SOURCE: A review of The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me, in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 14, No. 3, Fall, 1994, p. 214.

In the following review, Dickison comments on the themes of The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me.

The mark of Lydia Davis’s translation can be cited right away in the American title for this most recent of Maurice Blanchot’s fictions to appear in English. Davis’s elegant variation of Blanchot’s French title (Celui qui ne m’accompagnait pas—a “straight” translation might be “The One (or He) Who Was Not Accompanying Me”) carries in the word apart the echo of Blanchot’s ambivalent terminal pas—both a “step” and a prohibition, an advancement and an interdictive “no.” This double movement, of uncertainty, paradox—something given and something taken away—works at the heart of Blanchot’s writing.

This particular recit—the word brings...