For a New Novel: Essays on Fiction

by Alain Robbe-Grillet, Richard Howard (Translator)

Alain Robbe-Grillet, one of the leaders of the new French literary movement of the sixties, has long been regarded as the outstanding writer of the nouveau roman, as well as its major spokesman. For a New Novel reevaluates the techniques, ethos, and limits of contemporary fiction. This is a work of immense importance for any discussions of the history of the novel, and for contemporary thinking about the future of fiction.

Genres: Essays, France, Nonfiction, Criticism, Literature, Literary Criticism, Theory

175 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1963

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

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

French novelist, essayist, filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008) was a leading voice of the Nouveau Roman (New Novel) school back in the 1950s and 1960s, a man whose creative juices flowed in original and innovative ways, revolting against the old and fixed and thriving on the new and fresh, a man whose literary output reminds me of the avant-garde, experimental music of John Cage or the outlandish turn-the-art world-on-its head creations of Marcel Duchamp. Reflecting philosophically on the novel and its possibilities, Robbe-Grillet wrote these 12 insightful, provocative essays with such titles as: `A Future for the Novel', `On Several Obsolete Notions', `A Novel That Invents Itself' and `New Novel, New Man'.

From the titles of the essays, it’s abundantly clear the author was supremely serious about lighting a stick of dynamite in order to blow up well-worn novelistic forms in order to expand narrative boundaries and create new literary landscapes. KABOOM! To provide a modest taste of what a reader will find in these explosive essays, below are several quotes along with my brief comments.

‘New Novel’ is a convenient label applicable to all those seeking new forms for the novel, forms capable of expressing (or of creating) new relations between man and the world, to all those who have determined to invent the novel, in other words, to invent man.”

Literary anarchy, anyone? When did you last read a novel that invented or, at the very least, creatively expanded what it means to be human?

"The art of the novel, however, has fallen into such a state of stagnation - a lassitude acknowledged and discussed by the whole of critical opinion - that it is hard to imagine such an art can survive for long without some radical change."

Fortunately, the novel is alive and well today, sixty years after Robbe-Grillet penned this statement. And fortunately, the novel's many forms and shapes, ranging from ultra-traditional to hyper-radical, accommodate the tastes of millions of readers worldwide.

“Art is not a more or less brilliantly colored envelope intended to embellish the author’s “message,” a gilt paper around a package of cookies, a whitewash on a wall, a sauce that makes the fish go down easier.”

By the author’s reckoning, if we as readers are looking for the author’s underlying message, we are betraying the novel as an art form; if a novelist writes a novel for the purpose of imparting a message (“In Dubious Battle” by John Steinbeck comes to mind), that novelist is likewise betraying the art of the novel.

"Each novelist, each novel must invent its own form. No recipe can replace this continual reflection. The book makes its own rules for itself, and for itself alone."

To underscore the truth of this statement, all one need do is read Robbe-Grillet's `The Erasers' or Raymond Queneau's `Exercises in Style', two novels a universe removed from any preset rules.

"A novel, for most readers - and critics - is primarily a "story." . . . To tell a story well is therefore to make what one writes resemble the prefabricated schemas people are used to, in other words, their ready-made idea of reality."

Now, this is radical. Who doesn't like a good story? Well, according to Robbe-Grillet, the story can merely reinforce our small-minded view of the world. In a way, this can be the acid test for what it means for a novel to be great literature: does the novel we are reading challenge us to expand our vision, enabling us to see the world and language with fresh eyes?

"How much we've heard about the `character"! . . . It is a mummy now, but one still enthroned with the same - phony - majesty, among the values revered by traditional criticism. In fact, that is how this criticism recognizes the "true" novelist: "he creates characters".

Again, truly radical. Who doesn't like a novel with strong, memorable characters? And, again, Robbe-Grillet challenges us to examine why character is so important. Do we want the men and women in the novels we read to underpin our precanned view of the possibilities of what it means to be human?

"Why seek to reconstruct the time of clocks in a narrative which is concerned only with human time? Is it not wiser to think of our own memory, which is never chronological? Why persist in discovering what an individual's name is in a novel which does not supply it? Every day we meet people whose names we do not know."

Ha! Vintage Robbe-Grillet. This is why I see the author's novels as the literary counterpart of the music of John Cage. Do we need conventional time and an individual's name to have a novel? Do we need a musician to play melody and rhythm to hear music?

[Alexander Carmele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aus dem Ärmel geschüttelte Standpunkte für neue literarisch-experimentelle Strukturen. Freude am sprachlichen Abenteuer.

Alain Robbe-Grillet gilt mit Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor und Claude Simon zu den bekanntesten Vertretern des Nouveau Roman. Um ihn herum entbrannte eine der letzten großangelegten Auseinandersetzungen um künstlerische Form und ästhetische Gesetzgebung um die 1960er Jahre. Die einen fanden ihn unlesbar, die anderen näher an der Wirklichkeit, an der Konstituierung der modernen Welterfahrung angelegt. Robbe-Grillet zieht in seinem Essayband Argumente für einen neuen Roman aus diesen Diskussionen ein paar Schlüsse:

Man begreift damit die Absurdität dieses Lieblingsausdrucks unserer traditionellen Kritik: »Soundso hat etwas zu sagen, und er sagt es gut.« Könnte man nicht im Gegenteil gerade behaupten, dass der echte Schriftsteller nichts zu sagen hat? Er hat nur eine Weise des Sagens. Er muss ein Welt erschaffen, doch vom Nichts, vom Staub aus …

Der Roman Nouveau erblickte das Licht der Welt, als die eine Seite mehr Engagement in der Literatur forderte (Jean-Paul Sartre), indes die andere der Absurdität des Weltgeschehen abfeiern wollte (Albert Camus, Eugene Ionèscu, Samuel Beckett). Der neue Stil, von Sarraute, Butor, Simon und Robbe-Grillet mit Vehemenz betrieben, wollte sich als Triangulierung eher um uninteressante Dinge kümmern, den Alltag, das Sehen, das sprachliche Verweben der Realität erfassen. Mit einer neuen Technik des Schnitts, mit einer entmetaphorisierten, entanthropomorphisierenden Sprache wollten sie zurück zu den Dingen:

Der zeitgenössische Autor ist weit davon entfernt, den Leser zu vernachlässigen, er verkündet im Gegenteil, dass er seiner Mithilfe unbedingt bedarf, seiner aktiven, bewussten, schöpferischen Mithilfe. Er verlangt von ihm nicht, dass er eine abgeschlossene, sinnerfüllte, um sich selbst geschlossene Welt entgegennehme, sondern dass er an einer Schöpfung teilhabe, dass er seinerseits das Werk- und die Welt – erfinde und damit lerne, sein eigenes Leben zu erfinden.

Hier geht es nicht um Beschreibungslücken, Auslassungen oder Verkürzungen, die es zu extra- oder interpolieren gelte, auch nicht um die Referenzierung von größeren Umständen mittels Stichwörtern, die das Lesen je selbst zu entfalten habe – hier wird nicht semantisch auf die Mithilfe hingewirkt, sondern formal. Der Schreibstil selbst lässt das Symbolische wabern, arbeitet die architektonischen Eigenschaften des Raumzeitempfindens heraus. Sprache, so wie sie der Nouveau Roman anvisiert, belebt sich, wirkt auf sich zurück und entfaltet so neue Erfahrungspotentiale, die mit herkömmlichen Mitteln des Erzählens nicht zu erschließen sind.

Die Rolle des Romanciers wäre die eines Vermittlers: durch eine schwindlerische Beschreibung der sichtbaren Dinge – die selbst vollkommen bedeutungslos wären – evozierte er das sich dahinter verbergende »Reale«.

