سال گذشته در مارین باد

by Alain Robbe-Grillet, پرویز شهدی (Translator)

ناشناسی از سالنی به سالن ديگر... پرسه می‌زند. از درهايی می‌گذرد، با آينه‌هايی روبه‌رو می‌شود، در طول راهروهايی پايان‌ناپذير راه می‌رود... نگاهش از چهره‌ای بی‌نام به چهره‌ی بی‌نام ديگری می‌گذرد... ولی همواره بر می‌گردد به چهره‌ی زنی جوان، زندانی زيبا و شايد هنوز زنده‌ی اين قفس طلايی. آن‌وقت ناممكن را به او عرضه می‌كند، چيزی كه در اين هزار تو، كه زمان در آن منسوخ شده ناممكن‌ترين به نظر می‌رسد: گذشته‌ای، آينده‌ای و آزادی را تقديمش می‌كند. به زن می‌گويد كه پيش از آن، يكديگر را ملاقات كرده‌اند، يك سال پيش، به هم عشق ورزيده‌اند، اينك برگشته به اين وعده‌گاه كه خود زن تعيين كرده بود، و می‌خواهد او را همراه خود ببرد... زن جوان ابتدا قضيه را بازی می‌انگارد، بازی‌ای مثل هر بازی ديگر... سپس ناگهان زن می‌پذيرد كه تسليم شود... او به راستی از مدت‌ها پيش تسليم شده است... می‌پذيرد همان كسی بشود كه ناشناس انتظار دارد، و همراه او به سوی چيزی برود، چيزی بی‌نام، چيزی ديگر، عشق، شعر، آزادی و شايد هم مرگ... ؛

Genres: Film, France, Fiction, Literature, French Literature, Fantasy, Plays

188 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

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

[Scribble Orca · Rating 5 out of 5]

The definitive and brilliant visual representation of the several facets of the nouveau roman occupying Robbe-Grillet. Preliminary reading of La Jalousie and In The Labyrinth provide essential keys to unlocking "meaning" from the film and its final ambiguous denouement. Robbe-Grillet was concerned with exploding narrative and demolishing the presence of an omnipotent author - the film closely follows R-G's script with only minor alterations, Resnais and Robbe-Grillet having worked independently on its realisation: visually appealing, stylised and stylish, mocking the facades which are so reverently presented; the use of mirrors, gardens, linearity and repetition producing the same surreality and disorientation as found in Robbe-Grillet's oeuvre (particularly as depicted in La Jalousie and Dans le Labyrinthe); the personalities displayed as marionettes jerking to and validating the constraining strings of social convention. A unique and landmark production, the only jarring note being the dreadful, funereal organ; if the intent here was to continually grate upon the watcher's nerve, the score succeeded too well, at times destroying both the narrator's voice over and the dialogue as well as the immersion in the complexities of the film. Not so much lacking in layers of meaning as lavish in proffering.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

300419: great. remember reading it in english when 18 or 19, finally seeing the film in montreal at 24. but it is this cine-roman that came first. pics from film, some, but most is r-g describing images, not screenplay, not novel, with fine, repeated, gestures and architectural details. again very good for increasing my vocabulary in french. i remember liking, still do, here in french, the objective description of what is shown onscreen, heard or not heard, on screen or not, and this, along with Jealousy & In the Labyrinth convince me there is another way to offer dreams otherwise known as literature. images built on images. non-technical language, consistent voice, tells the viewer what there is and nothing more. gestures, poses, images etc all again and again...

as far as reading it in french, the images are not as singularly expressive as comics/band desinee, the language remains clear and unemotional, even as the desire, memory, anxiety of the woman A, desire, intensity, desperation, of the man X, the coldness, resignation, sadness, of the husband M, becomes more and more, plus et plus, douce, violente, impolie ou agressif, ici ou la, lentement, drole, avec sourir mince, comme quel que chose, plus ou moins, cote a cote, trois quarte arriere, en profil ... etc. all those common qualifications i enjoy translating as i read but do not necessarily remember now... i enjoy reading this again and again. as in english translation i love repetition with subtle differences for these mean so much more to me... now i must watch the film again....

and of course... can you really not remember your promise, last year at marienbad?

watched movie again and was surprised, possibly because it is such powerful art object in my experience, possibly because i know what is coming... surprised: it seems shorter than remembered! still loved it, one of my favorite avant-garde art-films...


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

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the film script for 'Last Year at Marienbad." Which by the way is the ultimate Eruopean art flick. In other words the worst nightmare if you are a Michael Bay or current fan of Hollywood blockbusters.

