Repetition

by Alain Robbe-Grillet, Richard Howard (Translator)

Reminiscent of Orson Welles's The Third Man, Repetition is an atmospheric spy novel of violence, mystery, and tricks of the eye, set in a bombed-out Berlin in 1949. Henri Robin, a special agent of the French secret service, arrives in the ruined city and feels linked to it by a vague and recurrent memory. There is a shooting, a kidnapping, druggings, encounters with pimps and teenage whores, police interrogations, even torture. Bits and pieces of the Oedipus story resonate through the book's elegant labyrinth as Robin slowly senses that he was in Berlin before - as a child, with his mother, perhaps looking for his father. A brilliantly executed novel in prose of an almost hallucinatory richness, Repetition is proof that Robbe-Grillet's vision is, in a time of identity theft and porous nationhood, more relevant than ever.

Genres: Fiction, France, Novels, Literature, French Literature, 21st Century, 20th Century

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2001

About the author

Screenplays and novels, such as The Erasers (1953), of French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet, affiliated with the New Wave movement in cinema, subordinate plot to the treatment of space and time; directors, such as Jean Luc Godard and François Truffaut, led this movement, which in the 1960s abandoned traditional narrative techniques in favor of greater use of symbolism and abstraction and dealt with themes of social alienation, psychopathology, and sexual love.

Alain Robbe-Grillet was a French writer and filmmaker. He was along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon one of the figures most associated with the trend of the Nouveau Roman. Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice Rheims at seat #32.

He was married to Catherine Robbe-Grillet (née Rstakian) .

Alain Robbe-Grillet was born in Brest (Finistère, France) into a family of engineers and scientists. He was trained as an agricultural engineer. In the years 1943-44 Robbe-Grillet participated in service du travail obligatoire in Nuremberg where he worked as a machinist. The initial few months were seen by Robbe-Grillet as something of a holiday, since in between the very rudimentary training he was given to operate the machinery he had free time to go to the theatre and the opera. In 1945, Robbe-Grillet completed his diploma at the National Institute of Agronomy. Later, his work as an agronomist took him to Martinique, French Guinea,Guadeloupe and Morocco.

His first novel The Erasers (Les Gommes) was published in 1953, after which he dedicated himself full-time to his new occupation. His early work was praised by eminent critics such as Roland Barthes and Maurice Blanchot. Around the time of his second novel he became a literary advisor for Les Editions de Minuit and occupied this position from 1955 until 1985. After publishing four novels, in 1961 he worked with Alain Renais, writing the script for Last Year at Marienbad (L'Année Dernière à Marienbad), and subsequently wrote and directed his own films. In 1963, Robbe-Grillet published For a New Novel (Pour un Nouveau Roman), a collection of previous published theoretical writings concerning the novel. From 1966 to 1968 he was a member of the High Committee for the Defense and Expansion of French (Haut comité pour la défense et l´expansion de la langue française). In addition Robbe-Grillet also led the Centre for Sociology of Literature (Centre de sociologie de la littérature) at the university of Bruxelles from 1980 to 1988. From 1971 to 1995 Robbe-Grillet was a professor at New York University, lecturing on his own novels.

In 2004 Robbe-Grillet was elected to the Académie française, but was never actually formally received by the Académie because of disputes regarding the Académie's reception procedures. Robbe-Grillet both refused to prepare and submit a welcome speech in advance, preferring to improvise his speech, as well as refusing to purchase and wear the Académie's famous green tails (habit vert) and sabre, which he considered as out-dated.

He died in Caen after succumbing to heart problems

Style

His writing style has been described as "realist" or "phenomenological" (in the Heideggerian sense) or "a theory of pure surface." Methodical, geometric, and often repetitive descriptions of objects replace the psychology and interiority of the character. Instead, one slowly pieces together the story and the emotional experience of jealousy in the repetition of descriptions, the attention to odd details, and the breaks in repetitions. Ironically, this method resembles the experience of psychoanalysis in which the deeper unconscious meanings are contained in the flow and disruptions of free associations. Timelines and plots are fractured and the resulting novel resembles the literary

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as masterly in the nouveau roman style as in some of his early work, but I was still pretty impressed with this; the sixth I've read by him. What starts out feeling like your classic spy story, soon turns into something altogether different, as things aren't always as they seem; and that's putting it lightly. Identities are confused, situations are twisted, things are there in plain sight before they disappear, the reader is plunged into an ubiquitous twilight world of confusion; a labyrinthine disoriented fog. Brilliantly atmospheric, untrustworthy and gripping, with a murky and shrouded post-war Germany being a great setting, this later novel From Robbe-Grillet shows he still had what it takes. And yes, I could feel things in there that did remind me of The Third Man, and also Fritz Lang's M and Lars von Trier's Europa. In fact, it is the sort of novel that really benefits visualizing images in dark tones of black & white.

