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BLANCHOT WRITING ELLIPSIS

Author(s): Michael Naas


Source: Qui Parle, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Fall/Winter 1996), pp. 89-112
Published by: University of Nebraska Press
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BLANCHOT
Michael

... WRITING

... ELLIPSIS

Naas
Iwould like to write you so simply, so simply,
so simply.
Jacques Derrida
Writing.

. -.

Maurice

Blanchot

itpossible simply to add an ellipsis onto all that has recently


been written about thework of Maurice Blanchot, Iwould be very
tempted to do so. Iwould be tempted to translate everything that I

Were

have written, along with everything that Icould never write,


into a simple ellipsis, which Iwould then offer up as my best line of
a
as an ellipsis thatwould thus
thought, as perfect circle of writing,
me
from it from the very begin
already be beyond me, excluding

would

ning.

is, I think Blanchot has suggested, the temptation ofwrit


ing,the temptation to go beyond writing inwriting, to say itall without
infidelityor remainder, to write so simply, so simply, so simply
but without and beyond repetition. To write with a single ellipsis
Such

remark,with a simple ellipsis thatwould overcome itsown


spacing, itsown temporalization: with an ellipsis, so to speak, of the

without

unspeakable.
While one can never, itseems tome, completely resist such a
temptation, one can at least punctuate one's desire, and thus instead

of tryingto say itall with an ellipsis,contentoneselfwith a few


points about the ellipsis. The aim of this essay is, then, quite simply,
Qui Parle vol. 10, No. 1, Fall/'Winter1996

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90

MICHAEL

NAAS

to string together a few points concerning the ellipsis in theworks of


Blanchot in order to demonstrate in the most straightforward way

an absolutely systematic
possible that Blanchot uses the ellipsis in
and rigorous, though thoroughly unconventional, manner. My point

is that just as Derrida speaks of the "very calculated


logic of the
in Blanchot's The Madness
comma"
of the Day, the ellipsis can
equally be shown to function in Blanchot's other textswith a logic
that isevery bit as calculated and rigorousthough, in the end, we
would have to question the nature of this calculation and rigor.' Such

logic can be found not only in Blanchot's narratives, already in


Thomas the Obscure, but also in the critical essays, and right up
through The Writing of the Disaster (written some thirtyyears after

Indeed, if Iwere to state my main point in


a
it
like
would
be thatwhat remains the same inall
thesis,
something
as
as
these works, fictional
well
critical, and thuswhat complicates
this distinction, isnothing other than a logic of the ellipsis, a logic of

Thomas

theObscure).2

punctuation whose
identity consists only in remarking and reinter
notion
the
of identity itself, that is, the very coherence
very
preting
of meaning as it is thought to be found and produced in the process

of reading and writing.


In lightof this incessant remarkingthis incessant return to
an
attempt to clarify them, but to remark the
past meanings, not in
same
Iwould argue that it is pos
of
very
interruption meaning
not
to
if
in
fact
sible,
necessary,
begin rereading Blanchot's narratives
versa his
vice
critical essays and
that is, to begin reread
through

ingBlanchot as Blanchot would read another, and to do so incessantly,


in spite of everything that is implied in The Madness
of the Day
about reading narratives. For it isa question here not of a performative
contradiction but of a double

bind: though thewriter cannot reread


his own work, or even read itfor the firsttimesince, as Blanchot

says in"AftertheFact" (thoughhe had alreadysaid it inThe Space

of Literature), "before the work, the writer does not yet exist; after
thework, he is no longer there"3the one who writes is nonethe
to repetition, condemned
to reread the remarking
of thework. The writer iscondemned to leave him or herself open to
less condemned

the temptation
of takinghold of thework once again,which is to

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BLANCHOT

...

WRITING.

..

ELLIPSIS

say, for the firsttime. As ifto justify the rereading of two of his own
early narratives, Blanchot writes in "After the Fact":
the most secretive and discreet of poets,
as to the manner inwhich the Coup de
gives some hints
des should be read. Even Kafka read his stories to his
Even Mallarm6,

sisters, sometimes even to a public audience, which,


as
finally, does not mean that he read them for himself
an
but
affirmation
of
of
writing
pieces
writing
to
voice
lend
them
his
(. ...) Such a
dangerously agreed
to fall
to
in
it
To
is
[tomber:
necessary.
give
temptation

forit]isperhaps inevitable.(62/89)

seem that for Blanchot such a temptation is inevitable


not simply because of thewriter's desire for reappropriation or mas
tery,but because reading always solicits this desire. Whether we are
own work or about some other
talking about a writer reading his
It
would

reader, there is always the temptation to grab hold of thewriting, to


on itssecret, and thus to understand it
penetrate itsmystery, to be in
a
especially when it is question of voice, tone, and intimacy.And
simply refusing to read does not solve the problem, strate
must
be invented for avoiding the "inevitable" fall.
gies
One of Blanchot's strategies, Iwould suggest, is to avoid the

because

temptation of intimacy and reappropriation by incessantly rereading


not only within his own works, but between themthat is, be
tween what are called the narrative or fictional works and the critical

incessant rereading is not a return to past arguments or


in an attempt to elaborate or clarify them, but a return to and

ones. This
claims

thus multiplication of the interruptionof writing itself,the interrup


tion that iswriting. By focusing only on the ellipsis, then, on both its
use and its theory, on how the ellipsis works between this opposi

tion,we can see notonly thatTheWritingof theDisaster isa sortof

long commentary on such narratives as Thomas theObscure, Death


to name
Sentence, and The One Who Did Not Accompany Me but equally that these narratives offer a sort of commen
just threetary on themselves as narratives. Such a consideration suggests to

me thatBlanchot himself is perhaps one of the best readersof

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92

MICHAEL

NAAS

Blanchot, since for him the only adequate


response to an ellipsis is
an ellipsis, since for Blanchot only an ellipsis or what Iwill later
can
an
call
disrupt the adequation required of
"ellipsis ofwriting"
a critical response, that is,of a response thatwould attempt to expli
cate or unfold a meaning that is assumed
not yet revealed in a text.4

to be already present but

The Ellipsis of the Possible


Passivity and the question: passivity lies, perhaps, at
the end of the question, but does it still belong to it?

