Many years after the Events of May 1968, Blanchot remembers that tutoiement, the second person familiar, was demanded of everyone; he preserved the formal “vous” for his friends. What he shared with his friends is analogous to what Breton demanded of the Surrealists — friendship is also, for Blanchot, a relation to the impossible, but it is one that allows each to be experienced as if he or she were removed from the categories which organise our relationships. To say “vous” to the friend is to acknowledge that she escapes my attempt to identify and determine the others around me.
Lars Iyer, “Irony Mastered and Unmastered”
