Cover -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- Preface -- INTRODUCTION: "Why Do You Write?"-The Fault of Writing -- PART ONE: KAFKA -- 1. Kafka's Teeth: The Literary Gewissenbiss -- 2. The Ecstasy of Judgment -- 3. Embodied Violence and the Leap from the Law: "In the Penal Colony" and The Trial -- 4. Degradation of the Sublime: "A Hunger Artist" -- PART TWO: BLANCHOT -- 5. Pointed Instants: Blanchot's Exigencies -- 6. The Shell and the Mask: L'arrêt de mort -- 7. The Dead Look: The Death Mask, the Corpse Image, and the Haunting of Fiction -- PART THREE: BECKETT -- 8. Beckett's Voices and the Paradox of Expression -- 9. Company, But Not Enough -- Conclusion: Speech Unredeemed: From the Call of Conscience to the Torture of Language -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.