Can thedisaster be interrogated?


-The Writing of theDisaster

Before rushing ahead to the moment of disruption, Iwill begin by


questioning the ellipsis in the briefest,most economical, though least
is
form possible: What
and no doubt most unfaithfulelliptical
an ellipsis?
It isusually thought that an ellipsis isused by a writer to express
him or herself, to express some thought that cannot be said or some

situation that cannot be explained. The ellipsis is used, for example,


to mark the place of a forgettingor a reserve, to mark a moment of
an author, narrator, or character.
repression or reticence on the part of
In a typical narrative
and in the typical understanding of
narrative -the ellipsis is the expression of an implicit understanding,

a complicity even, between the reader and the characters in the story,
or between the reader and the narrator or author. The ellipsis is a
a becoming silent, a sudden breaking-off in
sort of aposiopesis or idea which indicates that the narrator or
a
sentence
of
middle
the
author is unable or unwilling to continue, thatwhat has been seen
or thought cannot be expressed inwords.5 And yet the ellipsis almost
the
always conveys a meaning. The ellipsis ismeaningful because
reader can discern the forgettingor reticence of the narrative voice
within or behind

itssilence. Indeed, oftentimes a character or narrator

bymeans of thissilence. Bymeans of


speaks evenmore forcefully
an ellipsis of language, by means
expresses oneself better.

of silence, one

says more

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and

BLANCHOT

. . .WRITING

...

ELLIPSIS

Hence the ellipsis usually takes part inwhat we might call a


Inmost cases, this contract is
contract of language or meaning.
reinforced by the ellipsis, for by discovering what the narrator or
author wanted to say through the silence marked by the ellipsis, the

reader enters the creative process itself, identifyingwith a character


or even with the narrator or author. The ellipsis is thus a sort of
itselfbehind a simulated silence; it is coded
speaking that conceals
when deciphered,
and
and decipherable,
the reader has the
impression of entering into the very intimacy that the narrator or

author shares with theirwork. The deciphering of an ellipsis is felt


an insidious
by the reader as a sort of complicitous wink, indeed

in that itnot only confirms a type of contract between the reader


and writer, but places the reader under itsauthority. The wink is at
once a sign of understanding and the confirmation of competence.
It

wink

is like a sign from the father as the master of language and a


moment
benediction of the institutionover which he presides -the

the reader knows that he or she has begun to read, speak,


- which
is to
write, and interpret like the father or the institution
else.
like
say,
everybody

when

Finally, the ellipsis isone of the privileged marks of what one


may call "narrative tone." For while the narrative tone is infused
be itmarked by dots, asterisks, a
throughout the text, the ellipsis
or
a privileged place where
remains
blank
space
simply
hyphen,
this tone can be "heard."

there is a pause in
the narrative, precisely when the narrative voice "stops" - when it
that the reader can most clearly hear the narrative
silences itself
tone. The narrative tone is thus deciphered at a level of meaning that
Indeed it isoften when

iseven more interior than narrative voice. Through this tone, it isas
ifthe reader enters into a different sort of intimacywith the author,
an intimacy that goes beyond the author's particular voice, and at

the limit,opens onto a realm of universal truths.


This is the case in thework of what Blanchot calls and, as
we shall see, not uncritically the "greatwriter" [Ie grand 6crivain].

In readingsuchworks, the readerhas the impression


of goingbe
yond theparticulartoneof thework, beyond authorialor narrative
interiority, to a realm of universal and unspeakable

truths. In The

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93

94

NAAS

MICHAEL

of Literature, Blanchot speaks of the "great writer" whose vi


consists
precisely in sacrificing his own idiom inorder to give
rility
voice to the truths that transcend him.

Space

admire the tone of a work, and when we re


tone as to itsmost authentic aspect, what
to
the
spond
are we referring to? Not to style, or to the interest and
virtues of the language, but to this silence precisely, this

When

we

[virile] force by which thewriter, having been


of
himself, having renounced himself, has in
deprived
this effacement nevertheless maintained the authority of
vigorous

a certain power: the power decisively to be still, so that


in this silence what speaks without beginning or end might
take on form, coherence,

and sense.

The tone is not thewriter's voice, but the intimacy of


the silence he imposes upon theword. This implies that
the silence is still his- what remains of him in the dis
cretion that sets him aside. The tone makes great writers,
thework is indifferenttowhat makes them

but perhaps
great.

In the effacement toward which

he is summoned, the
writer"
still
what
holds
back;
"great
speaks is no longer
he himself, but neither is itthe sheer slipping away of no

one's word.

For he maintains the authoritative though si


lentaffirmation of the effaced "I." (.. .)The writer we call
at least in France classic sacrifices within himself
the idiomwhich isproper to him, but he does so inorder
to give voice to the universal.6

At thismoment, Blanchot suggests, the intimacy between author and


reader is itself suspended, as both approach a realm of transcendent

truththatisbeyond intimacy.
With nothingmore tobe deciphered,
thistypeof self-ellipsing
work opens onto thevery truth
of things.
And inthisintimacy
the
reader
has
the
beyond intimacy,
impression
not simplyintothe institution
of being initiated
of readingbut into
the secrets and truths of human existence. And yet, Iwould

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argue

BLANCHOT

...

WRITING

...