There is no action whatsoever, in fact there is even little dialogue. Mostly elegant people wearing very elegant suits and dresses - with tons of moody shots at a very cold looking castle. Chic is too small a word for this film. It's uber-sophisticated to a degree that is almost unhuman. It is one of my favorite films.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Called a screenplay, but is it? It's what novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet submitted to filmmaker Alain Resnais (who then turned it into one of the most beguiling films in all of cinema); before its publication Robbe-Grillet returned to it and altered some elements that had been subtly changed by Resnais in the translation to the screen. Even still—and I'm confident this was quite intentional on the writer's part—undeniable differences remain between "screenplay" and film (a pearl bracelet, constant suggestions for a nonexistent atonal soundtrack, an explicit depiction of rape).

So is it a screenplay, a novel, a novel about the act of making a film, a film a novel about the act of writing for film? (The "official" interpretation, whether helpful or not, printed boldly on the cover: "text by Alain Robbe-Grillet for the film by Alain Resnais." But even this is misleading—it is not the text submitted for filming, but a text rewritten in response to the completed film.) I tend to agree with Jean-Louis Leutrat in L'Année dernière à Marienbad: what we have here is in fact "two quasi-simultaneous and inseparable works" that are "at once divergent and complimentary." And here we are, stranded in the labyrinth of topics and issues that I hope to address and explore in my graduate studies. I've managed to stumble in—will there be a way out?

"One of the two works (but which?) would be a rewrite of the other; and not just because, using its own means, the one translates the other." -Leutrat

The main question, or at least the only one I was able to articulate through this reading: these differences, these slippages, are they points of reverberation or of resistance? In the process of mutual translation, the echos add (reveal?) new facets, new points of entry into the maze, but one thing is clear: the act of mutual translation does not clear up any of the mystery, but only push both further along into the shadowlands of unknowability. One wishes that the "original" text submitted to be filmed was available; one is aware, however, that it would clarify exactly nothing. But should clarity really be required from two works that presumably strive to clarify a narrative, but in the end only reveal that clarity is in fact an impossibility?

"X: You weren't waiting for anything any more. It was as if you were dead... That's not true! You are still alive. You are here. I see you. You remember. (Brief pause.) That's not true... probably. You've already forgotten everything."

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

300419: this is the english translation i read years (decades...) past, before much r-g, before much art-film etc, before seeing the film... best review is on the french original known as https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...…

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
The Immortal One
Djinn
Repetition
A Regicide
Djinn
Repetition
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

[Noah McAllister · Rating 2 out of 5]

I adore the film, but it was just so dry in text format. Still interesting to see it all written but took me far longer than it should have :/

[rafael montenegro fausto · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Que sont, en somme, toutes ces images ? Ce sont des imaginations ; une imagination, si elle est assez vive, est toujours au présent. Les souvenirs que l’on « revoit », les régions lointaines, les rencontres à venir, ou même les épisodes passés que chacun arrange dans sa tête en en modifiant le cours tout à loisir, il y a là comme un film intérieur qui se déroule continuellement en nous-mêmes, dès que nous cessons de prêter attention à ce qui se passe autour de nous. Mais, à d’autres moments, nous enregistrons au contraire, par tous nos sens, ce monde extérieur qui se trouve bel et bien sous nos yeux. Ainsi le film total de notre esprit admet à la fois tour à tour et au même titre les ragments réels proposés à l’instant par la vue et l’ouïe, et des fragments passés, ou lointains, ou futurs, ou totalement fantasmagoriques. Et que se passe-t-il lorsque deux personnes en présence échangent des propos ? Soit ce simple dialogue :
[...]
On devine un peu, dans cette perspective, ce que peuvent être les images de L’Année dernière à Marienbad, qui est justement l’histoire d’une communication entre deux êtres, un homme et une femme, dont l’un propose et l’autre résiste, et qui finissent par se trouver réunis, comme si c’était depuis toujours.
-
Donc le spectateur nous a semblé déjà fortement préparé à ce genre de récit par tout le jeu des flash back et des hypothèses objectivées. Il risque cependant, dira-t-on, de perdre pied s’il n’a pas de temps en temps les « explications » qui lui permettent de situer chaque scène à sa place chronologique et à son degré de réalité objective. Mais nous avons décidé de lui faire confiance, de le laisser de bout en bout aux prises avec des subjectivités pures" (A.R.-G.).

[Nicolò Grasso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike any other film script I have read: a true blueprint of what Resnais's masterpiece would end up being. Camera movements blend with set design blend with direction blend with dialogue. To know that the writer and director worked in unison and ultimately applied very few changes while filming is a testament to their artistic brilliance.

