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Feature [published June 2002]
Maurice Blanchot: The Absent Voice
Stephen Mitchelmore on the writing of Maurice Blanchot
There are many remarkable facts about the long life of
the French novelist and philosopher Maurice Blanchot.
The strident – perhaps Fascist – nationalism of his pre-
War journalism; his near-death at the hands of the Nazis
during the war; his reclusive devotion to writing that
is similar to, but more significant than, Pynchon’s and
Salinger’s; his deep influence on more famous French
thinkers (Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze). And,
finally, in this list, his return to public life to oppose
French colonialism in Algeria and then to support the
May 1968 student uprising, during which he drafted
pamphlets released by those opposing General de
Gaulle’s autocracy.
But to concentrate on these facts, relevant as they
are, would be to ignore what Blanchot offers, which is
a return to the fundamental mystery of literature. That
is, why do written words have so much power over us,
yet also seem completely estranged from the world
they supposedly refers to? When we say that literature
takes us to ‘another world’, we say more than we might
imagine. It is an asymmetry that Blanchot presents to
us relentlessly. “There is an a-cultural aspect to art and
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literature which it is hard to accept wholeheartedly”
he says. In this age of shortcuts, in which the value of
literature is judged by how well literature effaces itself,
so that the asymmetry is denied, avoided, denounced
even, Blanchot’s resistance makes him, in my opinion,
one of the most important writers.
In my opinion. What is that worth? The question of
authority – mine, Blanchot’s or anybody else’s – is the
invisible centre of our cultural ideology. We all know
that Liberal Democracy is based on choice; each individual
is free to choose and each individual’s choice is
as good as any other’s. So, when I write in my opinion,
I remove all weight from the judgement. The complete
opposite is equally valid. Despite this, we still make
definite choices in what to read, watch or listen to,
as if hoping, despite everything, for something more
than nothing. The act of choice itself speaks of a need:
for nourishment, entertainment or distraction, or all
three combined. But we have little guidance on what
and why to choose. Perhaps the recent proliferation
of award ceremonies and prize competitions for each
art form is no coincidence: the award-winning novel,
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