ELLIPSIS

that in thewriting of Blanchot, and in thewriting that Blanchot him


self reads, while thewriter indeed sacrifices the idiom that isproper

to him, it is not inorder to give voice to the universal. He sacrifices


the idiom, or is himself sacrificed by the idiom, inorder towrite, in
order to inscribe the ellipsis of writing, which is to say, in order to
the suggestion of universality, with all itsdepth and pro
to the surface of writing.
back
fundity,

withdraw

While it
would be possible, Ibelieve, to followthis logicof the

ellipsis

in almost all of Blanchot's work,

Iwill

string together only

the six ellipses of Thomas theObscure (the 1950 version)and the

two of The Space of Literature: eight ellipses, then, twenty-four little


points or dots in the French text, and then a series of fragments in
The Writing of the Disaster which are, we could say, "about" the
ellipsis.7 Here, then, are the five firstellipses which, before looking
at them individually, Igroup together for comparison:
What

I am.

. ..

Be quiet.
Ce que je suis .. .
Taisez-vous.

(T,49/53)
But I am infinitely far away now, and can go no further
As soon as I touch you, Thomas....
Or, je suis deja
Des
davantage.

infiniment loin et ne puis m'Cloigner


...
que je vous touche, Thomas

(T,55/57)

"What you are . . .," she said....


And as she spoke these
words, she seemed to dance around him and, fleeing him
at the same time, to push him into an imaginary wolf
trap. "What you are.. .."
Ce que vous etes, dit-elle

. .. Et, en disant ces mots, elle

semblaitdanser autourde luiet lepousser en le fuyant

dans un pi&ge & loups imaginaire. Ce que vous etes .. .

(T, 58/61)

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95

96

MICHAEL

NAAS

you really are ..."


ce
n'est pas cela. Ce que vous etes
Non, disait-elle,
"No," she said, "it's not that.What

vraiment

...

(T,59/62)
So

I repeat the typical question

concerning

the ellipses,

the

what are theseellipses?What


typicalquestion of theirpossibility:

are they at bottom, or in Blanchot's words "down deep" [au fond]?


or meaning that exceeds theirmaterial
a
they actually have depth

Do

inscription, or do they interruptmeaning

to defy themetaphorics

of

Do theyinfactfunctionlikethetypicalellipsis?
depthor profundity?
Or do theycompletelydisrupt
meaning?Do theyeven belong to the
to the contract of language, or are they the very
points where and whereby everyday meaning is lostand the contract
is broken?

world of meaning,

Icannot really summarize, and for several reasons, the firstfiftyor so


that lead up to the point where we
pages of Thomas the Obscure

find the firstellipsis, toward the end of chapter VII. Suffice itto say
that the two characters in Thomas theObscure, Thomas and Anne,

have simply been "trying to get to know one another." Chapter VII is
marked by Anne's happiness and hope, and equally by the risk or
danger of some "cataclysm." Indeed the entire chapter seems to re
volve around a tension between

such hope and happiness and the


of
this
Identified
danger
cataclysm.
always by only their firstnames
ifthese are indeed firstnames Thomas and Anne are together
near the sea, just afterwhat might be called Thomas' "nocturnal
descent."8 As is often the case in Blanchot's narratives, one never
knows precisely where or when the action takes place. Neither eas

norallegoricalfigures,
individuals
Thomas andAnne
ilyidentifiable

are situated in a time and space that is neither mythic nor real, but
that is, a time and space where all the narrative markers
literary

uponwhich thecontractof languageusuallydepends are put into


question, withdrawn

from their immediacy and transparency

thespacingof an ellipsis.

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into

BLANCHOT

..

.WRITING

...

ELLIPSIS

risk and danger of this chapter is, then, to put it all too
briefly, that Anne still believes in a mythic or real time and space:
she still believes in the transparency of reading, and thus believes
can be read transparently. Hence
that Thomas that characters Anne lived "a few days of great happiness." For her, Thomas had
The

suddenly become
49). Thomas was

"a being she possessed without danger" (T, 47/


like a survivor from thewar whom she wanted to

help, to heal, even though she did not yet know who he was. In her
"frivolity," then, Anne wishes to help Thomas by getting to know
him, by getting to know who he is.
At this point, Anne does not know that such knowledge is im
that Thomas is the impossible. She thus plays with a
possible
Thomas whom she does not know, ifonly because she thinks she
can know him all too well, believing thatwhile she does not yet
know him, someday

she will.

In thisway

inwhich Anne played with his entire person


and in the absence of riskwhich permitted her to treat
this strange body as if itbelonged to her, there was a
frivolousness so perilous
pained at it. (T,47/49)

that anyone would

have been

But why perilous? Is not Anne simply deceived? Though she


thatwhat is in fact impossible is possible, inother words,
not eventually rectifyher "vision" or
she
might
"knowledge" of Tho
mas? Might she not correct her mistake by restoring Thomas'
assumes

impossibility, returning itto him by apprehending

siblewhich he reallyis?
Much

of the "drama"

him as the impos

in this chapter revolves around the differ

ence between two sortsof errors-the


frivolous, the second

firstextreme and yet somewhat


less of an error and yet absolutely dangerous.

ForAnne errsnot simply inmistakingThomas, in takinghim for


what he isnot,but first
and foremost
bymistakingthe impossiblefor
something that could be mistaken for the possible -

inother words,

intakingthe impossibletobe themere negationof thepossible.At


sees neither of these two errors; she neither knows
to be impossible, nor suspects -for can this ever be known?

this point, Anne


Thomas

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MICHAEL

NAAS

that the impossible is anything other than what can never be


is thus in the state of the greatest possible
ignorance,
and yet for this reason, she is shielded from the disaster. For the
known. She

is related not simply to questioning, to questions of


as Blanchot says in The Writing of the Disaster,
but
ing,
"negative scansion of the other, the negation which neither
nor affirms but which, with the infiniteerosion of repetition,

disaster

Other be marked and unmarked and remarked as thatwhich

know
to the
denies
lets the
has no

relation with anything that can be present, or absent" (130/200).