[Mahdi Lotfi · Rating 3 out of 5]

انتشار رمان جام شکسته در اکتبر 2001 از جمله رویدادهای مهم ادبی آن سال در فرانسه بود. آلن رب گری یه این کتاب را در آستانه هشتاد سالگی و پس از هشت سال سکوت منتشر کرد این رمان در بر گیرنده عناصر بسیاری از رمان های پیشین است.
رب گری یه فرم پلیسی را برای رمانهایش انتخاب کرده است. وجود معما در رمانهای پلیسی با شکل معمایی آثار او همخوانی دارد، نپرداختن به شخصیت افراد و شناخت آنها از طریق دیالوگ و رفتار ایجاد تردید در خوانده و تعلیق در داستان از ویژگی ژانر پلیسی است که رب گری یه در رمانهای خود بکار می برد .

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb novel but one that is not for everyone with its hallucinatory prose, uncertain and shifting identities and themes of incest, forbidden love, s&m, Lolita... all taking places in the ruins of Germany in 1949

Everyone encountered is not quite what he or she seems but the main characters - our "hero" HR aka Henri Robin aka many other names - his seeming double (identity and role to be revealed later), his "handler", the older German officer that is a target of assassination and the mysterious mother and daughter of the American zone in Berlin whose past and relationships with the main characters above is also slowly revealed give this novel its power in addition to the superb prose.

Highly, highly recommended and another novel that needs to be read at least twice since early happenings change or deepen their sense after later revelations so the second reading will be quite different than the first

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

240712: second reading, first review. after decades of other work, of r-g and others, can see where this is when young me was particularly troubled by the extensive sado-masochism. implicit, embedded, involving. I certainly see details, themes, 'repetition' of oedipus in the dreamlike, contingent, confusing, multiple plots that I must revaluate for example the somewhat more coherent work of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Smiley's People or other espionage writers...

this is literature. Pomo, using tropes of genre, that deconstructs entire narrative/ theme / plot, that reveals there is something more going on then the usual deceit, betrayal, murder, of espionage novels, though perhaps the reader must reach the end of the book to understand the assertion. the extravagant, sexualised, mendacious nature of surviving child in horrors of war, are enough to question r-g's open display of his inner shit. then, following plot reversals, revelations, unreliable narrators, the girl is perhaps liberated from seen as lying, manipulative, amoral enabler of all the things that beset our unstable narrator and his constantly shifting viewpoint(s)...

or perhaps r-g is just being provocative to no purpose...

this will culminate in A Sentimental Novel, which makes no concessions to accessible, relatively conventional, familiar and moral topography. but that comes several decades after this 'primary' attempt...

more:

by-

Jealousy & In the Labyrinth
The Erasers
Last Year at Marienbad
Voyeur
La Maison de rendez-vous
Project for a Revolution in New York
La Belle Captive
Topology of a Phantom City
Recollections of the Golden Triangle
Djinn
Repetition
A Regicide
A Sentimental Novel

francaise-
La Jalousie
Dans le labyrinthe
Les Gommes
L'année dernière à Marienbad
Instantanés

on-
For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction
Generative Literature and Generative Art: New Essays
Alain Robbe-Grillet: The Body of the Text
The Erotic Dream Machine: Interviews with Alain Robbe-Grillet on His Films
Inventing The Real World: The Art of Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet
The novels of Robbe-Grillet

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Verwickelt, gedrängt und stellenweise verworren. Ein brillanter Text!

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love a good doppelganger story, and I especially like post-WWII France, so I was excited about this one. But the doppelganger got lost in the many identities the narrator assumed, and my interest waned. Then there was the hallucinatory prose. One likes it or doesn't; I don't. There are exceptions, but generally it isn't my thing. So here we have many names/identities, dreams, fugue states (oh and footnotes too!), and I didn't have the inclination to decipher it all. Had the main character or premise been more interesting, maybe. It started well; I was hooked, but then it lost me. I chose three stars because, objectively, I'm sure it's smart and a good puzzle for the right reader or the right moment, but I was disengaged.