Die Essays und kleinen Aufsätze funkeln vor Schreibfreude und strahlen insofern Aufbruchsstimmung aus. Sie wollen weniger überzeugen als Lust machen, weniger erklären als auf eine gewisse Offenheit bei der Lektüre hinwirken. Sie eignen sich deshalb hervorragend als Einleitung oder Intermezzo während des Lesens eines dieser, teilweise, sehr seltsamen neuen Romane, die den Lesegewohnheiten viel abverlangt, aber eben gerade darin ihren eigenen Verdienst sehen. Die Kritik des Formalen rennt insofern offene Türen ein, und wie nicht selten scheinen gerade die offensten Türen die größten Hindernisse zu sein.

[Deniz Urs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geçen yıl Marienbad’da filminin senaristlerden Alain Robbe -Grillet, “Yeni Romanı”var olanı; kalıplaşmış hap betimlemelerle ve olay örgüleri ile göstermeyi bir kenara bırakıp, olduğu hali ile yeniden inşa eden, Balzacvari romandaki burjuva dünyasının görünen yüzünü alaşağı etmesi gereken bir “araştırma”olarak tanımlıyor.

Ne eksik ne fazla dünya sadece vardır. İnsanda onun içindedir ve yaşadığı zaman aralığı içinde kurduğu her düzen kendi eseridir, ama o bunu her defasında unutur,kendini ve dönemini tek gerçeklik olarak görür. İşte bu görüngü Grillet’in yaşadığı 20. yy’da dahi artık çürümüştür.. Antik Yunan’a gidersek doğmadan çürüdüğünü dahi idda edebiliriz belki..Pejoratif manada Sürreal, Postmodern olarak yaftalayıp, anlamlandıramadığımız eserlerin aslında kendi içinde derin gerçeklikler barındırdığını tane tane anlatmış daha o yıllarda..Kastettiği tabii ki günümüzde içi boşaltılmış olarak sunulan bir gerçeküstücülük değil. Aslen gerçeküstücülük de değil.. Her akım gerçekliği kendince yorumlar diyor. Tıpkı her bir insanın portakaldan aldığı tadın biricik olması gibi.Bu tada herkesi ortak etmeyi salık veriyor bir nevi.

Roman olsun, sinema olsun, tiyatro olsun var olan eserin yaratımına alıcısını dahil etmeye ve böylece kendi hayatını yaratmaya davet ediyor.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

These essays turned out to be way more philosophical than I thought they would be. It was was like reading the likes of Barthes, Bataille, or Cixous. Work from Beckett, Sartre, Camus and Kafka is mulled over, as well as different elements within fiction and the future of the novel, along with him looking at some of his own fiction. (Last Year at Marienbad - one of my favourite films of all time, which Robbe-Grillet wrote the screenplay, is touched upon briefly). The essay that caught my eye the most though, despite being being one of the shortest, was on Zeno's Conscience. What a novel that was.

[Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of essays is not an explanation of the nouveau roman in general any more than it is of Robbe-Grillet's novels in particular. It is instead a brilliant analysis of the man's own view of the world, and the way that that view is manifested in his work. As for instance, the essay "Nature, Humanism, Tragedy," which begins with Robbe-Grillet's denunciation of what he calls "the myth of depth." Though he is explaining it in relation to his writing, the real subject has everything to do with the way that Robbe-Grillet views the world and the consequences it has for his writing, rather than the other way around.

The center of this book, not coincidentally located at the center of this book (look at the table of contents), is the essay "Joe the Dreamer," about the writings of Joe Bousquet. Anyone seeking the key to Robbe-Grillet's work would do well to go straight to this essay, as everything else follows directly from it.

Robbe-Grillet's constant bickering with "critics" and "other writers" can make this book seem insubstantial at times, but the bickering is both entirely justified (particularly when lamenting the calcification that is still going on in many circles in the novel's form (it is a "novel" for a reason: it is new, it is novel, different)), and also a major goad to Robbe-Grillet in writing these essays.

This book is a singular education in the way that each writer, each artist, makes use of his/her philosophy in creating art. It is what makes writing art and not simply craft.

[Fatema Hassan , bahrain · Rating 3 out of 5]

نحو رواية جديدة


الأديب والناقد الفرنسي الآن روب غرييه ، بعد مسيرة كتابية ذات رؤية ممنهجة و مستحدثة لاقت الكثير من النقد والشجب في بداياتها، يطرح مقالاته التنظيرية هذه ليقرب لعقل القارئ التساؤلات التي يريد طرحها في مجمل مسيرته الروائية ،في ظل التضخم الأدبي الذي يعاني منه مشهد الرواية نحن أمام صراعات -مع الجاد منها - أهمها: ربما يحتكم الوسط الأدبي للكثير من الاستغلاق في التبرير عن كُنه ما يطرحه من أفكار وأساليب ، مكتفين بعكوف القراء على تبريرات ذاتية وهذا التوجه العام له ما يبرره فالروائي كما يُقال منوط به الإهتمام بالاختيارات و ليس تعليل تلك الاختيارات ، لكنّ غرييه يمتلك تفسيراً ليطرحه قبل أن يصمت للأبد .. فلو قدمت لنا فرصة للقيام ب رحلة في دماغ روائي من منا سيرفض هكذا عرض سخي ؟ .. طرح الرؤية الخاصة بالروائيين لرواية جديدة يستمر على قدم و ساق دون كلل منذ بداية تكوين فن الرواية ، هذه المعركة الأدبية التي شرّعت الأبواب للمزيد من المنهو��ات الأدبية بحجة ثبات و أصولية منهج الرواية /التجديد و الديناميكية هنا معناه الخلق والابتكار و الاختراع و القيام دون التعكز على الأدب الكلاسيكي -التقليدي - وهذا ما يعنّونه غرييه بالواقعية الجديدة الذي سينشأ رواية جديدة متجاوزين معضلة تجنيس الرواية أو الانشغال بأنتمائها الذي يحد من تطورها / و لا تعتقد إيها القارئ أنّه يقيم محرقة للأدب بل هو يكسر القوالب الأدبية فقط .. من الخلال القراءة ستجد الاحتفاء بالخبرة المكتسبة من اشكال الرواية السابقة ( الكلاسيكية / العبثية / الوجودية /السريالية وصولا لتجارب الرواية الكافكاوية و البلزاكية و فلوبير و فوكنر و تجارب غيرها ) ،هذه الواقعية الجديدة -التي تملص من تعريف نهائي لها !- كما يسميها غرييه هي فن يجب أن يبقى ممهور بالجِدّة ... و أهم بند فيها نبذ الأفكار الأدبية البالية ( فكرة الكاتب الإله القادر على خلق الشخوص الخالدة كشخوص دوستويفسكي أو كافكا مع الاحتفاظ بحق براءة الاختراع لهم والتقليد هنا يعتبر اعتداء على الملكية الفكرية واتباع أضاليل خاصة / حيث يعتبر-ابتكار الشخوص -هي المساحة الحرة و السهلة للتعبير عن النفس و مايعتريها من أفكار فيتوجب على الرواية الجديدة انتزاع الهالة المركزية من حول الشخوص / أو انتحال دور السارد القادر على قراءة المكان ومحتوياته بتقمص هزلي لألسنتهم / كذلك هوس التشفير حيث يمنح الكاتب الأولوية للحبكة المتشظية التي تحير الألباب وما يصحبه من استعلاء لا يخدم الأدب << معتبراً هذه الأساليب الأدبية أفكار ميتة )
رؤية غرييه تقول أن نكتفي ب ( المكان كبطل ) بمعنى أن نؤمن بحضور المكان في الرواية وقدرته على استحضار معانيه ..دون التدخل منا بأي شكل / إرفق قصة قصيرة لتوضيح فكرة غرييه / و انتظر تعليقاتكم ..