Anne thus holds out her hand to Thomas and asks, or rather
remarks: "Really, who could you be?" [Au fond, qui pouvez-vous
etre?] (T,48/51) The question isat once both audacious and danger
ous. It is audacious because "au fond" there is no
no
"deep down,"
no
as
concrete
It
is
it
because
foundation,
interiority.
dangerous
sumes that Thomas can indeed be an object of
knowledge, that
can respondto such a question. And yet, as narration states,
"properly speaking, therewas no question in this remark. Distracted
as she was, how could she have interrogated a being whose exist

Thomas

ence was a terriblequestion posed to herself?" (T,48/51 my emphasis).


Hence Anne does not really ask a question at all; she merely
"remarks." Her "question" cannot reach Thomas because he cannot

be questioned, because he himself is but a question, because


the
cannot be
transitive relation between questioner and questioned
is a question sustained when what is questioned
this question,

this same question. Anne does not yet ask a question but only makes
a remark because her question has yet to be remarked
by the re
is
in
the
that
her
thus
asked
of
and
return,
sponse, by
question
by the

"intransitivity" of her own question. As Blanchot writes in The Writ


ing of the Disaster: "the pseudo-intransitivity of writing is linked to
can ever com
this patience which no complement lifeor death -

plete" (120/185).
By questioningwhat cannot be known,what down deep is
of herown question,Anne did not "properlyspeak
only theremark
ing" ask a question.

To do so would

require she turn the question

toward itselfand not towardThomas, to redouble inherquestion


the structure
of a "beingwhose existencewas a terriblequestion

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. . .WRITING

BLANCHOT

. . . ELLIPSIS

posed to herself." Itwould have been necessary to turn the remark


toward itsown failure as a question, to turn the remark into the rep
etition or "spectral double" of what is questioned. Near the end of

The InfiniteConversation,
of Andre Breton's Nadja:

Blanchot

says this about the conclusion

Then the final query"Who goes here? Is ityou, Nadja?


. . . Is it
so strange, so
me?
it
Is
only
myself?"faltering,
and responding as an echo to the first
words of the book "Who am I?"-

so that the whole

narrative is but the

redoubling of the same question maintained


tral difference.9

in its spec

As yet, then, Anne's question is not a question because


itas
sumes a certain transitivity in the
response, a distance between herself

and Thomas (the questioned). What Anne assumes


in such transitivity is the possibility of return, an
exchange of an
answer for a response, the
a
of
possibility
meaning that can be dis
or read. Anne's
cerned question is, thus, only a remark, not yet an
or
doubled question in itsown spectral differ
incessantly remarked
ence with itself. In short, and all too
crudely, Anne's question is,or
takes itselfto be, a question of speech and not yet of writing; it is a
(the questioner)

question that looks formeaning behind speech and not yet on the
a question, then, that isnot yet a question of the
surface ofwritingellipsis.
The Ellipsis of the Impossible
Passive: the non-narrative, thatwhich escapes quota
tionand which memory does not recallforgetfulness
as thought.Thatwhich, inotherwords, cannot be for

gotten because
memory.

it has always already fallen outside


-The

Writing of theDisaster

Having failedtodiscoverwho Thomas reallyis"deep down,"Anne


to resist the
attempts a second time to question Thomas. Unable
temptation, Anne tries once more to know the impossible.

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99

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MICHAEL

NAAS

Itwas, beneath the benign appearance


all such opera
tions have, an actual attempt to tempt God. She looked

him right in the face: "But,what are you?"

vous?] (T,48/51)

[Mais, qu'etes

This question is, perhaps, more radical than the first, indeed more
of a question than the first,because by replacing "who" [qul] with
"what" [que], it isno longer a question of personal identity,but some
sort of inhuman or perhaps even transcendent existence. Yet Anne

to assume that deep down Thomas is indeed "something,"


that there is a non-ambiguous
response to this question, even if, in
the end, Thomas himself does not know what it is or chooses to

continues

remain silent. Anne questions Thomas because she does not know,
and does not know that she cannot know; and yet she questions him

she cannot do otherwise. Once again, as the narration sug


seems
to be a question of yielding or falling into a certain
it
gests,

because

temptation:
such a presumption in her manner of assum
was such a crude
that
he
could
give an answer (.. .) it
ing
to
treat
Anne
that
had suddenly re
the
way
impossible
There was

to her the terrible scene she was throwing herself


intoblindfolded, and inan instant,waking from her sleep,
she perceived all the consequences
of her act and the

vealed

of her conduct. Her firstthoughtwas


him from answering. (T 48/51)

madness

to prevent

Before this revelation, Anne's question seemed distinct from its


response, separated thanks to a linguistic context that linkedAnne to
Thomas and assured their relation, but equally their measured
from one another as questioner and questioned. Through
the linguistic context, the question was asked and thenwithdrawn,
drawn back so that itmight from a distance await a response.
distance

Througha contextthatrelates(and therebyseparates)questionsand


answers

by a finite and thus transgressable difference, through a


context that gives rise to a simple, transitive relation between subject
is treated as questionable, and
and object, what is not questionable

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BLANCHOT...

is incapable of questioning
be capable of doing so.

what

WRITING

the unquestionable

. .. ELLIPSIS

is assumed

101

to

But by becoming not simply a remark, but rather a redoubling


that is, by becoming not only the
remark of the question Anne's question becomes abso
questioner but the questioned
and

lutelydangerous. Turned toward itself,the question transforms finite


and transgressable differences into an infinitedifference, one that
opens onto an impossible relation to the impossible, but one that is

still understood as the opposite or negation of the possible. What


Anne feels isat once both the impossibility and sacrilege of her ques
tion and the impossibility and sacrilege of a response. There is then,

an identity
finally,a certain "identity" of the question and the response,
awesome
in and through the
aspect of the impossible, the question
now being drawn into the impossibility of a response.

