Writing and the Experience of Limits

by Philippe Sollers, David Hayman (Editor, translator), Philip Barnard (Translator)

English, French (translation)

213 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1968

About the author

Philippe Sollers (born Philippe Joyaux) is a French writer and critic. In 1960 he founded the avant garde journal Tel Quel (along with the writer and art critic Marcelin Pleynet), published by Seuil, which ran until 1982. In 1982 Sollers then created the journal L'Infini published by Denoel which was later published under the same title by Gallimard for whom Sollers also directs the series.

Sollers was at the heart of the intense period of intellectual unrest in the Paris of the 1960s and 1970s. Among others, he was a friend of Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser and Roland Barthes. These three characters are described in his novel, Femmes (1983) alongside a number of other figures of the French intellectual movement before and after May 1968. From A Strange Solitude, The Park and Event, through "Logiques", Lois and Paradis, down to Watteau in Venice, Une vie divine and "La Guerre du goût", the writings of Sollers have often provided contestation, provocation and challenging.

In his book Writer Sollers, Roland Barthes discusses the work of Phillippe Sollers and the meaning of language.

Sollers married Julia Kristeva in 1967.

Reviews

[Michael A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5. Don't know enough really to say anything super insightful or even "get" what he was talking about. But he analyzes 6 writers: Dante, de Sade, Mallarme, Artaud, Bataille, and Lautreamont. With the exception of Dante I have read and love these writers.

I only really got something out of the Bataille one, where (I think) he posits the oppositions in Bataille (particularly transgression/prohibition) as "sloping" or as he says a "roof". It seemed sort of like a non-dialectical unity of opposites thing going on.

But really these essays reminded me of Bataille's "Literature and Evil" except with a psychoanalytic-Marxist perspective, focused on the process of writing, which gives it a Derridean twist.

There are probably better places to start with Sollers, and this seems like an advanced text. Being familiar with Tel Quel would likely help a lot.

[Celso Rennó Lima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma importante ajuda para acessarmos os importantes autores: Sade, Artaud, Bataille e Lautreamont. Discute-se, em detalhes, os estilos e e escritura destes grandes escritores