[Hairold Gelderkorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

So cute of my baby angel to get me this book b/c it’s John Cale’s favorite book! Even cuter to find that it’s filled with graphic scenes of pedophilic-incest-torture-r*pe (all contained within lengthy footnotes that put Bakunin’s footnotes to shame)! Anyhoo, the whole Kierkegaard repetition/recollection concept and constant switching of tenses were pedantic and hard to follow, but this dude somewhat invented a genre so he can have at it. In the end, I let all the puzzling go and tried to enjoy the story for what it is - an exciting drug-induced double vision stumble through fragmented post-war Berlin’s seedy underbelly.

[Javier Avilés · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hablaré de ella en el blog.
Aquí:
Reanudación

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure what I think. I think I appreciated it, more than enjoyed it. I think maybe I should have read some of his earlier novels, as I understand the "Repetition" is in part in reference to those. I came to him (well, Ive seen his films too) through Kierkegaard's odd statement:

"Repetition and recollection are the same movement except in opposite directions; for what is recollected has been, is repeated backwards, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward. Repetition, therefore, if it is possible, makes a person happy, whereas recollection makes him unhappy - assuming, of course, that he gives himself time to live and does not promptly, at birth, find an excuse to sneak out of life again, for example, under the pretext that he has forgotten something."

Love it.

So, Robbe Grillet; I will read your other novels, from the beginning(ish).

[Massimo Magon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un destino scritto nelle quarte di copertina scorre di libro in libro in una successione infinita di confluenze. Così ora, dopo aver ingollato in più sorsi L'amante di Wittgenstein di Markson, visione femminile dell'ultimo essere umano rimasto al mondo, scendo dallo scaffale Dissipatio H.G. di Morselli per sciogliere nel bicchiere anche quella maschile; prima, allo stesso modo, dopo aver letto il resoconto della Berlino post-bellica di Dagerman ho voluto consumare La ripresa di Robbe-Grillet. Peraltro tutto questo proseguirà in qualche modo con La letteratura nazista in America di Bolano, che a sua volta come un mulino di esistenze immaginarie deriva acqua da Borges e Gombrowicz, e la smaltirà chissà dove. Spesso la continuità è solo apparente, tutto scorre ma non ci si bagna due volte nello stesso fiume.
Dopo queste banalità, tornando a ciò che è già stato letto, alla Berlino degli anni immediatamente successivi al '45, a Robbe-Grillet e Dagerman, una storia di spie si scontra con un resoconto giornalistico, ma solo in superficie; quel che c'è di più è la differenza tra il possibile sbocco di una cronaca (Dagerman) e quello di una finzione narrativa (Robbe-Grillet), ovvero: da una parte l'etica che si genera dalle prese di posizione critiche, dall'altra un altrove che non può essere percepito altrimenti se non attraverso lo straniamento letterario.
Il gioco di spie è innanzitutto ambiguità: del luogo dove si svolgono i fatti, dello scopo della missione, degli alleati e degli avversari, del ruolo interpretato, se di oggetto o di soggetto fino alle estreme conseguenze di ammazzato o omicida. Se poi il gioco di spie viene scelto come tema portante da uno scrittore metodico e strutturato come Robbe-Grillet non c'è da meravigliarsi se l'incertezza si sposta dalla trama a un senso che sta fuori dai fatti come dai personaggi, ma rientra appieno in un'esperienza del mondo non riassumibile in altro modo se non come una ripresa, cioè come un ricordo che anziché essere una ripetizione statica si rivela essere una prosecuzione dinamica. Non la ripetizione del passato, sempre uguale a se stessa, ma la riscrittura del futuro, sempre differente.
Quando incontriamo Henri Robin su di un treno diretto a Berlino per partecipare a una missione di cui lui stesso non sa nulla, di lì a poco incontreremo anche un uomo che occupa il suo posto a sedere e gli somiglia in tutto e per tutto - eccetto per i baffi che porta anche HR, ma finti: questo doppio è solo il primo di tanti che si susseguono tante volte quante HR dovrà cambiare identità per mezzo di documenti falsi esibiti con sicurezza ai diversi corpi di polizia che convivono nella città occupata: un uomo muore ammazzato di notte in una piazza deserta ma dovrà morire una seconda volta; appariranno gemelli, naturalmente intercambiabili, e una madre e una figlia ugualmente desiderabili; oggetti ubiqui saranno sia prove che semplici accessori; infine i grandi doppi rappresentati dalle coppie sogno-realtà identità-erotismo. Persino i narratori saranno molteplici e sfuggenti: Henri Robin si impegna nella stesura di un rapporto al quale vengono poste note che forniscono versioni dei fatti differenti da quelle offerte dal narratore. Quanto alla trama si rivelerà per essere anch'essa un doppio, una variazione del mito edipico.
Ne esce un romanzo inafferrabile, costruito con una tecnica narrativa che serve ad ampliare le possibilità della narrazione, dove tempo e personaggi slittano uno sull'altro, tra passato e presente, e i fatti rappresentati vengono continuamente ridiscussi, i protagonisti confusi, rigenerando e riproponendo di continuo nel lettore l'enigma, la domanda cui deve essere obbligato: chi sta raccontando questa storia?

