SOURCE: “Cardiac Arrest,” in Times Literary Supplement, August 13, 1999, p. 24.

In the following review, Hill comments on the historical significance of Blanchot's oeuvre in general, highlighting the implications of the death theme in The Station Hill Blanchot Reader and Friendship.

Maurice Blanchot, novelist, critic, philosopher, now in his ninety-second year, is at last receiving the sustained critical attention his work deserves. These two volumes of translations explain why. The Station Hill Blanchot Reader brings together in one compendium edition previously out-of-print English versions of the author’s shorter fiction or récits, including Vicious Circles, the second version of Thomas the Obscure, Death Sentence, The Madness of the Day, When the Time Comes and The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me; also included is a selection of critical essays from each of the three postwar decades. On rereading these texts, what is perhaps most striking is the peculiar...