غرييه: ليست الذات بل الموضوع
غرييه : ليس فعل الإنسان بل انفعاله بما يحيط بالأشياء
غرييه : ليس المكان بل الكينونة
فاطمة : ليتني استوعبتك بالكامل أيها الملحمة الأدبية :)


-أبرز من كتبوا على هذا المنوال صمويل بيكيت و مارغريت دوراس و كلود سيمون و غيرهم

المقدمة بقلم د لويس عوض رائعة جدًا.
الشاطئ / قصة قصيرة / !..

http://www.al-maseera.com/2012/08/Ala...

[Simona B · Rating 5 out of 5]

"[T]he very notion of a work created for the expression of a social, political, economic, or moral content constitutes a lie."

"The work of art, like the world, is a living form: it is, it has no need of justification."

"Might we not advance... that the genuine writer has nothing to say? He has only a way of speaking."

"[T]he novel is not a tool at all.... It does not express, it explores, and what it explores is itself."

I read these essays with bated breath and half disbelieving what I was reading, being caught in the uncanny feeling that somebody had somehow played some impossible joke on me by reaching into my head, pulling out all my feelings and thoughts on fiction and criticism, and slipping them into a counterfeited version of For a New Novel, just to enjoy seeing me wallow in utter disconcertion.

I believe that these essays were probably less radical when they were published in the 1950s and '60s than they are now. Here, Robbe-Grillet issues his call for a de-anthropomorphization of literature and its objects (loosely meant as "whatever preoccupies the mind" and not only as 'physical objects,' although material things do play a central part in some parts of these essays), for the unshackling of the literary art from extra-literary agendas, for disabusing ourselves from the idiotic notion that novels are worthy of being read insofar as they have a respectable "message" or "intention"--all of these strike me as unacceptable suggestions for the public of today. And all of these ring, to my ears, as exhilaratingly true.

I don't think many would agree with Robbe-Grillet's aesthetics, but I nonetheless recommend For a New Novel to all who are interested in literary criticism and theory of the novel, for challenging and testing your convictions if not for being persuaded by the freshness of Robbe-Grillet's arguments.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

130811: not exactly a manifesto. not exactly a reading of french literature after WW2. not exactly… but always interesting...

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
Alain Robbe-Grillet

[Andrew]

Are these particularly interesting essays? I'm not sure -- they vary widely. But I'm so, so on board with Robbe-Grillet's agenda. In an era of diminished expectations in the world of literature, it's refreshing to remember that there were a few -- especially in France in those heady years after World War II -- who were really willing to push the boundaries of what literature would constitute. I'm not sure how much truly experimental writing is done today, and in what capacity, but it seems like that which is done is fully restricted to the small-press world, and that saddens me immensely. We as a reading public deserve better.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alain Robbe-Grillet you will be missed!

[محمد حمدان · Rating 4 out of 5]

نحو رواية جديدة ألان جرييه

ألان جرييه هو ناقد وروائي ومخرج سينمائي فرنسي 1922 – 2008.. وقد نشر جرييه أربع روايات؛ الممحاوات 1953، البصاص 1955، الغيرة 1957 وفي التيه 1959. ومن المدهش أنه مشهور أكثر لكونه المنظر الرئيسي للرواية الفرنسية الجديدة والتي وضع مجمل رؤيته لها في كتابه هذا وهو مجموعة من المقالات التي كتبها في فترات مختلفة.

من الواضح أن الداعي الأساسي للسيد جرييه كي يكتب هذه المقالات هو ذلك الهجوم اللاذع الذي تعرضت له رواياته.. وهو يعرض من خلال هذه المقالات وجهة نظره في ضرورة تطور الرواية. وهو كذلك يؤكد أنه ليس بصدد كتابة هذه المقالات للدفاع عن نفسه إنما هي مجرد عرض لوجهة نظره من ناحية مهنية بحتة.

كنتُ قد قرأتُ مسبقاً كتاباً مشابهاً لبيرسي لوبوك وهو "صنعة الرواية" وهو كذلك كان للرد على الإنتقاد اللاذع الذي تعرضت له أعمال الكاتب.. وهنا لا بد لي من التأكيد على الفارق المهول بين الكتابين.. حيث أنني لم اخرج بفائدة كبيرة من كتاب لوبوك على عكس هذا الكتاب تماماً.

يتحدث السيد جرييه عن التغير في المفاهيم الأدبية التي تخص الرواية وناقش تطور مفهوم الشخوص، الزمان، الحكاية ذاتها والشكل.. وغيرها من المفاهيم.. كما ناقش إختلاف المدارس الأدبية في النقد والتي تدّعي كلها "الواقعية" من أمثال الكلاسيكية والسيريالية والوجودية وغيرها.. كما أنه أكد على كون الأدب فقط من أجل الأدب.. ويؤكد على كون الأدب غير ملتزم..

كان عرض السيد جرييه لأفكاره من خلال أمثلة روائية عالمية.. كما أنه ورغم إنكاره عدم رغبته في الدفاع عن نفسه إلا أنه ضرب لنا أمثلة من أعماله نفسها..

برأيي وكفائدة لا يرتقي هذا الكتاب لمستوى "رسائل إلى روائي شاب" لماريو بارغاس.. لكنه برأيي مهم للإطلاع على المفاهيم التقليدية والجديدة في الرواية.. وبأسلوب بسيط، سهل الفهم وليس مضجراً.. ولي هنا أن أقتبس فقرة أجدها برأيي خلاصة أكثر من ممتازة:

"ومن هنا نستطيع أن ندرك بلاهة هذا التعبير الذي يفضله نقدنا التقليدي: فلان لديه شيء يقال وقد قاله جيداً. ألا يمكن أن نقول العكس: إن الكاتب الحقيقي ليس لديه ما يقال فهو لديه فقط طريقة في القول ويجب عليه أن يخلق عالماً ولكن إبتداءً من لا شيء، من التراب.."

[Vogisland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robbe-Grillet has been cast as the representative of a school-of-1950s/60s-French-writing. In these essays, he does not argue for the new novel, but for a novel that constantly renews itself. He encourages writers to let each book create rules of its own.

He casts Beckett in a new light (for me at least) in a few pages. His response to his critics is fantastically straightforward. I wish I had read this book in college--it would have dispelled a lot of ideas that took too long to shake off on my own.

[Mateo R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robbe-Grillet dice que los que se empeñan en leer a Kafka principalmente como una alegoría están equivocados, porque lo más interesante está en la realidad que construye y nos presenta Kafka, no en nuestra realidad a la que (según algunos) apunta. Me arrepiento de haber leído los poemas de Lorca con afán desmenuzador, queriendo entenderlo, cuando tendría que haber tratado de sentirlo.

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En "Un camino para la novela futura", Robbe-Grillet señala que concepción novelesca mayoritaria durante el momento en que escribe (los 60) es la llamada novela burguesa, que se mantiene casi inalterada desde Balzac y desde Madame de La Fayette: cierto análisis psicológico preside la concepción del libro, resultando en una pintura de personajes y en un desarrollo de la intriga que gira en torno al tema de la pasión (conflicto de pasiones, ausencia de pasión). Este tipo de novela es la que goza de la aprobación de los consumidores. Robbe-Grillet cree que no solo una literatura nueva es posible sino que ya está saliendo a la luz, quizás incluso una revolución similar a la del Romanticismo o el Naturalismo. Tal trastorno del género implicaría grandes dificultades ("juzgada inconscientemente por referencia a formas consagradas, una forma nueva parecerá siempre más o menos una ausencia de forma").