"E la solitudine, anch'essa è ingannevole... In realtà qualcuno c'è, a un tempo l'uno e l'altro, il demolitore e il guardiano dell'ordine, la presenza narratrice e il viaggiatore... soluzione elegante al problema mai risolto: chi parla qui, ora? Le antiche parole già pronunciate si ripetono e raccontano sempre la stessa vecchia storia di secolo in secolo, ripresa una volta ancora, e sempre nuova... ".

[Gordon Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 masterpiece

Теперь я должен объяснить, почему. Чувствую себя достаточно удачливым, так как среди серии из семи книг наткнулся на одну шедевральную, ту, которую я читал очень медленно, чтобы погрузиться в нее с головой, с самого начала чувствуя, что она особенная, и оттого наслаждаясь каждым эпизодом.

С самого начала книга приветствует нас сюрреализмом наподобие того, что можно отыскать в любом произведении Франца Кафки. Герой, путешествия поездом в Берлин, обнаруживает в своем купе двойника, или же, менее театрально, своего спутника. И с этих самых пор мистичность всей истории не останавливается ни на минуту. Наш герой выполняет секретное задание для своего друга Пьера Гарина, и боится, что Гарин обознается и заговорит с его двойником. Далее происходят неожиданные события. Цель, за которой он должен был наблюдать, убивают (на самом деле - нет), и по показаниям свидетелей, выстрелы были сделаны из апартаментов нашего героя. Более того, там находят гильзы. Заметим, что основное повествование является отчетом главного героя о ходе задания, но к нему идут ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ, сделанные неизвестным лицом, в которых тот разоблачает ложь, якобы скрытую в отчете для фальсификации фактов. То есть мы имеем дело с ненадежным рассказчиком, или ненадежными примечаниями. Кто из них лжет? Кто говорит правду? Как все происходило на самом деле? Кому все это выгодно?

По ходу путешествия героя в окупированном Берлине он пользуется несколькими фальшивыми паспортами, отчего "иллюзия двойника" усиливается в разы, то он Анри Робер, то он Вильсон, то он Маркус, и так далее. Окружающее безумие допольнительно усиливается многочисленными зеркалами, картинами, фресками, статуями, разрушенностью города, галлюцинациями и воспоминаниями главного героя, более того, иногда он просыпается в незнакомой обстановке и совершенно ничего не помнит; ему постоянно кажется, что в его напитки подмешивают какой-то сильнодействующий дурман. Он приходит в гостиницу и понимает, что живет там уже около двух дней. Цепочка двойников тоже привносит сюрреализма: сам главный герой и его брат-близнец, Ио Каст, в точности похожая на его мать, главный герой, в точности похожий на отца, близнецы Малер в гостинице. Эпизоды показываются нам не хронологически, потому что сам герой не понимает, когда происходят описанные события, до или после, он сам в них порядком путается. Трезвым анализатором здесь являются примечания, отпускающие различные замечания по тексту, неожиданные переходы от третьего лица к первому, от совершенного вида прошедшего времени к несовершенному и так далее. В общем, клубок завязывается еще тот.

А самое главное, мы никогда точно не знаем, кто совершил убийство: Вальтер или Маркус, потому что их образы настолько тесно переплетаются, что в конце Маркус начинает испытывать боль в глазах (у Вальтера было боевое ранение в этой области), двойники, зеркала, воспоминания, повторения, все это создает неповторимую атмосферу.

ЗАМЕЧАНИЕ 1: странным образом по ходу повествования повторяется цифра три: три выстрела, три ступени, три свечи, трижды кричит петух, три человека в шляпах, три параллельные черты литеры, три женщины на допросе Жижи, три удара плетью, три пальца, три рисунка фон Брюке, три части расколотого графина, три ключевые темы: инцест, рождение близнецов, слепота, и так далее, возможно, что-то упустил.
Так что же здесь означает цифра "три"?

