I realize that if I were to continue to post about The Space of Literature at the same pace as reflected by the first couple of entries in the series, I'd have more than 100 posts about the book by the time I finished reading it. I don't see that happening. (It's also possible that the fine folks at the University of Nebraska Press may object to the preponderance of quotations in such a large number of posts, at some point, in theory.)
For here, just a couple of notes about what I appreciate about Blanchot's method (having not yet made it any further into the book). He makes what seem like statements, but which are elusive. He's working on something, with us. Just as the book opens with "It seems. . .", then subsequent sections begin again: "In order to examine more closely what such statements beckon us toward, perhaps we should try to see where they originate." And: "Perhaps this ordeal points us toward what we are seeking." And: "We must start questioning again." If on some level I fall back on wanting to be told something, told how to read something--if I want to be spoonfed meaning--Blanchot refuses to do that work for me, refuses to be that authority.
These elusive statements, which at times seem like they're about to resolve into a meaning that can be nailed down, but which don't--in a sense, they remind me of those ideas that I myself have had difficulty articulating. It's tempting--coming from a utilitarian perspective--to see this elusiveness--in Blanchot and in certain other writers--as willful opacity. But I don't think it is. Something is being explored that is difficult to explain, that cannot be confined or reduced, and language is unequal to the task. This very unequalness being part of the thing being explored.