Reviews for Encountering the Other: The Artwork and the Problem of Difference in Blanchot and Levinas

The average rating for Encountering the Other: The Artwork and the Problem of Difference in Blanchot and Levinas based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-09-29 00:00:00 Wolfgang Hinkel A unique book in which Paulhan himself admits he didn't expect the book to end up the way it does. Paulhan's text develops as you read it. My interpretation of the text was that Paulhan is essentially a kind of meta-literary criticism, in that he criticizes literary critics as well as authors. He makes a distinction between "Terror" and "Rhetoric". Rhetoric seems to be cliches: sentences, stanzas, entire texts that seem to possess a banality that is ruthlessly attacked by the "Terrorist writer". Terror seems to be (as Paulhan says) "a way of doing things", that is, writing. The Terrorist writer wants to purify and cleanse all writing of cliches and strive for originality at all costs, sacrificing everything in order to obtain this. Paulhan also asserts that the Terrorist "reduces language to thought". Paulhan seems to be on the "side" of Rhetoric, claiming that a lot of people still find emotional resonance in the banality of phrases, and I got the sense that the Terrorist writers' goal was ultimately impossible. But Paulhan has his criticisms of Rhetoric as well, which ultimately leads him down a thorny path in which one suspects Paulhan is becoming a kind of Terrorist - I think this is what leads him to the last sentence of the book in which he states to pretend he has said nothing at all. Packed inside this small, dense yet readable book are very good concepts about language vis-a-vis literature. It sort of reminds me of a continuation of Saussure and a proto-Late Wittgenstein, but admittedly I know very little about either. I think one flaw is that this is not a book that really criticizes texts outside of France; it is pretty much a meta-critique of French literature/literary criticism. I think the only non-French author he refers to is Joyce, and it isn't often. But I don't think Paulhan intended it to be anything more - in fact, it seems like the book escaped his grasp. But in the end, like Paulhan states, the "novel always catches up with itself"....

Review # 2 was written on 2010-07-28 00:00:00 Uyguyiu U�oipok This book had interesting history about how pregnancy, childbirth, and midwifery were viewed in the 1500-1700s in France.