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the complete review - literature
The Book
by
Stéphane Mallarmé
general information | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | The Book |
| Author: | Stéphane Mallarmé |
| Genre: | Various |
| Written: | (1957) (Eng. 2018) |
| Length: | 238 pages |
| Original in: | French |
| Availability: | The Book - US |
| The Book - UK | |
| The Book - Canada | |
| Le «Livre» de Mallarmé - Canada | |
| Le «Livre» de Mallarmé - France | |
| from: Bookshop.org (US) | |
| directly from: Exact Change |
- First published posthumously, as Le «Livre» de Mallarmé (1957), ed. Jacques Scherer
- Translated and with an Introduction by Sylvia Gorelick
- This is the first complete translation of the work, but a significant amount was also published in Azure (2015), translated by Blake Bronson-Bartlett and Robert Fernandez
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Our Assessment:
(-) : almost 'unreadable', in the traditional sense, but still fascinating, and presented in a lovely edition
See our review for fuller assessment.
The complete review's Review:
The Book presents in English the pieces of the grand work that Stéphane Mallarmé began working on in 1866 and never completed. As translator Sylvia Gorelick notes in her Introduction, Mallarmé's ambitions shifted over the years -- including, early on:
In 1871, the Book takes the form of a multivolume opus, in which each tome will represent a different mode of inquiry and literary genre. He writes to Cazalis: "My work is no longer a myth. (A volume of Tales, dreamed. A volume of Poetry, glimpsed and crooned. A volume of Criticism, be it what was once called the Universe, considered from a strictly literary point of view.) In short, the mornings of twenty years."Yet for all the inspired plans and planning -- and the length of time Mallarmé was (prë)occupied with The Book -- it remains a wisp of these grand ambitions, a very loose, fragmentary assemblage; it remains more myth than substantial. It likely also remains much more talked-about than actually read -- as, indeed, it largely defies easy (or arguably almost any) traditional sort of reading.
Gorelick presents the text with the many crossed-out lines as actually crossed out -- "so that they appear in these pages in a way directly analogous to the handwritten pages themselves" (unlike Scherer's original French edition (1957), where these are presented as footnotes, or the Bertrand Marchal-edited Pléiade-edition (1998), where they are underlined). She also tries to maintain: " a radical fidelity to the visual and spatial organization of Mallarmé's manuscript" -- making for a visually striking series of often spare pages.
A relatively busy one gives some idea of what is found here:
Some pages are even entirely text-less:
And much refers to actual physical book-making and -selling, with much space devoted to going over the numbers -- including the number of volumes, pages, the book-proportions, and attempts at determining value. On many of the pages, Mallarmé is doing varieties of math:
Besides its multi-volume breadth, Mallarmé also emphasizes a duality to the text, suggesting, for example: "Each
two alternatives of a same subject, — either this, or that —And:
(and not treated therefore, historically — but
always intelluectually,
2 booksAs is, the looseness here allows for (or insists on) far more than just double interpretation.
one book, having
and at each one a
double interpretation
In her Introduction, Gorelick emphasizes also the theatricality of the work -- as Mallarmé conceives of it also as drama (even suggesting a ballet, at one point -- hardly far-fetched, given the also the visual choreography of/on many of the pages -- as well as mime and dance) -- and she suggests that: "In its performative mode, the text both enacts and defers the enactment of the idea of the Book".
On one page Mallarmé suggests:
Read.But for all his promise -- or hope -- that 'all is there', the extremely fragmentary state of The Book leaves the reader flailing as to meaning, hold, and direction. As Gorelick also notes and suggests in her Introduction:
all is there
because it is not
over
—it cannot be
— the cities were
— the —
all that futile
collapsed —
because
The Book, true to its concept, has no discernible beginning or end. Its movement is not linear, but differential and transversal. A reading method that is open to experimentation is thus called for.Indeed, would-be readers must be open to expanding (greatly) on their usual idea and process of 'reading'. As such -- a concept-work so loose that the author seems unable to have even come to much grips with the concept he was after -- it does offer rewards; it all depends on what readers make of it -- if and to the extent they are willing (and able) to actively engage with the text(s).
Readers should realize what they are in for -- understanding also, as Mallarmé does, that in this case as well as generally:
a book neither begins nor ends: at most itThis one pretends quite differently than most, but it's a quite fascinating exercise -- not least because Mallarmé can and does convince that:
pretends
- M.A.Orthofer, 8 June 2025
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The Book:
- Exact Change publicity page
- Gallimard publicity page
- Wesleyan University Press publicity page
- Klaus Scherübel publicity page
- Stéphane Mallarmé at books and writers
- Musée départemental Stéphane Mallarmé
- See Index of French literature
- See Index of Books Written Before 1900
- See Index of Books on Books
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French author Stéphane Mallarmé lived 1842 to 1898.
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© 2025 the complete review
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