The Book

by Stéphane Mallarmé, Sylvia Gorelick (Introduction)

Frequently quoted but never before translated in its entirety, The Book is a visual poem about its own construction The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–98) was modernism's great champion of the book as both a conceptual and material perhaps his most famous pronouncement is "everything in the world exists in order to end up as a book." A colossal influence on literature from Huysmans to Ashbery, art from Manet to Broodthaers, music from Debussy to Boulez and philosophy from Blanchot to Rancière, Mallarmé spent more than 30 years on a project he called Le Livre . This legendary, unfinished project is now translated into English for the first time.

The Book was Mallarmé's total artwork, a book to encompass all books. His collected drafts and notes toward it, published only posthumously in French in 1957, are alternately mystical, lyrical and gloriously banal; for example, many concern the dimensions, page count and cost of printing this ideal book. Resembling sheet music, the lines are laid out like a musical score, with abundant expanses of blank space between them. Frequently quoted, sometimes excerpted, but never before translated in its entirety, The Book is a visual poem about its own construction, the scaffolding of a cosmic architecture intended to reveal "all existing relations between everything."

Genres: Poetry, France

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Stéphane Mallarmé (French: [stefan malaʁme]; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.

Reviews

[Nick Seeger · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the title explicitly states, this is a book about a book, but it’s not just any book, it’s Mallarmé’s “Great Work” left unfinished at the time of his sudden death. And though this book only contains the barest sketch of the ultimate work of this esteemed writer, there are flashes of greatness, fleeting though they may be, which are no less mesmerizing for their intangibility.

In some ways it reminded me of Williams’ Paterson in that it was built up out of diverse source material such as original poetic invention, letters and in the case of Mallarmé, all of the measurements and calculations of the production of the book itself.

From what I can gather “The Book” is like no other book in that it is not intended for a singular reading, but to be performed in many successive readings, each a juxtaposition of it’s various parts taken out of sequence yet revealing it’s ultimate meaning in turn. This tentative guess as to the nature of the work in question was no easy task to surmise, as Mallarmé’s notes largely consist of figures relating to the particulars of production such as the number of pages and leaves, sessions and volumes. It is also worth noting that the introduction and translators notes were indispensable in clarifying some of the abbreviations used throughout.

For all the uncertainty that surrounds the book, it has some excellent poetic and formal innovations, and one could be excused for recognizing what might almost be considered a “plot”. *Gasp* There is a hero in flight, a fiancée and what seem to be unconsummated vows, a priest and mention of a crime that should have brought glory. All of this in brief images that waver in uncertainty, dreamlike and ephemeral. This is what I enjoyed the most about the book; the tangential quality of even the most lucid passages. The reader must engage with the text to interpret the flow of Mallarmé's thought and his true meaning. I treasure this ambiguity in poetry, but admit that it’s not for everyone.

Mallarme himself goes as far as to state:

The page:
the sign —
this book
abstracts itself

Whether he refers to “The Book” or the collection of notes which comprise the book I am presently reviewing, I think the statement is apt.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readable? In a way. Engrossing? Hardly. Essential for Mallarme devotees? Definitely. What a mysterious and fascinating work, one I return to repeatedly for new surprises. What a treat for us English speakers to have this available complete.

[Quiver · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fragmented letter-number mix laid out in space and time for the performative reader. Deep study might reveal riches; otherwise, an artefact to be admired as word-painting.

55(B) The book eliminates time ashes
63(B)(6) to replace bookstores with beggars
63(B)(6)b read. All is there

[Seyhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The book “is really not a book. It is reflections of ideas, thoughts, drafts, symbols, diagrams, mathematical calculations, arbitrary sketches, notes and all the other materials which make a book a book. For an inquisitive reader, it is the door to enter Mallarmé’s brain. I have not seen anything like this before.”The book” is an abstract poem of its own. Definitely peruse away these amazing pages if you encounter this book in somewhere.

[Olchar Lindsann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't contractually re-post this until a year after this review's publication on Rain Taxi Review, but until then my review of this excellent edition of a paradigm-dissolving book can be read here: http://www.raintaxi.com/the-book/

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating document, though perhaps one best left to specialists. Too much of it devolves into calculating finances, though where these calculations meet some aspects of the proposed "performances" is rather interesting.

Most of all it just makes me want to read Maurice Blanchot's The Book to Come.

[Omar Abu Samra · Rating 5 out of 5]

No clue, just read it