Robbe-Grillet ve en esa literatura tradicional una apropiación sistemática de la realidad que ofrece una concepción cómoda y tranquilizadora de lo que es literario: todo correctamente encasillado en su categoría y lo que no entendemos, bueno, en la categoría del absurdo. Pero para él el mundo no es significante ni absurdo, simplemente es. La fuerza de tal evidencia es capaz de sacudir al lector y tirar abajo toda aquella construcción. Esto ocurre frecuentemente en el cine, a pesar de ser también "heredero de la tradición psicológica y naturalista", porque al verlo nos enfrentamos a la evidencia de las cosas que son, mientras que en la novela tradicional los objetos y ademanes suelen desaparecer para dejar paso solo a su significado ("la silla vacía no era más que una ausencia [...], los barrotes de la ventana solo la imposibilidad de salir"). En el cine la silla es una silla, los barrotes son barrotes, y por añadidura pueden tener significados, pero lo que persiste en nuestra memoria son los objetos mismos. Se restituye la realidad, se revela el carácter insólito del mundo que nos rodea, que se niega a doblegarse a nuestro hábitos de aprehensión y ordenamiento.

Robbe-Grillet cree que en la nueva novela funcionará así también, en ella los objetos y los gestos se impondrán por su presencia, estarán ahí antes de significar algo. No serán meras herramientas provisionales que sirvan para expresar una "superior verdad humana" para luego ser desechadas, sino que se sustraerán a la tiranía de los significados, del "falso misterio" o "romántico corazón de las cosas", y se mostrarán por sí mismos. Algo similar ocurrirá con los personajes, que abundarán en múltiples interpretaciones posibles pero todos los comentarios que podrían implicar (psicológicos, políticos, etc.) serán superfluos ante el mismo personaje, que "permanecerá ahí".

Algo de esto cree ver Robbe-Grillet en el drama policíaco, especialmente en función del tratamiento que se hace de los objetos y los indicios (las pistas) y de las múltiples posibilidades que se barajan. También atisba una transformación a nivel del lenguaje: mientras que antes el papel del escritor consistía en ahondar en la Naturaleza o en la "condición humana", en la profundidad esencial de las cosas, para así llevarle las respuestas del misterio al lector; ahora dudamos de que la superficie de las cosas no sea más una máscara de su corazón, no creemos ya en tal profundidad ni consideramos al mundo como algo domesticable y de nuestra propiedad privada. No pretendemos entender la profunidad de las cosas, por lo que nos centramos en su superficie. Esto lleva a los escritores a pasar de usar adjetivos globales y palabras de carácter visceral, analógico o mágico, a recurrir al adjetivo óptico, descriptivo, al que se limita a medir, situar y delimitar.

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En "A propósito de unas nociones caducas" Robbe-Grillet señala que la crítica literaria tradicional, a pesar de pretender estimar a las obras de acuerdo a principios "naturales" (el sentido común, el corazón, etc.) sí tiene detrás de sus análisis un sistema que representa una idea preconcebida de la novela: la burguesa. El uso de la frase "vanguardia" para toda obra que renuncia a fórmulas gastadas a primera vista parece un elogio pero en realidad funciona como un insulto.

Revisa pues las nociones "naturales" de la crítica tradicional:

* El personaje, en su concepción heredada del s. XIX: "Balzac nos dejó a Papá Goriot, Dostoyevski dio a la luz a los Karamazov, por consiguiente escribir novelas no puede ser más que eso: añadir unas cuantas figuras modernas a la galería de retratos". Robbe-Grillet critica este uso de un personaje que debe tener nombre y apellido, parientes, profesión (y mejor si tiene herencia y bienes), un "carácter" y un rostro que lo refleje, un "pasado" que lo haya modelado, y que aspira a legar un día su nombre a un tipo humano. Para él el "estudio de caracteres" o "novela de personajes" pertenece al pasado (señala los narradores sin nombre y en primera persona de Camus, los cambios de nombre y de forma de los protagonistas de Beckett, el despojamiento casi total de los de Kafka). La novela de personajes obedece a una época (la que marca el apogeo del individuo, en la el destino del mundo giraba en torno a la ascensión y caída de unas cuantas personas y familias) y la época actual es más bien la del número de matrícula, la de un mundo menos seguro de sí mismo y menos antropocéntrico.

* La historia, supuestamente la razón de ser de la novela (un auténtico novelista, dice la crítica, es el que sabe "contar una historia", inventar peripecias palpitantes, conmovedoras, dramáticas). Según esto, hacer la crítica de una novela se reduce con frecuencia a explicar su anécdota, los nudos y desenlaces de la intriga. El juicio del libro depende de la apreciación de la coherencia de la historia, de su desarrollo, su equilibrio y las sorpresas que depara al lector. Una laguna en el relato es el principal defecto, la vivacidad y la redondez las más altas cualidades. El estilo no es lo más importante, es solo un medio, el fondo es la historia. Esta historia debe parecer verosímil, espontánea, y un fragmento menor de un mundo aparentemente inagotable del que el narrador elige contarnos solo una parte. Es decir, debe parecer natural. (Esta concepción deriva, para Robbe-Grillet, del sistema racionalistas y organizador burgués y de una confianza en una lógica de las cosas justa y universal). Pero la fuerza del novelista estriba en inventar con toda libertad y sin modelo. La necesidad de imponer la imagen de un universo estable, coherente, continuo, unívoco y perfectamente descifrable comienza a tambalearse desde Flaubert, y sucesivamente las exigencias de la anécdota son menos imperiosas en Proust, Faulkner, Beckett, etc. Pero es un error pretender que en las novelas modernas ya no pasa nada. No es la anécdota lo que falta en ellas, sino solo su carácter de certeza, su tranquilidad, su inocencia. En cualquier caso, predice Robbe-Grillet, dentro de unos años el estilo de estos escritores, ya asimilado, convertido en académico, será la regla y se irá volviendo rancio: jóvenes novelistas querrán escribir de otro modo, y probablemente se los acusará, al igual que se hizo con los escritores de mediados del siglo XX, de no saber inventar historias.

* El "engagement". La novela de tesis es para Robbe-Grillet un género vergonzoso. Estas novelas didácticas que pretenden explicar algo (ya sea "la desdicha del hombre sin Dios, el corazón femenino, [...] la psicología") no sirven, pues el lector prefiere lógicamente los ensayos. Crítico con la burguesía, también lo es con el llamado realismo socialista, es decir, con la pretensión de crear conciencias de clase y enseñar la moral socialista a través de novelas. La conjunción de renovación artística y revolución político-económica es seductora y parece lógica pero presenta graves problemas. La Revolución demanda que todo persiga un objetivo final, la liberación del proletariado, pero "el arte no puede verse reducido al estado de medio de una causa que rebasa su campo", para el artista las directrices impuestas desde el exterior funcionan como una traba insoportable y paralizante. Y la concepción utópica de la obra de arte como si fuese capaz de pesar en la acción cotidiana lo mismo que una huelga o una revuelta es perjudicial tanto para el Arte como para la Revolución. Se debe dejar de temer al "arte por el arte" y dejar de acusarla cuando habla de algo que no sea la lucha de clases o el anticolonialismo. Además, el realismo socialista cae fácilmente en un maniqueísmo de buenos y malos. Por último, el hecho de que la construcción de personajes y del mundo de las novelas estén totalmente supeditados a verdades económicas y teorías marxistas, es decir, a explicaciones previas, probadas y reconocidas, la obra pierde su capacidad de descubrimiento o invención y, sobre todo, se vuelve a negar al mundo su cualidad más importante: el simple hecho de estar ahí. Sartre vio el peligro de esa literatura moralizadora y predicó en favor de una literatura moral, que pretendía tan solo despertar las conciencias políticas planteando los problemas de nuestra sociedad, pero que escapara a la mentalidad propagandística restituyendo al lector su libertad; pero para Robbe-Grillet esto también fue una utopía, pues en cuanto aparece la preocupación por significar algo ajeno al arte, la literatura empieza a desaparecer. Para Robbe-Grillet la noción de engagement solo puede tener un sentido: la plena conciencia de los problemas actuales del lenguaje del propio escritor, la convicción de su extrema importancia, la voluntad de resolverlos desde dentro.

