Writing sound and radical fiction: the abyssal space of writing, reading and listening

ABSTRACT

This article aims to establish a connection between Daniela Cascella's writing sound and Maurice Blanchot's radical fiction. It will show how Cascella's interest in the relationship between sound and writing pulls her toward a similar abyssal space as the one Blanchot arrives at in his critical essays and own works of fiction. By firstly distinguishing her work, by emphasising its poetic power, from certain trends in sound studies, this essay will read Cascella alongside the writing of Blanchot. It will be shown how both Cascella and Blanchot's writing circles a vanishing point in which the inaugural moment of writing slowly dissipates. The significance of reading will then be explored as a prolongation of this dispossessing temporality of writing. Importantly, then, this article is not trying to say something about the ontological dimension of sound. The commonality drawn between these two authors will be positioned according to the strangeness of writing.

KEYWORDS:

• Maurice Blanchot
• Daniela Cascella
• sound
• writing
• listening
• reading

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Adam Potts research explores the relationship between philosophy and sound. Drawing on twentieth century continental thought, from phenomenology to poststructuralism, his work engages with ideas of noise, listening, embodiment and writing. He is a Teaching Fellow in Philosophy at Newcastle University.

Notes

1 It is important to remember that Blanchot has very specific authors in mind when he speaks of poetry. This is also true of his reference to literature. The poetry and literature that grips Blanchot's texts is invested in that point of impossibility of language and the vanishing point of authorship. Kafka, Rilke, Mallarmé, Beckett, Hölderlin, Breton (to name a few) are regular reference points in Blanchot's work.