing of the Disaster(1974 –1980) the Myth: Readings and Nonreadings60. Forming (1969 –1979) 416 61. Making the Secret Uncomfortable: Blanchot’s Readability and Visibility (1979 –1997) 62. With This Break in History Stuck in One’s Throat: The Unavowable Community(1982–1983) 63. Even a Few Steps Take Time: Literature and Witnessing (1983–1997)

 Amor: Blanchot since 2003 JohMn cKeane

Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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t r a n s l at o r ’s n o t e

Christophe Bident’s book, published in French asMaurice Blanchot, parte- naire invisible: Essai biographique(Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 1998), has been translated but not substantially updated. References have been modified to reflect the volumes of Blanchot’s work published since then in French (now listed in the bibliography) and translations of them into English. In general, quotations given by Bident have been taken from Blanchot’s translated works, although they have often been modified. My afterword relates some of the major developments since 1998 concerning Blanchot’s work and life. My very warmest thanks are due, for their expert help with the type- script in various ways, to Christophe Bident, Holly Langstaff, Pierre de Boissieu, Philip Armstrong, Mike Holland, Leslie Hill, and Lucy Burns. I am also grateful for the support provided by the University of Warwick and the University of Reading, and to Tom Lay, the anonymous readers, and the late Helen Tartar at Fordham.

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