* La forma y el contenido. La crítica tradicional, tanto burguesa como socialista, ataca al formalismo (de lo que se desprende una vez su preocupación por la anécdota y por transmitir "una profunda verdad humana, una moral o una metafísica"). Por formalismo entienden una preocupación demasiado marcada por la forma y la técnica novelesca en detrimento del argumento y su significado. Ambos pretenden negar al arte su principal condición: la libertad. "Unos no quieren ver en la literatura sino un instrumento más al servicio de la revolución socialista, otros exigen de él ante todo que exprese ese vago humanismo que hizo las delicias de una sociedad ahora decadente". La realidad, para Robbe-Grillet, es que el estilo es lo que determina a una novela y lo que constituye el mundo particular de cada escritor. El verdadero escritor no tiene nada que decir, "tiene solo una manera de decir". Robbe-Grillet entiende por formalismo justamente lo contrario que los críticos tradicionales: el evitar un estilo susceptible de desagradar o sorprender, el refugiarse en moldes acreditados y formas prefabricadas, como hacen tanto los novelistas burgueses como los realistas socialistas.

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En "Del realismo a la realidad", Robbe-Grille señala que todos los escritores son realistas porque cada uno se esfuerza en mostrar a través de sus obras su realidad tal y como la percibe. "Los clásicos creían que es clásica, los románticos que romántica, los surrealistas que surreal, Claudel que es de naturaleza divina, Camus que absurda, los "engagés" que es ante todo económica y que tiende al socialismo". Las revoluciones literarias suelen hacerse en nombre del realismo porque cuando una forma de escritura pierde su vitalidad primera, cuando se convierte en una vulgar fórmula o un academicismo, el retorno a lo real consiste en denunciar las fórmulas gastadas y buscar otras nuevas. "¿Y eso de qué sirve, se me dirá, si es para ir a parar después, tras un tiempo más o menos largo, a un nuevo formalismo, pronto tan anquilosado como el antiguo? Esto equivaldría a decir que para qué vivir, si no hay más remedio que morir y dejar sitio a los otros vivos. El arte es vida. Nada está jamás ganado de una manera definitiva. No puede existir sin ese permanente replanteamiento. Pero el movimiento de esas evoluciones y revoluciones constituye su eterno renacimiento".

Otra noción importante para Robbe-Grillet es que la novela no debe ser un instrumento que esté concebido en vistas a un trabajo previamente definido. No sirve para exponer cosas que existían antes de ella o fuera de ella. No expresa, busca. Se busca a sí misma. La novela no solo surge del hecho de que cada escritor percibe su propia realidad, sino que ella misma crea una realidad, lleva a cabo la invención de un mundo.

La verosimilitud ya no es relevante en la nueva novela, el detallito que "parece de verdad" no retiene ya la atención del novelista, lo que le impresiona es más bien el detallito que parece falso.

En la acepción que Robbe-Grillet utiliza de autor realista (es decir, creador de un mundo material dentro de la novela) se sitúa Kafka, pero también sufrió el que sus exégetas y admiradores buscaran constantemente atribuirle significados "profundos" a los mundos que creaba. Se busca reducir los relatos de Kafka a meras alegorías que no solo requieren una explicación que las resume y agota su contenido, sino que ese significado termina destruyendo el universo tangible construido por Kafka. Según esta lógica, la literatura consistiría siempre en hablar de otra cosa. Habría un mundo presente y un mundo real; únicamente el primero sería visible, y sólo el segundo importante. Robbe-Grillet se rebela contra esta concepción, para él las cosas que describe Kafka poseen realidad absoluta y el mundo visible de sus novelas es un mundo real, lo que hay detrás (si es que hay algo) parece carente de valor. El efecto kafkiano de alucinación proviene de la extraordinaria nitidez de sus objetos, gestos y palabras, y no de flotamientos o brumas. "Tal vez las escaleras de Kafka conduzca a otra parte, pero están ahí, y estamos viéndolas, peldaño por peldaño, siguiendo el detalle de los barrotes y de la rampa. Tal vez sus paredes grises oculten algo, pero la memoria se detiene en ellas, en su pintura descascarillada, en sus grietas".

Por último hace una reivindicación del Nouveau Roman. Dice que se lo acusa de "moda pasajera". Nada mejor que eso, porque lo que propone el Nouveau Roman es que las formas novelescas son pasajeras. Cuando este movimiento empiece a anquilosarse, "ello será la señal para los inventores de que un Nuevo Nouveau Roman está pidiendo salir a la luz".

Intertextualidad
Menciones directas:
* La Princesa de Clèves de Madame de La Fayette (Francia, 1678).
* Papá Goriot de Honoré de Balzac (Francia, 1834).
* Ulises de James Joyce (Irlanda, 1922).
* El castillo de Franz Kafka (Imperio austrohúngaro/Checoslovaquia, 1926).
* El ruido y la furia de William Faulkner (EEUU, 1929).
* Los hermanos Karamazov de Fiódor Dostoyevski (Imperio ruso, 1880) (alusión).
* La náusea de Jean Paul Sartre (Francia, 1938).
* El extranjero de Albert Camus (Francia, 1942).
* Viaje al fin de la noche de Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Francia, 1932).
* La comedia humana de Honoré de Balzac (Francia, 1830).
* Les Gommes de Alain Robbe-Grillet (Francia, 1953).
* Le Voyeur de Alain Robbe-Grillet (Francia, 1955).
* Madame Bovary de Gustave Flaubert (Francia, 1856).
* La Jalousie de Alain Robbe-Grillet (Francia, 1957).
* Dans le labyrinthe de Alain Robbe-Grillet (Francia, 1959).
* Le Chiendent de Raymond Queneau (Francia, 1933).
* Loin de Rueil de Raymond Queneau (Francia, 1944).
* Mención a los escritores André Gide (Francia, s. XIX-XX), Henri Clouard (Francia, s. XX), Jean Racine (Francia, s. XVII) (alusión adjetival), Ilyá Ehrenburg (Unión Soviética, s. XX), Georg Lukács (Hungría, s. XX), Karl Marx (Reino de Prusia, s. XIX) (al. adj.), Nathalie Sarraute (Rusia/Francia, s. XX), René Descartes (Francia, s. XVII), Paul Claudel (Francia, s. XIX-XX) y Émile Zola (Francia, s. XIX).

[Katrinka · Rating 5 out of 5]

For once, I'm not overthinking it, and will just rest snug in my good feeling for this one.

[Zalman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The essays in this book are witty, penetrating, thought-provoking, and surprisingly (at least compared with the reputation of Robbe-Grillet's novels as opaque and unappealing formal exercises) accessible. Personally, I love most of Robbe-Grillet's stuff, although in his later books the persistent repetition of misogynistic imagery started to wear me out. There's none of that here. Instead we are treated to such provocative musings as:

"We thus see the absurdity of that favorite expression of our traditional criticism: 'X has something to say and says it well.' Might we not advance on the contrary that the genuine writer has nothing to say? He has only a way of speaking. He must create a world, but starting from nothing, from the dust...." (On Several Obsolete Notions, 1957, p. 45)

"The reader overly concerned to know the story could even consider himself justified in skipping the descriptions; they involved only a frame, which moreover happened to have meaning identical to that of the picture it was to contain.

"Obviously, when the same reader skips the descriptions in our books, he is in danger of finding himself, having turned all the pages one after the other with a rapid forefinger, at the end of the volume whose contents will have escaped him altogether; imagining he has been dealing hitherto with nothing but the frame, he will still be looking for the picture.

