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In the fall of 2013, American conceptual artist Dan Graham and his partner artist
Meiko Meguro traveled with writer Donatien Grau to Lucinges, France, to meet with
renowned French writer Michel Butor at his home. Their informal, intimate and at
times humorous conversation, transcribed in this slim pocket-sized book, ranges
over the ideas influencing emerging artists and post-abstract expressionists of
the 1960s. The interview is bookended with a brief introduction by French cultural
critic Donatien Grau and a riff by artist-writer Paul McCarthy. One of the foremost
innovators of postwar literature, writer-thinker Michel Butor redefined the novel with
his book Second Thoughts (1957), and further developed new forms with Mobile
(1962). The rigorous symmetries Butor s writing exemplified led Roland Barthes to
praise him as an epitome of structuralism, but with a lyrical sensibility more akin to
Baudelaire than Robbe-Grillet.
Meiko Meguro traveled with writer Donatien Grau to Lucinges, France, to meet with
renowned French writer Michel Butor at his home. Their informal, intimate and at
times humorous conversation, transcribed in this slim pocket-sized book, ranges
over the ideas influencing emerging artists and post-abstract expressionists of
the 1960s. The interview is bookended with a brief introduction by French cultural
critic Donatien Grau and a riff by artist-writer Paul McCarthy. One of the foremost
innovators of postwar literature, writer-thinker Michel Butor redefined the novel with
his book Second Thoughts (1957), and further developed new forms with Mobile
(1962). The rigorous symmetries Butor s writing exemplified led Roland Barthes to
praise him as an epitome of structuralism, but with a lyrical sensibility more akin to
Baudelaire than Robbe-Grillet.
72 pages, Paperback
Published April 3, 2015
1 person want to read
About the author
Michel Butor
311 books74 followersMichel Marie François Butor was born in Mons-en-Barœul, a suburb of Lille. He studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, graduating in 1947. He has taught in Egypt, Manchester, Thessaloniki, the United States, and Geneva. He has won many literary awards for his work, including the Prix Apollo, the Prix Fénéon; and the Prix Renaudot.
Journalists and critics have associated his novels with the nouveau roman, but Butor himself long resisted that association. The main point of similarity is a very general one, not much beyond that; like exponents of the nouveau roman, he can be described as an experimental writer. His best-known novel, La Modification, for instance, is written entirely in the second person. In his 1967 La critique et l'invention, he famously said that even the most literal quotation is already a kind of parody because of its "trans-contextualization."
For decades, he chose to work in other forms, from essays to poetry to artist's books to unclassifiable works like Mobile. Literature, painting and travel are subjects particularly dear to Butor. Part of the fascination of his writing is the way it combines the rigorous symmetries that led Roland Barthes to praise him as an epitome of structuralism (exemplified, for instance, by the architectural scheme of Passage de Milan or the calendrical structure of L'emploi du temps) with a lyrical sensibility more akin to Baudelaire than to Robbe-Grillet.
Journalists and critics have associated his novels with the nouveau roman, but Butor himself long resisted that association. The main point of similarity is a very general one, not much beyond that; like exponents of the nouveau roman, he can be described as an experimental writer. His best-known novel, La Modification, for instance, is written entirely in the second person. In his 1967 La critique et l'invention, he famously said that even the most literal quotation is already a kind of parody because of its "trans-contextualization."
For decades, he chose to work in other forms, from essays to poetry to artist's books to unclassifiable works like Mobile. Literature, painting and travel are subjects particularly dear to Butor. Part of the fascination of his writing is the way it combines the rigorous symmetries that led Roland Barthes to praise him as an epitome of structuralism (exemplified, for instance, by the architectural scheme of Passage de Milan or the calendrical structure of L'emploi du temps) with a lyrical sensibility more akin to Baudelaire than to Robbe-Grillet.
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