The impossible question demands an impossible response. Anne


enters into the place of sacrilege because the intimacy of the question
and the response distance her from Thomas, distance her infinitely
from him by at once throwing her toward the impossible toward
Thomas
and identifyingherwith him. The veritable sacrilege thus

consists inasking the impossible question. And so it isat thismoment


that the questioner identifies herselfwith what isquestioned - with
Thomas, with God. Anne and Thomas, Anne and God, God and
God, where God is the one who is that he is, always separated by
the impossibility of identification, and always

linked to this same

impossibility.
Her firstthoughtwas to prevent him from answering. For
the great danger, now that by an inconsiderate and arbi

trary act she had treated him as a being one might


question, was that he might in turn act like a being that
might answer and make his answer understood. (48/52)

Anne doubly fearsa response.First,because this impossible


whichwould not reallybe a responseat all,would double
response,
thefailureand sacrilegeof herown question; itwould show itsim
possibility,deliveringAnne once more to her own culpability.
Secondly,

however, Anne

fears a response because

she could

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not

102

MICHAEL

NAAS

bear the horror of this impossibility unveiled. Knowing that both her
are impossible, and yet still under
question and Thomas' response
too
their
much
about
impossibility, Anne feels the threat of
standing

this impossibility
"deposited inthedepthsof herself[au fondd'eIe

in the place of the words she had spoken" (49/52, my


Inplace of a meaning thatmight be read, it is as ifAnne
emphasis).
had gained access to a tone that could only be heard or sensed, the
as if
frightfultone of the impossible truth of theGod unveiled. It is
the question had, so to speak, "ellipsed itself" inorder to go beyond

meme],

words, deep into the fearsome heart of Thomas, of God. In the depths
it is as ifAnne actually becomes
of herself, au fond d'elle-meme,

precisely what is unknown and impossible in Thomas. By seeing


this impossibility deep down inThomas, Anne experiences the im
possibility deep down within herself.

"Thomas surrounded her, like an abyss. He revolved about her.


(fascinait] her" (49/53). Entranced, fascinated, Anne
fears the coming of the impossible, awaits the revelation of what
cannot be revealed, and thus reads, beyond Thomas as a person or
or between them. But
thing, the sacred impossibility inside him
what she receives, it seems, is neither a possible response nor the
in the form of
impossible itself,but the disruption of this opposition
He entranced

an ellipsis. What she receives, inother words, is neither a response


from the voice of Thomas nor the tone of the universal though im
a
possible truth as God, but
remarking or doubling of the question
and the response inwriting. Indeed, what Anne receives isboth more
and less thanwhat

she had feared: for the ellipsis signals the end of


and
the
speaking
beginning of writing, the end of a language that
seeks and yields meaning "behind" itselfand the beginning of the

disaster ofwriting, the disaster thatwould


standing of Thomas:

forever ruinAnne's under

Now thatshewas sure that,pitilesslyunrelenting


as he
was, ifhe spoke he would say everythingtherewas to
saywithouthidinganythingfromher,tellingher every
when he stoppedspeakinghis silence, the
thingso that
a
more togive and yet
of
silence
being thathas nothing
has given nothing, would

be even more

terrifying,now

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BLANCHOT...

WRITING

... ELLIPSIS

she was sure that he would speak. And this certainty was
so great that he appeared to her as ifhe had
already spo
ken. He surrounded her, like an abyss. He revolved about
her. He entranced her. He was going to devour her by

changing the most unexpected words


would no longer be able to expect.
"What

intowords

she

I am...."

"Be quiet."

(T,49/53)

"What Iam .. ." Is there something implicitly understood here?


in this white space punctuated by
Is there a content or meaning
these littlepoints or puncta? Does the reader- who alone, unlike
Anne, can "see" this ellipsis
apprehend or hear a narrative voice

in the space where that voice seems to still itself?Does Thomas, or


the narrator, or the author, quiet himself in order to express some

tone in this silence, inorder to express some universal truth?Does


the reader complete this sentence in the interiorityand silence of

reading? Does the reader understand or hear in this absence "what I


am is x"? Is there any
possible "x" that might correspond to this
absence? Two moments in The Writing of the Disaster can help us
respond to these questions.
[Wihen the answer

is the absence

of any answer, then


the question in turn becomes the absence of any ques
tion (themortified question). Words pass, return to a past
which has never spoken, the past of all speech. It is thus
that the disaster, although named, does not figure in lan

guage. (31/54)

Fragmentary writing would

be risk itself (.. .) Interrogat

ing itself,itdoes notco-opt thequestionbut suspends it


(without
maintainingit)as non-response.(59/98)

Given thiscontext,it
mightseem thatthe"ellipsisof the impossible"
coincides with fragmentarywriting that is,with the suspension of
all response. And yet, there is a fundamental indeed even more