"This is because the place and role of description have changed completely." (Time and Description, 1963, p. 147)

Whether one ultimately found such ideas, or some of the other provocations in the book, agreeable, for a writer or critic at least (or for the reader as a consumer of art rather than just free time) Robbe-Grillet articulated in these essays (and put into practice in his novels) a welcome challenge to look at fiction in a new, potentially productive, way.

[Hamish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Choice quotes:

"A novel which is no more than the grammatical example illustrating a rule--even accompanied by its exception--would naturally be useless: the statement of the rule would suffice."

"The same is true of the world around us. We had thought to control it by assigning it a meaning, and the entire art of the novel, in particular, seems dedicated to this enterprise. But this was merely an illusory simplification; and far from becoming clearer and clearer because of it, the world has only, little by little, lost all its life."

"[T]he very notion of a work created for the expression of a social, political, economic, or moral content constitutes a lie."

"Nothing is more fantastic, ultimately, than precision."

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

His novels are hard to read, but his essays about the novel are delightful. Even though they were written in the 1950s and 60s, they seem absolutely contemporary (or mabye I’m not). Here’s a sample: “Art is not a more or less brilliantly colored envelope intended to embellish the author’s ‘message,’ a gilt paper around a package of cookies, a whitewash on a wall, a sauce that makes the fish go down easier. Art endures no servitude of this kind…. It is based on no truth that exists before it; and one may say that it expresses nothing but itself. It creates its own equilibrium and its own meaning. It stands all by itself, like the zebra; or else it falls.”

[Chiara Marcelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

la crisi della fiction e l'attesa di un cataclisma come lo sono stati il romanticismo e il naturalismo. la letteratura, si sa, rappresenta mondi, e Robbe-Grillet negli anni Cinquanta osservava un universo nuovo rispetto all'ambiente borghese nel quale il romanzo è nato. un romanzo a cui venga riconosciuto lo statuto del neutrale - questo prospettava - attraverso un linguaggio che descriva e misuri il reale, innanzitutto in quanto res che è "là" prima di essere "qualcosa"

[emmarps · Rating 4 out of 5]

À mon avis cet ouvrage est celui qui donne les meilleures clés pour comprendre ce qu'à pu être le Nouveau Roman. Les différents essais rassemblés dans ce livre sont tous relativement brefs et donnent avec concision les pistes théoriques qui ont donné lieu à ce désir d'innovation du genre romanesque. Loin de la lourdeur des textes de J. Ricardou (Le nouveau roman), ici le style est accessible, parfois oral, en tout cas très appréciable.

[S P · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Each novelist, each novel must invent its own form. No recipe can replace this continual reflection. The book makes its own rules for itself, and for itself alone. Indeed the movement of its style must often lead to jeopardizing them, breaking them, even exploding them. Far from respecting certain immutable forms, each new book tends to constitute the laws of its functioning at the same time that it produces their destruction.'

(from 'The Use of Theory', p12)

[moi, k.y.a. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oui, techniquement, ce livre explique les dynamiques du Nouveau Roman, mais dʼautre part, il révèle aussi la nature changeante de lʼhomme et comment lʼart, en particulier la littérature, évolue parallèlement à ce changement.

[Leyendo en el sofá · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imprescindible para adentrarse en el sentido de la nueva novela europea.

[Bradley William Holder · Rating 5 out of 5]

In at least one of these essays—who has the motivation to check? (it’s in the back)—the author claims that the modern critic of fiction (the novel, more specifically) is in a bit of a precarious position. The novelist, writes Robbe-Grillet, while having no higher calling, no cause more pressing, no nobler aim, than the whole of literature itself—in fact because of this—can do nothing over and above creating their art as if it meant both everything in the universe and, somehow, nothing at all. The novelist is, let’s say, reaching desperately into the self (i.e., their self), bringing forth something whose proper meaning, owing almost entirely to its subjectivity, will not be clear until (quite possibly) the author—poor, friendless, and smelling rather bad—has perished, empires have sunk beneath the sea, and the “fads” to which they were partial, and for which they were instrumental in popularizing, have been exchanged for others just as arbitrary yet just as inevitable. To be clear, Robbe-Grillet, when he’s not doing grad student-grade literary analysis about (mostly French) experimental fiction, is, in this book, for the most part justifying his work and himself (as well as the other writers whose side he’s on) to the not-very-sympathetic literati of his day. Far more charitable than the opposition, Robbe-Grillet claims that the critic is at a unique disadvantage since they, quite unlike the novelist and the reader, do not possess the luxury of dispensing fully with explanations. In other words, the critic is not allowed to simply read—or write—something. They, even if not making sense is the whole point, have no option but to make sense of it. If the critic of literature, who no one seems to like, is in such a sorry state, one can only imagine what Boschian delights await the critic of criticism.

There’s something of a theme, despite not being (to my easily distracted goldfish brain, which is having an especially rough go of it right now) all that obvious, permeating this rather unfocused-seeming collection of essays about novel-writing. On the one hand, it is a celebration of sheer creativity, the likes of which stop feeling possible after one’s mid-twenties—at least they did for me. As it is for any (comparatively) passive participant in any (comparatively) lifelong activity, it is far easier for the reader of fiction to be surprised—to strike upon a novel or short story that feels unlike anything they’ve ever experienced—than for a creative person, in any medium really, to believe themselves capable of making something truly original. Put another way, it’s easier to look back—and not just for logistical reasons—than it is to look forward. (Despite appearances, no one’s really read enough, or had enough experiences, to be impervious to the occasional new discovery. That’s the beauty of having a long maturation period but a short lifespan.) Perhaps Robbe-Grillet would disagree—in fact, I know he would—but something is always far realer than nothing. Here, Alain—Can I call you “Alain”? Okay, good, thanks—Here, Alain doesn’t just defend his work as transcending outdated standards of quality; he says that, 100 or 1000 or 10,000 years from now, the same will be true of the very standards he’s standardized. He even goes so far as to say that the adage from Ecclesiastes is total bullshit—and for no other reason than that the sun, too, will have changed. Despite, as far as I know, not being marketed as one, this qualifies For a New Novel as being a kind of manifesto for what would one day be called postmodern fiction. (Maybe I read this next part, or some version of it, somewhere. If so, apologies.) Ezra Pound told us to “make it new.” Robbe-Grillet told us that we couldn’t not make it new even if we tried.

But there is a second thing too. The novelist’s mission is to capture the Zeitgeist. So long as they aren’t too occupied pandering to the norms of their epoch (or even a few epochs in the past), this, the consequence of a commitment to an intellectual and aesthetic—mostly the latter—honesty, will simply always happen. I’ve lately asked myself if criticism, as a profession, actually does anything aside from influencing book sales (and maybe it doesn’t even do that). Is there like a feedback loop (of art affecting criticism and criticism affecting art)? To the extent that literary criticism is a conservative institution—and I suppose it could be argued that standards of quality, in virtue of being standards, are by definition conservative—then, beyond recognizing patterns of both form and content (i.e., genres), which perhaps we ought to just leave to the librarians, criticism, taken at face value, is probably rather harmful, isn’t it? If, however, literary criticism is just writing about literature—an academic, not a journalistic, enterprise—then Robbe-Grillet is a critic too. We respect the critic who writes, but how do we feel about the writer who criticizes? (See recent Susan Sontag review. It’s, uh, somewhere around here.) Anyway, this isn’t how I’d planned on writing this paragraph. What I’d wanted to say was that Robbe-Grillet’s (and ours, too, maybe) Zeitgeist—looking back, it’s pretty obvious now—was all about how bizarre reality, whatever that’s supposed to be, feels nowadays. Of course narrative staples like characterization and clear description should be made to prostrate themselves at the long-toenailed feet of the personal whims (despair, loneliness, boredom) of—our hero—the heavily neckbearded literateur. Of course politics don’t matter; of course shit doesn’t have to make sense. It is the seeming to not make sense that makes the most sense. Realities differ not because any one is more real than the other; it is because they are both real that they differ.

