ABSTRACT
The archive is a place of its own traumatic evil, self-destructive violence and paralyzing totalization. However, it is further complicated by what it is supposed to house – the manuscript, which is inseparable from it. It is because of the nature of the manuscript in the archive, which runs counter to that of the archive, that the archive becomes a highly paradoxical site. But what is a manuscript? At first glance, a manuscript is different from a book in that the former lacks a definite physical form while the latter is usually in a ‘bound’ form with covers. But this distinction becomes problematic once the book is in fragments, or once part of it is gone, resulting in its being non-attributable. In other words, it may be difficult to distinguish a manuscript from a book if the latter has the characteristics of the former.