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103

104

MICHAEL

NAAS

than fundamental -

difference between

the suspension of fragmen


tarywriting, the suspension of the ellipsis ofwriting, and the absence
that is involved inwhat we might call the "impossible" or "non
recoverable"

ellipsis.
I have already described the recoverable ellipsis, where the
absence of words is but a veil, where the hidden but decipherable

meaning can be effectively recovered through this "absence," or


where the meaning that is lost is not only recuperated, but in fact
augmented by the context or tone, where saying nothing ismerely a
pretext for saying more, formultiplying the force of a judgment, reti
cence, or passion. The non-recoverable ellipsis is the opposite of all
this. The context and tone provide no clues fordetermining the lack
of the non-recoverable ellipsis; no content could ever be provided

for itsempty spaces. Within the silence imposed by the non-recover


able ellipsis, the narrative voice would have absolutely nothing to
say
though itmight still, as we will see, retain the power ofwhis
low voice that is a question here of the
pering in an absolutely
impossible.
While

the recoverable ellipsis is simply another way of speak


or
a
continuing the discourse, the non-recoverable
ing,
ellipsis is
way of cutting off speech, suspending it indefinitely,or simply end

ing it, letting itbe understood thatwords are impossible or that no


words can be adequate to the impossible itself.The graphic mark of
the non-recoverable ellipsis would be thoroughly anti-narrative, a

disruption of both the tone and the context of the story, poem, or
even essay a form of
fragmentarywriting, itwould seem, in the
sense. And yet, in The
Writing of theDisaster, Blanchot
issues these warnings the firsthis own and the second Derrida's:

Blanchotian

[T]he fragmentwould be thismark, always threatened by


some success (.. .) (42/72)
Let us heed

thiswarning:

"There

is reason to fear that,

- the 'I saypracticallynothing


likeellipsis,thefragment

makes mastery over all


right away'
that goes unsaid possible, arranging in advance for all

and take itback

thecontinuitiesand supplementsto come." (134/203)

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...

BLANCHOT

The opposition

between

the recoverable

WRITING

...

ELLIPSIS

and the non-recoverable

ellipsis appears to be subtended by a particular notion of the pos


sible that includes the impossible. What
links both forms of ellipsis
to each other is the fact that both are determined by the context the recoverable ellipsis because the context merely allows for the
continuation and augmentation of the content, and the non-recover
able ellipsis because the context signals what is absolutely beyond
all context, beyond the possible, because
itsimply and naively sug

gests itsown end and not itsown

interruption.

The Ellipsis ofWriting


The interruptionof the incessant iswhat isproper to
fragmentary
writing.
-The Writing of theDisaster
the two foci of the ellipsis, then, between the recoverable
ellipsis, iswhat Ihazard to call the "ellipsis
of writing." The ellipsis of writing neither recuperates meaning nor
Between

and the non-recoverable

terminates it; itneither simply obeys the contract of language, nor


disobeys it.The ellipsis of writing instead promises the impossible,
and then, as if itwere the only way of remaining faithful to both the
promise and the impossibility, breaks that promise. This, Iwould

argue, is the promise not of a particular character, nor style of narra


tion, nor even of an author, but the promise of writing itself.The
ellipsis of writing is the promise which comes, as in Thomas the
that is, from the other in or
Obscure, from the "other" of Thomas
of the narrative, and from the other to the narrative. The
ellipsis of

writing does not provide access to the universal truthsof Blanchot's


"great writer," but returns only to itselfas the doubling and remark
ing of writing itself, returning both the hidden presence of the
recoverable ellipsis and the absence of the non-recoverable ellipsis
to the surface of writing. Indeed, in The Writing of the Disaster
Blanchot opposes both a potential or latent meaning that is, a

meaning

thatwould

in the depths and a


to a "disjunction of absent meaning"

be absent somewhere

complete absence of meaning,


that is brought "to the surface" by writing:

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105

106

MICHAEL

NAAS

To write, "to form,"where no form holds sway, an absent


meaning. Absent meaning (and not the absence ofmean
ingor a potential or latent but lacking sense). To write is
perhaps to bring to the surface something like absent
the passive pressure which is not
meaning, towelcome
we
call thought, for it is already the disastrous
yet what
ruin of thought. Thought's patience. Between the disaster

and the other therewould be contact, the disjunction of


absent meaning friendship. (41/71)

Writing, then, would seem to demand the suspension of meaning,


the suspension of the question of the ellipsis, of what it is down
deep, at bottom. For Blanchot suggests thatwriting isdown deep, at
bottom, neither some essence (even if it is transcendent) nor some
existence (even if it is impossible), but a surface for inscription.Writ
ing, for Blanchot, is a place of "passive pressure," "contact," and

"disjunction."
"What Iam .. ."On the one hand, nothing can be understood
in this silence not even the impossible, for the suspension points
"signal" only the absence of meaning. On the other hand, what can
be understood - what can be readis this: "what Iam isan ellipsis."
Or this: "what Iam-that
isellipsis." Or this: "before
is,my beingIam that Iam, Iam ellipsis." Or this: "what Iam is this (,) that Iam."
"
Or this: "what Iam is ... With such
Imean
pseudo-interpolations
to suggest that this ellipsis is neither recoverable nor irrecoverable,
that the question

is the ellipsis?" would be as impotent,


sacrilegious, though still necessary, in the end, as Anne's question to
Thomas, "what are you really?" The suspension points of "what I
am ..."
seem to operate between
meaning and non-meaning,
between the presence and the absence of meaning, between a
"what

response and a non-response, between a possible response and an


impossible one. Anne's response, "Be quiet," is thus paradoxically

both necessaryand superfluous;itthe signof a responseand the


markof an impossibility,
thesignof happinessand themarkof fear.
The
Obscure

relationship between Thomas and Anne in Thomas the


can be read, I think, as the discovery or invention of the

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BLANCHOT

...

WRITING

...

ELLIPSIS

that is, themark of the failure of both the recov


ellipsis ofwriting
erable and the non-recoverable ellipsis. While Anne initiallydemands
of Thomas an identity,an understanding ofwhat he really isau fond,
while she then comes to see that he is the impossible, the end of
reading and understanding, the narrative suggests thatwhat Thomas
really is, au fond, is an ellipsis of writing, neither a meaningful si
as one of the meanings of the Greek
lence nor a lack(elleipsis)
one
to
lead
believe
but an incessant leaving to the side, an
might

ellipsis of not only meaning or non-meaning but of this very relation.