Perhaps against Alain Robbe-Grillet, who must have seen himself as a trendsetter—an enviable degree of self-confidence, that, especially so if the spirit of our age is as up in the air as he, and his successors, said it was—the novelist is just as fucked (if not more so) as the critic is. To me, the denominator is simply too big, the numerator too small. There is a mild comfort in this fact, I suppose—that is, to being so discouraged by the prospect of influence that you excommunicate yourself from the “whole of literature.” Is it worthwhile to read widely, to practice the forms of the former masters until they become easy and comfortable (but also intractably orthodox)? Is it better to disallow yourself, for the sake of stamping out your own path, the right to even know? Writing is like having a YouTube channel or playing guitar. Eveyone does it. Many could even be said to do it quite well. But is that which makes them do it well something calculable, which is to say observable, that they all have in common?—something that can be given, something that can be taken. The writer who finds themselves in the position to tell the critic—and perhaps, even, the publisher; and perhaps, even, the reader—that they (i.e., them, they, the establishment) just aren’t thinking progressively enough is not in the position of most writers. No useful comparison comes to mind; but something tells me that today’s best creative writing programs operate on the premise that writing a new kind of novel every time you write a novel is not the best way to write a novel. To say nothing of efficiency, one couldn’t advertize their skill in imparting a skill (or cultivating a talent) if there didn’t exist some standard of quality (of writing)—not just in content, which even the universities must have sense enough to diminutivize, but also in form—according to which all that good-intentioned imparting ought to be done. I’d think not. Not to call a plan a scam, but most novels—most art—must ultimately serve the status quo. This isn’t to pass judgment, only to make an observation. To commit yourself to doing something differently—and for the sole sake of individuating yourself, no less—is not only lonely but also, in a perfectly solipsistic way, rather intoxicating (like that line in Confucius about breathing your own smoke). One (and I am of course addressing myself here) just needs to remind themselves, during those particularly dark dark nights of the soul, of two things: (1) Be different, but be good too; (2) Don’t just fetishize doing the thing; actually fucking do it.

[Angus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to rate this 5 I think but I can't in good faith because I'm stupid and a lot of the language is quite dense and complicated (it may not be in the original french but I struggle to read essays in French because my non-fluency leads me to miss subtle linguistic details and therefore creates the danger of not properly following the argument) and I'm sure some points flew over my head. However what I did understand provided a fascinating, and often revelatory insight into the nature of fiction (encompassing literature, theatre, cinema) and what makes it (I'm wary of choosing the wrong word here) special(?)

[Geoff Wyss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contemporary fiction (American fiction especially) would be a lot more interesting if more of us had taken the risks Robbe-Grillet took. These essays question, and largely discard, the tired 19th-century 'givens' of fiction writing, including character, plot, (metaphysical) theme, and the unexamined assumption of 'reality' such conventions are based on. A must-read, I think, for writers.

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me given my interests in the comparison between apprehending meaning through the media of language and of visual representation. I was disappointed to see that Robbe-Grillet treats this topic in only a few paragraphs, in the essays "A Future for the Novel" and "From Realism to Reality." Robbe-Grillet doesn't go in depth on this issue though. He mentions that film tries to preserve the meaning that'd be found in a work of literature, and people might think this is impossible because film forces us to encounter objects in their visual particularities. But he counters that; he thinks that film allows us to encounter objects with as much freedom and abstraction as literature. He doesn't explain why this is the case, however. I'd imagine this has to do with the fact that both media convey to us something that we take as make-believe; we know it isn't real, and this allows our imagination to make meaning of its contents in a way that could never happen if analogous contents showed up in our real lives.

Most of the essays focus on what Robbe-Grillet's vision of the modern novel. The main ideas he has about this is that we humans now relate to the world very differently than we did in the past, and the form of the novel ought to correspond with the nature of this relationship. In the past, we assumed that the world of our experience is just an objective, factual world. The novel corresponds to this in aiming to portray the world of our experience to the greatest accuracy and precision.

But now we know that the world of our experience is mediated by many subjective conditions: our individual psychologies and cultural ideologies, for instance. Correspondingly, the novel should aim to show how there is no objective truth or absolute meaning regarding any object or event. Instead, meaning is conditional upon memory, imagination, etc. The novel can do this by changing the position or portrayal of characters (e.g., take Mersault from The Stranger, who seems to lack desires and motives, which are usually taken to be integral to characters). Or, it can change the form of dialogue (e.g., Beckett's plays). The bulk of this essay collection consists in Robbe-Grillet's analysis of various modern works, showing how they manage to convey this relationship between the human and world that we now understand.

Another essay I liked in particular is "Joe Bousquet the Dreamer." Here, Robbe-Grillet analyzes the French modernist poet Bousquet's work. I've never read Bousquet, but I liked some of the points Robbe-Grillet made which may be understood independently of Bousquet's work. Robbe-Grillet talks about dreaming as a pure expression of the imagination; understanding the imagination in this degree of purity helps us understand what we take to be reality, in which the imagination also inevitably plays a role. In dreaming, what we imagine shows up as what is real. This suggests that in waking life, imagination might also play a comparable, major role in determining what we take to be real. This was a lovely quote from Bousquet: "language is not contained in consciousness, but contains it... the experience of language encloses all others... after having written to a woman 'I shall take you in my arms,' I have no more than her phantom to embrace." It's a bit of an exaggeration, because for sure there are important elements of the experience of embracing our lover which are lost in a verbal depiction of this experience. But I think it contains a grain of truth; there is some emotion or intention which is essential to the real experience, which is constituted by the imagination and language use.

I found many of these essays boring, but I haven't read most of the works that Robbe-Grillet covers, and I think this explains why they weren't so interesting. I can imagine if one has read these works, it would be exciting to see Robbe-Grillet draw forth new meaning of them that one hadn't realized before. If a potential reader is coming to this essay collection with hopes to learn of new philosophical truths about the nature of artistic representation, however, this collection will be disappointing.

[Cristian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una antología de ensayos y artículos sobre el papel de la literatura en la experiencia humana, el rol del lector/escritor, y su relación con otros campos (sobre todo con la política). Personalmente me hizo problematizar la escritura en aspectos que hasta ahora no se me habían ocurrido (por ej. la distinción misma entre "forma" y "contenido" en un obra).

Al margen de que el libro no tiene desperdicio, creo conveniente resumir la tesis central de la "Nueva Novela" que Robbe-Grillet puso en práctica, o por lo menos lo que creo entender: No es un movimiento, ni una escuela, ni una corriente, es ante todo un experimento, una "forma de decir" las cosas, y que consiste en la humilde, humildísima meta de escribir desde (y no hacia) el hombre.

Esto implica el rechazo de todo realismo. Al igual que en la fotografía o el cine, el objetivo de una descripción o la narración de un hecho no es hacer que el espectador vea algo que, por lo demás, está justo frente a él, como si las cosas tuvieran una existencia objetiva, profunda, independiente del ser humano, y que debe ser "desenterrada" por el escritor.

Más bien lo que debe hacer el lector es reconstruir en su mente (y el escritor en la suya) la forma de los objetos y eventos que se le presentan, ordenarlos, o reordenarlos. Es, pues, una cuestión únicamente de re-composición. La obra no apunta a nada externo a sí misma. El ejemplo por excelencia es el del Tiempo:

"Why seek to reconstruct the time of clocks in a narrative which is concerned only with human time?"

