Critical analysis of The Space of Literature by Maurice Blanchot

Maurice Blanchot, though a literary heavyweight, is largely ignored by the general public due to the dense obscurity of his work. Blanchot’s literature remains largely ornamental like a baroque opera piece with threads of philosophy running through it. I would like to discuss the thoughts that arose while he was reading his magnum opus: The Space of Literature.

Maurice Blanchot begins his work by characterizing writing as solitude. What is loneliness in everyday life? It means an inner calm of tranquility. It is questionable to ask whether a writer writes from solitude or emotion. He quotes Rilke: ‘I have not produced a single work: my loneliness has swallowed me up’. Why can’t the writer be agitated when he is writing his work? I am sure Nietzsche wrote: Thus spoke Zarathustra while he was in fits of madness. A Freudian ID is triggered by the need to write. Even mystics when they meditate are never alone. They are in a state of deep contemplation. One can also write for the passion of writing, but one can never be alone when in a state of writing. When one is in the process of writing, one gravitates towards the center of meaning. That is why I would like to reformulate Blanchot’s solitude as excitement, agitation, passion and contemplation. The mind can never be alone.

Again Blanchot goes on to say that a writer never knows if his work is finished or not. In one sense it is true and in another sense it is not. Any work of literature is only partial, it does not show the art until the sense of completion. But, again, in a literary work, there is a beginning and an end. Take James Joyce’s Ulysses as an example. The novel is eight hundred pages long and describes twelve hours of the life of a person, mainly Bloom, Stephen and Molly. There is a beginning and an end to work. Blanchot is partially right when he says that no work of art is complete. A work of art has only degrees of perfection. Similarly, Blanchot also mentions that a reader enters solitude while encountering a work. Pulp fiction readers are causal readers. The work of a serious reader is marked by the phenomenology of reading. The mind of a serious reader works like an intertextual machine. Reading interferes with what was read in the past. The ontology of existentialism, the autobiographical possession of the reader comes into play during reading. There is a perfect reading, but there are only imperfect interpretations.

It is through an absence that the being of the writer’s word comes into existence. I would like to refute this affirmation by saying that writing is an affirmation of presence, a saturation of it. Being is pronounced in the becoming of meaning. In writing there is an indulgence of the sense of being. Writing is excess of being. The presence of being is an affirmation for a writer.

Again he goes on to say that a writer never reads his work. That may be true up to a point. Would a writer really enjoy editing his work? A writer does not function as a reader. The writer merely test reads his work.
For a writer, a word is something that cannot be mastered. How could that be the case? A writer is a linguistic maniac. He finds new uses for existing ones. He or she also creates new words: for example, neologisms. A writer invents tropes of language. How can this be possible without mastery? Writing is not sterile but active and dynamic.

Writing is breaking the link between the word and the self. I would like to say that writing is a catharsis. The link between writing, the word and the self is in unison. Writing is similar to having sex. The self and the word are linked to a writer.

The writer belongs to a language that no one speaks. Yes, writing is inventive and searches for new paradigms of a discovery of meaning. Tropes belong to the language of birth and novelty. Writing is a process of self-discovery.

When we admire the tone of the work, we are not referring to the style or virtues of the language but to a silence. Blanchot is not sure what this silence is. We are in fascination and catharsis when we unveil the imagery used by a writer. There is intellectual and emotional gratification. We do not meet the work in silence.

What is the diary? It is not romantic, it is not essentially confessional. He is the writer when he is not writing. I feel like Blanchot is being lazy there. He again goes on to say that a diary is written out of fear and anguish. The journal writing is no longer historical. Romanticism has taken on new shades of meaning in blog writing. Taste, art and culture are idealized by bloggers who live a new experience. As Wordsworth has said, “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of feeling.” To be romantic is to be in a state of mind that is in passion. Journaling can also be confessional. To be confessional is to be passionate and expressive. My writing on adultery is confessional. It is a mistake to say that a magazine is not historical. For example, take Ann Frank. Ann Frank is a passionate outburst of the oppressions she encountered during a Nazi regime. Thus, a diary can be confessional, romantic and historical.

Writing is surrendering to the absence of time. I would like to disagree with the statement. Time in writing flows like streams of consciousness. The time is reflective and contemplative when the writer dedicates himself to writing. Writing cannot be marked by the absence of time.

Fascination is the look of loneliness. Writing is letting fascination govern language. The writer’s gaze can be sexual, one; it can also be subjective, philosophical, materialistic and transcendental. The gaze is intentional and is born from what is repressed in ID.

Again he quotes Mallarmé: ‘When I write in verse I find nothingness, an absence of God and my own death. It is questionable to ask Blanchot how negation can enter the realm of writing. Denial is nihilism, a negative statement when something positive does not happen. The writing is self-proclaimed and affirmative. Yes, after Nietzsche’s proclamation that ‘God is dead’, writing has become anthropocentric. How can a writer enter the realm of death? Is the writer killing himself when he gets on the writing train? According to Camus, while we write we enter into a philosophical suicide. Yes, there is the death of the real self and the birth of the creative self.

Again Blanchot is going to distinguish between the crude word and the ornamental word. When we say that the flower is in the garden we are using crude language or the language of communication. If I use: I am flourishing her lips, I am ornamentally adorning the tongue. The writing is ornamental, decorative and hyperbolic. He again goes on to say: poetry is the universe of words where relationships and configurations are achieved through sound, figure and rhythmic language. Poetry is related to the musicality of words, flows with the Dionysian rhythm and is present with the Orpheus of figures.

Kafka began to write in true desperation. We must know that Kafka had a stormy relationship with his father. He was also an exiled Jew. Kafka despised authority figures. Writing for Kafka was born out of protest against authoritarianism. This is especially true when we analyze his work, the Metamorphosis. The work is allegorical and shows the denial of individuality by authority figures. The individual in Metamorphosis is reduced to fragments. Writing for Kafka was spiritual and psychological salvation. Kafka made the statement that nothing but literature satisfies me. The more Kafka writes: the less sure he is of himself.

Art is above all the awareness of unhappiness, not its consolation. How can art be only the awareness of unhappiness? One can experience art through the awareness of joy and affirmation. Let’s make a diagnosis of Picasso’s Guernica painting. Was Picasso filled with anguish by the bombing of the Basque Country? Or was he asserting creativity while he was painting Guernica? When I meditate on Dalí’s painting: The Persistence of Memory, I am filled with cathartic interpretation. I appreciate your meaning to portray time as streams of consciousness. I also marvel at the melted clock placed on the frozen embryo and interpret it as Dalí’s own oedipal trauma.