For the ellipsis of writing iseven less recoverable than the non-re

ellipsis, which still evokes the absence or negation of the


possible, and iseven more recoverable than the recoverable ellipsis,
which can be read but only as the result of interpretation. The ellip
coverable

sis of writing is available as non-recoverable,


behindthe text but on itssurface. The elliptical,

as writing, not just


like the fragmentary,

remain, as Blanchot writes inThe Writing of theDisaster, "the


secret without secret that no elaboration would ever fill" (58/96).

would

Shortly after the firstellipsis inThomas theObscure, then, after


what we might mistakenly read as Thomas' reticence or impotence,
we find a second ellipsis which follows the name of Thomas, an
ellipsis thatwe might just as mistakenly attribute to Anne, as ifshe
had understood the reticence and could now silence herself inorder
to speak an ellipsis. "But Iam infinitelyfar away now, and can go no
further.As soon as I touch you, Thomas...
." (T, 55/57) But a few

lines later, the text leaves no doubt that this isan ellipsis of narration
an ellipsis of the narratorwhich Anne has
momentarily become.

For it is not Anne, notice, who speaks the following ellipsis (as the
English translation suggests), but thework thatwrites it, indicating, it
seems, that in her words there is no longer speaking but the ellipsis

ofwriting:

And she feltfurther,


with an anxietywhich threatened
her puritybutwhich broughther a new purity,thatshe

was going to be forced (. . .) to introduce something seri

ous intoher tale [rdcit],an impenetrableand terrible


reminiscence,

so that, as this false figure emerged

from

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107

108

NAAS

MICHAEL

the shadows, acquiring through a useless meticulousness


a greater and greater precision and a more and more arti
ficial one, she herself, the narrator, already condemned

and delivered intothe hands of thedevils,would bind

herself unpardonably
would know nothing.

to the true figure, of which

she

"What you are .. .," she said....


[Ce que vous etes,
dit-ele..
.]And as she spoke these words, she seemed
to dance around him and, fleeing him at the same time,
to push him into an imaginary wolf-trap. "What you
Ce
[ que vous etes..

are...."

She could

not speak,

.]

and yet she was speaking.


(T, 57-8/60-61)

Anne could not speak and yet she was speaking speaking
an ellipsis that made her no longer able to speak. How could one
decide whether it isAnne who speaks or the narratorwho writes the
. .."?
ellipsis "she said
Justafter this exchange, Anne plunges forward once again into
the interrogation of the impossible, and her tale isonce again inter
rupted. The ellipsis interrupts themeaning of Anne's speech, Anne's

tale, thereby signaling the beginning of writing, the beginning of


writing as the incessant remarking of truth,of the real [/a verit6-le

vrail,of being [I'etrel,by theellipsis:

Then, as ifinthedepths [profondeurlshe had suddenly


felt herself under the surveillance of an implacable con
sciousness, she leaped back, cried out, opened terribly
clairvoyant eyes and, halting her tale [rdcit] an instant:
"No," she said, "it's not that.What you really are...."
[Ce que vous 6tes vraiment . ..] (58-9/62 )

can no longer speak, and yetshe finds


and thusherself writing. Interrupting her own tale, suspending it,Anne can
Anne

no longerspeak truly
of theconcealed depthsofThomas' being,and

yet

and so-

she begins towrite the truthof Thomas'

being right

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BLANCHOT.

.. WRITING

...

ELLIPSIS

on the surface of the ellipsis. This truth


would

signal the ruinof thought


and meaning; as the "disastrous ruinof thought," itwould mark only
that is, the disaster ofwriting as thewrit
what remains to be saidingof disaster. Blanchot writes in The Writing of theDisaster:
all is said, what remains to be said is the disaster.
Ruin of words, demise writing, faintness faintlymurmur
ing:what remains without remains (the fragmentary). (33/

When

58)

Perhaps we can now


moving more and more quickly, more
understand the relationship between the
and more elliptically -

first
fiveellipses inThomas theObscure and itssixthand finalellip
sis. Some fiftypages after the fifthellipsis, when it is no longer clear
is speaking or narratingis itThomas, the narrator, the "ab
surd spectator," the impersonal "One"? - we read:

who

night, Imake you taste your ecstasy. I perceive inmy


self the second nightwhich brings you the consciousness
of your barrenness. You bloom into new restrictions. By

my mediation, you contemplate yourself eternally. I am


with you, as ifyou were my work [oeuvre]. My work
[Mon oeuvre]... What strange light is this which falls

uponme? (108/128-9)

. .. Neither recoverable nor non-recoverable,


neither
My work
nor
we
we
in
what
what
read
this
hear,
absent,
present
ellipsis is the
trace of a pure repetition. My work is ...; it is ... , for
being too is
.
.
an
so
this
.,
the strange and spectral doubling of the
ellipsis. And

ellipsis of writing punctuates thework, punctuates the ellipsis itself


in the dissimulation of truth and being, punctuates writing as
ellip
sis.

Writingand being as ellipsis:neitherrecoverablenor irrecov


erable,neitherabsentthought
presentnorwholly absent,
potentially
more
and
would
mark
thanthe incessantdis
writing
being
nothing
- the
and theessentialdispersion
ruptionofmeaning and identity
essential spatialization and temporalization of meanings and be
Blanchot's
The
Literature
is
itself
of
ings.
framed, itwould
Space

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109

110

MICHAEL

NAAS

the only two ellipses in the textthe


seem, by two such ellipses
firstnear the beginning of thework, and attached towriting, and the
second, toward at the end, and attached to being:
Writing

...

[Ecrire ...]

