The Book of Shares

by Edmond Jabès, Edmond Jabès

As we approach sharing let us ask: "What belongs to me?"
Balance sheet of a life ratified by death.
Whatever exists has no existence unless shared.
Possessions under seal are lost possessions.
At first sight, giving, offering yourself in order to receive an equivalent gift in return, would seem to be ideal sharing.
But can All be divided?
Can a feeling, a book, a life be shared entirely?
On the other hand, if we cannot share all, what remains and will always remain outside sharing? What has never, at the heart of our possessions, been ours?
And what if we can share the vital desire to share, our only means of escape from solitude, from nothingness?

Genres: Poetry, Literature, France, Philosophy, Religion

105 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Edmond Jabes was a major voice in French poetry in the latter half of this century. An Egyptian Jew, he was haunted by the question of place and the loss of place in relation to writing, and he was one of the most significant thinkers of what one might call poetical alienation. He focused on the space of the book, seeing it as the true space in which exile and the promised land meet in poetry and in question. (This is summarized from the reader's description in A New History of French Literature, ed. Denis Hollier.) Very many of Jabes's books of prose and poetry have been translated into English, including The Book of Dialogue ( Wesleyan, 1987) and The Book of Margins (Chicago, 1993), both translated by Rosmarie Waldrop.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over the years it seems that the most influential books for me are the ones I find randomly at used bookstores.

I read this one in one sitting, which felt more like meditating or watching burning prayers go up in smoke.

Jabes was an Egyptian Jew who lived in exile in France. This book of verses is "post-modern" in that it is self-referential and deconstructive, but to me it stands apart because of the devotion to love and presence with which it sacrifices language.

[Myhte · Rating 5 out of 5]

to fall silent in turn, with the hope of dissolving into it

We breathe, we read. Same rhythm.

All I have ever been is the man life has allowed me to be. Thus I exist, molded by the best and the worst, by all I have loved or fled, acquired or lost, molded by seconds at the mercy of seconds as life drains away.

ephemeral eternity of what is born

We knew we owned very little, but we had never considered that this little is still not our own.

weighed down with centuries, the book you unearth

O distant aim. Words of another memory.

Every thought is a prayer of the mind; every word, a prayer of a text; every death, a prayer of eternity. To pray: to clear away stones.

My pen is honest, words, alas, are less so.

Life lays bare our beginning. Starry night. Hidden treasure.

Some ashes have been mine for a moment: the remains of a burned book strewn to the wind.

We perish of what has made us be, much more than of what we are.

After so much wandering. After building and rebuilding how many times? What, ah tell me, you who know me, what have I kept for myself?

the mind grows green again, O dream. Dream, but so modest, so quiet: dream of a grain of rice.

twine harmony
our soul a leaf
a flame our pen
dawn: the book’s vast desire

to be able, one day, to close my life as one shuts a book, convinced that there is still a treasure hidden within

there is no peak that mankind cannot scale, death knows it well, guarding the highest.

Readability, audibility, always at stake.

A page of sky, a page of sand. A book of ashes.

parting of the waters, our limits are within us

There will always be more sand in the desert than the wind can whirl up, and more ashes in our hands than they can hold.

[soulAdmitted · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ci si spossessa solo di se stessi".

"Ogni possesso ci frustra, là dove ci favorisce. [...] Moriamo per quel che ci ha fatto essere, assai più che per quel che siamo".

[mina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ideas: loaded dice in the hands of Satan.

[Tania Bies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jabes deconstructs language to find how deep meaning can be, if you want to read something like you've never read before, read this x

[EIJANDOLUM · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We see only the future. Yet it is the present which kills us.”

Reading this particular book felt like peering into Edmond's most merciless obsessions. It smothered me at times, the continuous usage of the concepts of "God," "void," "death," "time," "books/writing," and mostly "word," the Verbum Dei. It's like he's grinding his brain, reminding himself of the torment behind existence and the inevitabilty of death.

I enjoyed his "book of Questions" more.
Still one of my favorite poets/writers of all time.