Por ejemplo, el tiempo en el que transcurre la trama de una película de dos horas, es exactamente en dos horas. Nada más, nada menos.

Creo que a este respecto el ensayo "Nouveau roman, Homme nouveau" de 1961 es el más esencial, y sirve de sobra para entender todos los demás de la colección. La reseña sobre Beckett también es perfecta.

[Hugo Santos]

''While demanding the author's right to the intelligence of his creation, and insisting on the interest afforded by the consciousness of his own exploration, we know that it is chiefly on the level of style that this exploration is made, and that not everything is clear at the moment of decision. Thus, having indisposed the critics by speaking of the literature he dreams of writing, the novelist feels suddenly disarmed when these critics ask him: "Now explain why you wrote this book, what it means, what you were trying to do, what you intended by using this word, by writing that sentence!"

Faced with such questions, the novelist's "intelligence" no longer seems to be of any help to him. What he was trying to do is merely this book itself. Which does not mean that he is always satisfied by it; but the work remains, in every case, the best and the only possible expression of his enterprise. If he had had the capacity to furnish a simpler definition, or to reduce his two or three hundred pages to some message in clear language, to explain its functioning word by word-in short, to give a justification for it, he would not have felt the need to write the book. For the function of art is never to illustrate a truth or even an interrogation-known in advance, but to bring into the world certain interrogations (and also, perhaps, in time, certain answers) not yet known as such to themselves.''

[Joe Olipo · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Things are things, and man is only man."

Writing Against the Pathetic Fallacy

No longer the bête noire of the literary world (or of anything anymore), the contemporary Alain Robbe-Grillet (ARG) is a conscientious professor of creative writing. In his (mono)maniacal aversion to the Pathetic Fallacy (i.e. writing the anthropomorphized landscape/object) he is justified: This is the perennial feature of bad undergraduate writing.

But ARG goes beyond your Freshman (Sophomoric?) English comp elective: Demanding the novel be freed of the Elizabethan conventions of Plot, Character, Metaphor, and that Objects be freed of the heretofore unquestioned relation to the Human i.e. only to be seen as a virtual image, which is the reflection/refraction of a projection of a human desire or relation. A so-called 'objective' object - one not caught up in this relation - would then be free to be as 'real' as reality, and the human would be free to be only what it is - without supplement. Yet ARG's techniques (repetition, contradiction, multiplicity) fail to achieve this stated end (forgivable), and his 'transitional' style bungles the art of the attempt (unforgivable).

***THOUGHT

If we are seeking to unburden our perception from the tragic/emotional sensibility which can only relate to the world via the medium of a subjective impression of self-relation, and to thereby reach visual/scientific clarity/'objectification', we would be incorrect to apply ARG's approach. The 'Brechtian' undermining of a narrative/description by contradictions/repetitions in the description itself produces a void of 'subjective' meaning, but this is only a 'transition state' (in the unstable chemical sense). An object-relation in explicit contradiction with itself does not free the object, but creates a kind of "metaphysical vacuum" in ARG's terms. When Camus's 'Absurdity' is the source of this vacuum ARG responds with the following limpid analysis:

"Metaphysics loves a vacuum, and rushes into it like smoke up a chimney; for, within immediate signification, we find the absurd, which is theoretically nonsignification, but which as a matter of fact leads immediately, by a well-known metaphysical recuperation, to a new transcendence; and the infinite fragmentation of immediate meaning thus establishes a new totality,"

The elimination of all sense-relations to the object does not free it, for what is "theoretically nonsignification" leads immediately to a new transcendence. ARG's objects collapse under the weight of his technique. Trapped in a field of multiplicities, they are not revealed as objects themselves, but rather show themselves to be (transcendent) metaphor (the centipede in Jealousy), or become mere (transcendent) Words (signs without signified): In Repetition the broken champagne flute, the torn underwear, the firearm with empty cartridges - there is no question whether these objects are real or not: of course they have never existed. ARG appears to be aware of this guilty association (i.e. ARG's object is nothing more than language). ARG discusses this relation in this selfsame collection, but he appears to be engaging in apologetics. As ARG's objects have been revealed not to extend past an empty referent (word), he hypostatizes the word itself as something 'real' and thereby rescues the object.

"Hence beyond language there is probably nothing else. The world "creates itself in us" and "ends in speech," for speech is truth: "Truth when by the act of naming an object it produces the accession of man." To write is "to give our reality to truth, from which we derived it, in order to become once again, within it, light as dreams.""

It takes a certain boldness to find the base of one's 'objective objects' to be a bottomless signifier and to then declare this signifier to be the stable base you had been pursuing the whole time.

***STYLE

ARG's greatest successes occur when he eschews description and enumerates instead. (see the watches in The Voyeur, the rows of trees in Jealousy) The success of complete abstraction in the form of the number/set provides the negative space for objects to be themselves (reference to Alain Badiou/Set theory would be apt here if I were more familiar with his work). ARG should have gone further, to write more like Thomas Bernhard, whose speakers are so alienated from objects that 'objectivity' can flourish in the negative space.

Though more limited, ARG'S detailed description of the observed object are also successful. The warp/defect in the window in Jealousy is emblematic here. This is one of the few instances of successful implementation of ARG's theoretical writing. For lasting success he should have written like DFW, but he is prevented by inadequate technical knowledge and the refusal to acquire it. ARG - the savior of the object - by his own admission does not even care to look at them:

"Like everyone else, I have been the victim, on occasion, of the realistic illusion. At the period when I was writing The Voyeur, for example, while I was trying to describe exactly the flight of sea gulls or the movement of waves, I had occasion to make a brief trip in winter to the coast of Brittany. On the way, I told myself: here is a good opportunity to observe things "from life" and to "refresh my memory." But from the first gull I saw, I understood my error: on the one hand, the gulls I now saw had only very confused relations with those I was describing in my book, and on the other it couldn't have mattered less to me whether they did or not. The only gulls that mattered to me at that moment were those which were inside my head. Probably they came there, one way or another, from the external world, and perhaps from Brittany; but they had been transformed, becoming at the same time somehow more real because they were now imaginary."

This is the perennial mistake of the ambitious writer who thinks he can write anything, though in reality he is incapable of writing anything. Was it Adorno who remarked that notions of objectivity and the subjective are often reversed;

[Julie Holland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm...not sure I could repeat anything back to you that I remember from this book. Like...geez...it is pretty difficult to understand. I did have to read this entire thing in about two days, a little less, and I think that had a lot to do with it. I also have several jobs and several credit hours at school, so I'm sure that if I didn't have so much already clogging the learning pipes in my brain this might not have been so bad. But, quite frankly, it was very difficult to understand and I didn't really like it.

I do think there are interesting things, concepts, and theories that Grillet offers at times. But, I don't really agree with any of them, nor could I tell you about any of them a week later. He tends to think very differently than I do, which is fine, and I appreciate getting to see another standpoint, but at the same time I just found myself miserable and left completely lost in what he was trying to say.

There were times when I got it and understood, which is why it does have 3 stars. It gave me a new way of thinking and looking at something. But you can bet all your life savings I will not be picking this book back up ever again unless forced.

And, another part that bugs me that doesn't really have anything to do with the book, but he is writing on the idea of a new novel. This was written in 1963, but is a collection of Grillet's essays spanning back to 1950 - 1953. My professor is having us read this as an example and a source to write a creative story that is avant-garde and will mimic his ideas of a new novel. Sir, it is 2022. If you want us to write something new and avant-garde, I think having us read a book that is at least within the last decade would be helpful. There wasn't really anything new about this book at all anymore.

So, yeah, at times I thought it was fine and offered a unique perspective, and other times I wanted to burn it. That's all you really need to know I suppose.