And the apparition says precisely thatwhen everything


has disappeared, there still is something: when everything
lacks, lack makes the essence of being appear, and the
essence

of being is to be there stillwhere it lacks, to be


10
inasmuch as it is hidden [dissimuld] ..

even if,as lack, it


were hidden.
Being would still be something
But what ifwhat were hidden had the structure of the ellipsis of

ifthe hiddenness of being were not some reserve in


writing? What
the depths of being, but the spacing of the ellipsis? An ellipsis, then,
thatwould be located between presence and absence, apparition
and hiddenness, an ellipsis thatwould perhaps lead to "some ellip
between such terms? As Derrida writes in the
tical displacement"

context of a discussion of the opposition between meaning and form,


and of all themetaphysical oppositions that go along with this oppo
sition :
... one
probably does not have to choose between two
lines of thought. Rather, one has to meditate upon the
circularity which makes them pass into one another in

definitely. And also, by rigorously repeating this circle in


itsproper historical possibility, perhaps to let some ellip
in the difference of
be produced
tical displacement
repetition: a deficient displacement, doubtless, but defi
cient ina way that isnot yet-or
isno longerabsence,
nor
matter
silence.
Neither
lack,
negativity, non-Being,

form,
nothingthatcould be recastby somephilosopheme,
that is, by some dialectics,

inwhatever

sense dialectics

may be determined.An ellipsisbothofmeaning and of


form: neither full speech nor a perfect circle. More and
less, neithermore nor less. Perhaps an entirely other ques
tion.

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...

BLANCHOT

Blanchot,

...

WRITING

ELLIPSIS

111

then, as a reader of Blanchot, not identical to him

to and repeating
selfbut ellipticallyrelatedto himself,returning

himself so as to produce some elliptical displacement, another in


scription of the same interruption, that is,of the same interruptionof
the same: from Thomas

I'obscur to the Tome obscur, from speaking

towriting,fromthepossibilityand impossibility
of theellipsisto the
to
ellipsisofwritingfromthetemptation say itallwithout repetition

or remainder to an
ellipsis of this temptation, from the depths of a
silence
be it ina line of narrative or a circle of thought
meaningful
an
to
ellipsis thatwould be "neither full speech nor a perfect
circle" but the "deficient displacement, doubtless" of a dot dot dot.

1
2

JacquesDerrida,Parages (Paris:?ditionsGalil?e, 1986), 279.

Maurice

Blanchot,

Thomas

theObscure,

trans. Robert Lamberton

(Barrytown,

Y:

StationHill Press, 1988); Thomas l'obscur,nouvelle version (Paris:?ditions


Gallimard, 1950).Hereaftercited as T. TheWritingof theDisaster, trans.Ann
Smock (Lincoln:
ofNebraskaPress,1986); L'?criture
du d?sastre(Paris:
University
?ditionsGallimard, 1980), 53. Hereaftercited as W. The Englishand French
pagination (respectively)is indicatedinparentheses.Translationshave been
3

I have put all


necessary, and to avoid confusion,
slightly modified whenever
that do not "belong" to the cited textwithin
parentheses.
Blanchot, V7c/ous Circles: Two Fictions & A?er the Fact, trans. Paul

ellipses
Maurice

Auster (Barrytown,
NY: StationHill Press,1985),60; Apr?sCoup (Paris:?ditions
4

Gallimard,
"Blanchot

1949), 86. Hereafter cited as AF.


as a reader of Blanchot":
Iowe the syntax of this phrase,

along with

one of theverybest readersof


thatitimplies,toPaul Davies, himself
thestrategy

Blanchot.

?
5 A typicaldictionary
exampleof aposiopesisreads:"ThehorrorsIsaw there but

Idare not tell them." Here, the


or
becoming silent
breaking-off is another way of
was
the
horror
of
in
what
other
seen;
words, what was seen was too
expressing
horrible forwords ?
though not too horrible for a meaningful silence.

Maurice

The Space

Blanchot,

of Literature, trans. Ann Smock

(Lincoln: University

ofNebraskaPress,1982),27-8; L'espace litt?raire


(Paris:?ditions
Gallimard,1955),
18-19.

Ispecifytwenty-four
points"in theFrenchtext"sincethereare severalmore inthe
English.Not only have a couple of ellipsesbeen added, but the threepointed
ellipses

have been

"translated"

in several

instances

into four points

in order

to

of thispaper Ihad concentrated


signaltheend of thesentence.Inan earlierdraft

on the effects of such translation: can one


any sense to speak of a French versus an
translates an "open"

ellipsis with

in fact translate an
itmake
ellipsis? Does
one
when
happens

English ellipsis? What


three points into a "closed"

one with four? Ac

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112

MICHAEL

NAAS

would one decide betweenone ellipsis and another?


cording towhat criteria
What theoryof theellipsiswould be assumed insuch a decision?What effect
does addingan ellipsis intranslation
haveon thetextand on theotherellipses in
thetext?
8 Blanchotspeaksof the"nocturnal
disaster"inTheWritingofDisaster.

Maurice

Blanchot,

The

InfiniteConversation,

trans. Susan Hanson

(Minneapolis:

UniversityofMinnesota Press, 1993),420; L'entretieninfini(Paris:Gallimard,


R?volutiondu langagepo?tique (Paris:?ditionsdu
1969),616. Cf. JuliaKristeva,
10

Seuil,

1974), 274-91.

The Space of Literature,


27/33and 253/334. Itshouldbe noted thattheEnglish
translation ellipses

11

the ellipsis

simply"Writing".
Jacques Derrida,

from this title. Thus

"Form and Meaning:

A Note

on

instead of "Ecrire..."

the Phenomenology

we

have

of Lan

ofChi
guage," inMargins of Philosophy,trans.Alan Bass (Chicago:University
cago

Press, 1982),

173.

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