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aici, aşadar, reiau şi rezum. În timpul interminabilei călătorii cu trenul care mă ducea de la Eisenach, prin Turingia şi Saxonia în ruine, la Berlin, l-am zărit, pentru prima oară după multă vreme, pe acel bărbat pe care îl voi numi, ca să simplific lucrurile, dublul meu, sau sosia mea, sau, într-un mod mai puţin teatral, călătorul.
Trenul înainta într-un ritm nesigur şi discontinuu, cu opriri frecvente, uneori în plin câmp, din cauza stării şinelor, fireşte, încă parţial inutilizabile ori reparate prea în pripă, dar şi din pricina controalelor mis-terioase şi repetate pe care le efectua administraţia militară sovietică. Întrucât o oprire s-a prelungit peste măsură într-o staţie importantă, probabil Halle-Hauptbahnhof (dar n-am văzut nici o placă indicatoare), am coborât pe peron să-mi dezmorţesc picioarele. Clădirea gării părea aproape distrusă, la fel şi cartierul care se întindea în stânga.
Sub albăstruia lumină hibernală, bucăţi de ziduri înalte de câteva etaje îşi înălţau către cerul cenuşiu dantelele fragile şi liniş-tea de coşmar. În mod inexplicabil, poate doar ca urmare a persistentei ceţi matinale, care dura aici mai mult ca în alte locuri, contururile acestor fine decupaje ordonate în planuri succesive străluceau asemenea bijuteriilor false. Precum o reprezentaţie suprareală (un fel de gaură în spaţiul comun), întregul tablou exercită asupra spi-ritului o inexplicabilă putere de fascinaţie.
Acolo imde privirea poate îmbrăţişa o arteră pe toată lungimea ei, ca şi în anu-mite sectoare limitate unde imobilele au fost rase până aproape de temelie, constaţi că şoseaua a fost complet degajată, molozul fiind cu siguranţă luat de camioane în loc să fie aruncat pe margine, aşa cum văzu-sem că se face în Brest, oraşul meu natal. Ici şi colo, spărgând alinierea ruinelor, a tămas câte un bloc de zidărie gigantic, ase-menea unei coloane greceşti ce zace într-un şantier arheologic. Toate străzile sunt pustii, nici un pieton, nici un vehicul.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ah, the vicissitudes of the aging (now dead) French Intellectual... Readers would be keen to observe the title of this novel, and then do their own (basic) mathematics to quantify (and qualify) what is to come. Time did not help Robbe Grillet, and his two decades of not providing a novel could well have been pushed further, seeing him refuse to publish ('A Sentimental Novel' yet to be read by me...) permanently. Ugh, this is junk, utter, repetitive swill. I started a list of things repeated, reproduced, reiterated, rehashed, re-whatever-ed, and then realized I would be writing down nearly the entire text of the narrative. Don't expect anything of quality here, and critics praising it fall into the trap one of two ways (at least): seeing the same things as in previous (and better, the earlier they are written by Robbe Grillet) novels and assuming greatness again! OR forgetting that the old literary gods too often die a horribly middling death and worshipping them overlong makes one seem idolatrous or moronic. Robbe Grillet is fucking with his audience, and badly. The book ends with the words: "The old words always repeat themselves, always telling the same old story from age to age, repeated once again and always new." Robbe Grillet gets part of this right, but sadly it's the wrong part. I am almost afraid to find his final published novel is actually cut-and-pasted from his oeuvre, though how French Intellectual that would be! Merde!

[LuinGor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeux d’espions, de dupes et de miroirs dans le Berlin d’après guerre. Déambulation hébétée dans une ville dévastée qui révèle d’étranges souvenirs d’enfance.

Henri Robin y arrive par le train à la demande de sa hiérarchie pour une mission secrète dont il ne sait rien.

Qui est qui ? Quel jeu joue Pierre Garin son unique contact sur place ?

Pourquoi croit-il être poursuivi par un sosie ? Pourquoi ses cauchemars d’enfants ressurgissent ?

Des secrets de famille, des fantasmes érotico-sado-masochistes et des espions israéliens se mêlent à la traque d’un supposé nazi.

La Reprise est le dernier roman d’Alain Robbe-Grillet, du nouveau roman pur jus, mais écrit en 1999, une sorte de néo-nouveau roman à la fois désenchanté et vaguement naïf.

