From: gvcarter-AT-purdue.edu
Date: Wed,  5 Mar 2003 19:22:08 -0500
Subject: RE: Blanchot



All,

Given the news of Blanchot's passing, I am curious about reactions others might 
have to his work.  What of Blanchot's connection to Lyotard?  What does 
Blanchot offer in light of the world events?

My first encounter with Blanchot was as an undergrad.  A good friend commended 
Thomas the Obscure, and the opening sequence in the water has stayed with me 
ever since.  (Recently, in fact, someone mentioned that opening chapter as a 
rendering of the Levinasian "Il y a.")  

Here is Blanchot musing on the Eternal Return at the start of The Step Not 
Beyond:

"To death we are not accustomed."

**

"Death being that to which we are not accustomed, we approach it either as the 
unaccustomed that astonishes or as the unfamiliar that horrifies.  The thought 
of death does not help us think death, does not give us death as something to 
think.  Death, thought, close to one another to the extent that thinking, we 
die, if, dying, we excuse ourselves from thinking: every thought would be 
mortal; each thought, the last thought."

**

"Time, time: the step not beyond that is not accomplished in time would lead 
outside of time, without this outside being intemporal, but there where time 
would fall, fragile fall, according to this 'outside of time in time' towards 
which writing would attract us, were we allowed, having disappeared from 
ourselves, to write within the secret of an ancient fear."

-----

Two Words 
for 
Maurice Blanchot:  

Radiant Imperceptibility 

----

Best,  Geof