I'm not sure if I was ever right about this, but via his writings on Kafka, and also Beckett (see IC 326-331) I eventually came to understand Blanchot's conception of the "limit experience" as a kind of transcendental experience without transcendence, a "step *not* beyond" so to speak. In literary terms, if one accepts the experience of literary and poetic writing as a departure or taking-leave of words from their worldly bonds -- Heidegger calls poetic language a "withering of everyday speech" -- then literary and poetic language come to constitute a kind of "limit space" that is itself without limit. (an aside: this a conception that most literature academics will decidedly not accept or even entertain)

Some Blanchot commentators see the essays in IC as emblematic of Blanchot's "return to the world," which he had vanished from in the earlier works (Space of Lit. etc.). Fair enough. IC does indeed reflect Blanchot's deepening encounter with Levinas, and so some of the more "literary" concerns embedded in the earlier texts are re-cast in terms of an encounter with the world and history.

Hope this is helpful.

Hi Chris,

I wasn't aware of that view, but "fair enough" as you say. The essays in The Infinite Conversation, as far as I can remember, are a bit of an odd mix between "real world" or historical writings (referencing Hitler and others) and more abstract, mathematical notes on a philosophy of communication (not to mention the usual enigmatic dialogues, never quite attributable to Blanchot and Bataille themselves).

There are some excellent passages in Steven Shaviro's book Passion and Excess regarding the "limit-experience," I think. And of course Steve Michelmore, who writes: "Contrary to popular opinion, literature is intimate with daily experience...We don't experience the world without this murmuring, a kind of voice-under codifying and animating an otherwise uniform world..."

I hope Gary you don't mind my doing this:

http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/

http://www.spikemagazine.com/0602blanchot2.php

http://spurious.typepad.com/spurious/blanchot/index.html

Matt,
Not at all. I'll follow the links. It helps to keep the conversation going. But they seem to be leading into the world of French literary theory. That is where I am out of my depth.

Chris,
The Limit-experience part in Infinite Conversation is an engagement with the world and its history. "The Indestructible" section is a good example of that, with its focus on being Jewish in history.

I'll see what happens with Reflections on Nietzsche.