Sur la quatrième de couverture il est écrit que La Reprise donne « au siècle qui vient l’un de ses textes fondateurs. » Je dirai plutôt que La Reprise est le reflet de la fin du XXème siècle.

Une lecture ludique et assez exaltante en forme de labyrinthe déjanté…

[The Literary Chick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic Robbe-Grillet -doppelgängers, hallucinatory, pictures that come to life within the frame - all set within a Germany devastated after the war. The author indulges himself with his peccadillos in this one though so if you're ok with that, you won't mind that fact that parts of the novel (albeit footnotes - hey, it's one way to get people to read the footnotes) may have been typed with one hand.
A great companion book to his autobiography Ghosts in the Mirror and La Belle Captive with surrealist painter Rene Magritte.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This spy novel set in a divided post-war Berlin treats identity as a fluid quality much like the works of David Lynch. Characters shift in and out of others and perception and narration are never absolutely clear. Robbe-Grillet is always worth a look.

[Clove · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not his heaviest hitter, but gah! A delight. Good existential fun!

[Adam Hudson · Rating 4 out of 5]

S&M Spy vs. Spy

[Purple Booklover · Rating 3 out of 5]

3***/5*****.

[Hal Cannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish I had read it in the original French. I don’t speak a word of French but it could not have been as dull as the English version. It was a completely wasted afternoon.

[Ashkan Dabestani · Rating 4 out of 5]

با اینکه مطلوب سلیقه من نبود شکل روایت، اما اوقات بسیاری کنار گذاشتنش برایم غیرممکن می‌شد.

[A Ojala · Rating 2 out of 5]

”The immemorial scene transpires once more, in its familiar strangeness.”

[Hakan Alpan · Rating 4 out of 5]

First thing you think after finishing the book will probably be: What the fuck? Not only I didn’t understand the plot, some scenes were freaking bizarre! And yeah you are right! The book is complicated and definitely bizarre. Reading it a second time and thinking out of the box is really required to understand what the hell is going on and who is telling you what’s up. It’s a play with perspectives to use the illusion of different steps of distance created to the stories.

The plot really helps to forgive the possible confusion. It’s a really well written spy stories full of twists, breaking taboos and unexpected turns. The setting of After-war Berlin and the motive of the Doppelgänger is used cleverly. The commentary often keeps you uncertain about the truthfulness of the storytelling which spices the story up. The obsession with prepubescent girls and their mature and feminine behaviour is really disturbing but gives the story the taste of a delicate, sinful story.

Read it, think and take notes and you will be fine.

[Midge Bork]

Another one left unfinished. I had read Jealousy years ago and thought the style fit the subject so well. As a marriage disintegrates the poisoned thoughts keep repeating. I should have expected more of the same in a book titled Repetition. I got 40% in and have little understanding of what's going on. Neither does the protagonist who, so far, has used 4 different names. Maybe I ne3d to switch to summer reads.

[Robert Wechsler]

At first, I was delighted with the combination of Alain Robbe-Grillet and Richard Howard’s skillful writing but, as I read further, it became clearer to me that this novel was a game and that I was not enjoying it. I’m not a fan of doubles (characters, not tennis) or of spy games or of much else that Robbe-Grillet is playing with here. So I put it down.

[Samaneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

این نخستین ازدواج حتی کمتر از ازدواج ما طول کشید . او به من اطمینان داد که این فقط یک تمرین است تا برای نمایش نهایی آماده شوم با این حال من رفته رفته پی بردم که بر عکس تنها یک بازیگر جانشین هستم . جانشین بازیگر اصلی ... یا دربهترین حالت بازیگری که تنها چند شب در تکرار یک نمایش قدیمی شرکت می کند .

[ZaRi]

این نخستین ازدواج حتی کمتر از ازدواج ما طول کشید . او به من اطمینان داد که این فقط یک تمرین است تا برای نمایش نهایی آماده شوم با این حال من رفته رفته پی بردم که بر عکس تنها یک بازیگر جانشین هستم. جانشین بازیگر اصلی ... یا دربهترین حالت بازیگری که تنها چند شب در تکرار یک نمایش قدیمی شرکت می کند...!

[Tcunniff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robbe-Grillet's final novel. (he died this year). Far more subjective than the early novels which made him famous. Obsessive, philosophical, and in the format of a spy-thriller.

[Maite Iracheta · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very playful novel. I enjoyed the form, but couldn't quite engage in the content.

[Anna]

Oh boy...not a fan of this book. The main character seems to spend the majority of his time falling asleep or in a fog: not a great bedtime read.