[Evan]

[placeholder review]
I remember when this was shown in film class in college I walked out in the middle of it. Right in front of the professor. I liked the professor. I liked the class. I liked the films. I liked Alain Resnais films, even Muriel. I liked difficult "foreign" films. Just not this difficult. Usually it was the other kids who walked out, but this time it was me doing the walking. I think some of it had to do with the fact it was the end of the semester and I was just plum tuckered out.

This was not the first time such a thing had happened. I missed a final in newspaper layout and design, deliberately, in favor of sleeping in. I managed to talk the hard-assed old professor into letting me retake it. He told me he must have been mellowing, because in the past he would have told me, tough shit, you missed, you lose. Of course, I asked my buddies what had been on the test. They told me and I studied those parts. Those parts were on it. I passed easily.

For my final film class, I had made a film that was shown for my final grade. I didn't show up for the screening. I still got an A. I just didn't want to see my amateurish stuff in a room full of people. I think I slept in.

Another time, I skipped a Spanish quiz to go fishing on the lakefront. My Spanish professor saw me in an elevator one day and asked me where I was during the test. I straight-out told her I'd gone fishing.

I was kind of like Tom Sawyer at college. I didn't want to watch a movie about a lot of bored elites in a geometrically arrayed antiseptic hell speaking in tongues or not speaking at all. The sun was shining outside, and real life was out there.

Maybe now I can tackle this thing.

(KR@KY 2016)

[Parsnip · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very complicated way of saying « men are trash » but sure ?

Idk, I think it’s a very confusing book, and I picked it up expecting a novel so I was even more confused. I wasn’t sure I was liking it or not, it was actually kinda fun to read ? It made me want to see the movie because the rhythm was interesting. But in the last third of the story all the woman says is « no, no, no » or « please leave me » and the man doesn’t stop whatever he’s doing which made me EXTREMELY uncomfortable. I thought « hum, creepy » and then he [spoiler i guess] rapes her … And it’s mentioned in a very mundane way, which I found -even though it’s a script- disgusting. It feels like rape is just some little trivial event at the end of the book and I really find this distanciation absolutely awful.

1,75/5

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

People say I'm crazy for having watched this film three times (including once in Brazil, with Portuguese subtitles) but I say "As I walk down these lugubrious corridors, doors opening to other doors, thick carpets trampling on other thick carpets...did we or did we not have an affair last year at Marienbad? This is that rare screenplay that is a supreme pleasure to read and re-read. Robbe-Grillet makes time stand still, memory becomes a curse, and the past is open to a million interpretations. Words are like pearls or grams of opium, intoxicating dreams and losing yourself in a labyrinth of the mind.

[Will Sisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. If you've seen the movie, you won't be surprised to learn that this isn't much of a page turner. It is fascinating, though, to see how fully formed the screenwriter's vision was before filming began. Excited to watch the movie again soon.

[Saa · Rating 4 out of 5]

aman insists he met a woman here last year. she’s like “i don’t remember that.” they wander through baroque corridors, playing a weird matchstick game with her maybe husband. time’s a loop memory’s a glitch and the vibe is pure surrealist chic

[Rémy]

« Avant d'arriver jusqu'à vous ─ avant de vous rejoindre ─ vous ne savez pas tout ce qu'il a fallu traverser. »

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing read. But truly hard for me to separate the text from the film itself. Watch the film!

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Translation of Alain Robbe-Grillet's text for the film by him and Alain Resnais, strange and mysterious and tres francais!

[Bojidar Alexandrov · Rating 1 out of 5]

That was too pretentious, even for me.

[Vernon Goddard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favourite film of all time. I went to see it in the 60s whilst at University in Cardiff. I was with some friends, all of us interested in foreign films and Gallois cigarettes.

It is an elegant, enigmatic but disturbing film. Shot entirely in Black & White, with the characters suitably attired in the conventions of a middle/upper class environment. The setting is a magnificent Mansion with incredible interiors and external shots of lawns and water features.

The French spoken is beautiful often poetic.

The characters seem pitted against each other as seen in the game of two-play!

The air of mystery, intrigue, the tensions of character are held throughout the film. There are very few who have seen it & can then explain what is going on. I believe books have been written to analyse what it is all about.

A must see film and a must read book...........

[Thadd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I liked this book, one that is packed with detail, it isn't fun to read because the story moves so slowly. Also, there isn't any humor or irony in it.

My guess is that the author feels that conversations, settings and memories are more important than a plot.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

i wonder if this is Grillet's take on Sartre's hell.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic sad story of love, duty, depression and war.

[Phillip Neman · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst reads of my life. Took me half the book to realize the plot was going nowhere, but at that point i forced myself to just finish for the sake of completeness.