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Blanchot, Maurice (Translated by Charlotte Mandell) : Faux Pas

Stanford University Press, Palo Alto, CA, 2001

ISBN 0804729344

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 310 pages. Collection of essays. One of the greatest literary collections of the 20th century. The first appearance of the title in English and in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only and as part of Stanford University's legendary "Meridian Crossing: Aesthetics" Series. Without DJ, as issued. Presents Maurice Blanchot's "Faux Pas" in a felicitous English translation. His self-deprecatingly titled debut collection. Here are fifty-four essays that established Blanchot as "the most lucid and powerful French critic of the second half of the twentieth century. Sober reconstructions of the main tenets of both Classical and Modern, both literary and theoretical texts, they have attained the status of model readings for authors as diverse as Leonardo da Vinci and Kierkegaard, Melville and Proust, Moliere, Goethe, and Mallarme. However, the book is not a miscellaneous collection of exquisite essays. The first section of the volume, 'From Anguish to Language', indicates the relative unity of its trajectory and its special moment in the development of Blanchot's thought. 'Anguish' was a prominent notion for the Existentialist philosophy of the period, and Blanchot reflects on the necessary transition from the paradox of anguish to the paradox of language. He does so without ever betraying the affective tensions that attach themselves to linguistic utterances, but he also insists that the pathos of anxiety is, in the last resort, comical. Whoever writes, 'I am lonely', can judge himself to be quite comical, as he evokes his solitude by addressing a reader and using means that make it impossible to be alone" (Publisher's blurb). A little-known fact even among academic commentators about Blanchot: He hid, and thereby saved the lives of, Emmanuel Levinas' family from the Nazis and their French collaborators throughout the war, a humane, risk-taking gesture that helped Levinas, one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century, develop and articulate his "face-to-face" philosophy in concrete terms. An absolute "must-have" title for Maurice Blanchot collectors. This title is a great book. This is one of few copies of the First American Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. One of the greatest literary critics of the 20th century. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER MAURICE BLANCHOT TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0804729344.

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