S. n. • [ Paysage dimanche]|s. l. • (Paris) s. d. [1945]|11.50 x 22 cm|3 pages 1/2 in-4
Autograph manuscript by the author, 3½ pages octavo, published in the October 21, 1945 issue (no. 19) of Paysage dimanche.
Complete recto-verso manuscript, in very dense handwriting, with numerous deletions, corrections and additions.
Literary chronicle published on the occasion of the publication of the first two volumes of Jean-Paul Sartre's trilogy Les chemins de la liberté: "L'Age de raison" and "Le Sursis".
Together with the complete typescript, with one deletion and one autograph correction by the author.
When this chronicle appeared in autumn 1945, Maurice Blanchot and Jean-Paul Sartre had already demonstrated their mutual interest in each other's respective work, in articles that were sometimes critical, sometimes laudatory, always attentive. Similarly, if Les chemins de la liberté aroused Blanchot's admiration, it was essentially through the philosopher's skillful use of the influence of two monuments of Anglo-Saxon literature, Virginia Woolf and John Dos Passos: « Ce qui nous paraît frappant, c'est le caractère d'œuvre d'art qu'en reçoit le livre, œuvre extrêmement composée, calculée avec un souci infiniment sûr des effets, où la confusion reste claire, où le désordre est perfection, et telle qu'on y reconnaît sans cesse la présence de l'écrivain le plus lucide, capable de tout obtenir du langage dont il est maître. » ["What strikes us as remarkable is the character of a work of art that the book receives, an extremely composed work, calculated with infinitely sure concern for effects, where confusion remains clear, where disorder is perfection, and such that one constantly recognizes the presence of the most lucid writer, capable of obtaining everything from the language he masters."]
But this "Roman de Sartre" was above all an opportunity for Blanchot to raise the question of the links between literature and politics, on which the two men would have great difficulty agreeing in the following decades. Thus, Blanchot summarized Sartre's vision, evoking the problem of commitment: « Il est indéniable que l'art de Sartre atteint son plus grand pouvoir lorsqu'il décrit l'engloutissement des consciences par les choses qui les hantent et les débordent, et de laquelle elles coulent comme une pâte pleine d'odeurs. Le monde qu'il sent est celui d'une métamorphose, mais cette métamorphose n'est pas changement de forme, elle n'est pas la transformation d'un être en un autre être, fût-ce d'un homme en une vermine ; elle va plus loin, elle est irrémédiable, car c'est la conscience même qui devient un matériel, c'est la pensée qui se fige en une substance gluante, visqueuse, sans contour, sans apparence, un dedans triste et vague, que nous ne pouvons saisir et qui, pourtant, comme tel, continue désespérément à penser. Tel est l'univers dans lequel nous sommes jetés, tant que nous n'essayons pas de le reprendre par une action qui nous engage. » ["It is undeniable that Sartre's art reaches its greatest power when he describes the engulfing of consciousness by the things that haunt and overwhelm them, and from which they flow like a paste full of odors. The world he perceives is one of metamorphosis, but this metamorphosis is not a change of form, it is not the transformation of one being into another being, even of a man into vermin; it goes further, it is irreparable, for it is consciousness itself that becomes material, it is thought that freezes into a sticky, viscous substance, without contour, without appearance, a sad and vague interior that we cannot grasp and which, nevertheless, as such, continues desperately to think. Such is the universe into which we are thrown, as long as we do not try to reclaim it through an action that commits us."] The third volume of Les Chemins de la liberté, not yet published, left little doubt in Blanchot's eyes as to its content; and he summarized, somewhat sarcastically: « Ce qui suivra est facile à imaginer : nous aurons la guerre, l'occupation, nous aurons la résistance, l'obscur combat, la première victoire ; et nous risquons d'avoir l'aventure de personnages assez veules et désaxés qui cherchent la liberté [...] et finiront par la vivre en s'engageant pleinement dans une action collective qu'ils acceptent. » ["What will follow is easy to imagine: we will have war, occupation, we will have resistance, the dark combat, the first victory; and we risk having the adventure of rather weak and unbalanced characters who seek freedom [...] and will end up living it by fully committing themselves to a collective action they accept."]
The manuscript contains important variants from the typescript, which testify to Blanchot's concern to use Sartrean concepts judiciously, the better to return to what preoccupied him: the use of language in literature's revolutionary vocation.
