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倬丕讴鈥屭┵嗏赌属囏�
Alain Robbe-Grillet is internationally hailed as the chief spokesman for the noveau roman and one of the great novelists of the twentieth century. The Erasers, his first novel, reads like a detective story but is primarily concerned with weaving and then probing a complete mixture of fact and fantasy. The narrative spans the twenty-four-hour period following a series of eight murders in eight days, presumably the work of a terrorist group. After the ninth murder, the investigation is turned over to a police agent, who may in fact be the assassin.
Both an engrossing mystery and a sinister deconstruction of reality, The Erasers intrigues and unnerves with equal force as it pull us along to its ominous conclusion.
Both an engrossing mystery and a sinister deconstruction of reality, The Erasers intrigues and unnerves with equal force as it pull us along to its ominous conclusion.
344 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1953
99 people are currently reading
3,775 people want to read
About the author
Alain Robbe-Grillet
99听books413听followersScreenplays 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 Fran莽ois 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 Acad茅mie fran莽aise on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice Rheims at seat #32.
He was married to .
Alain Robbe-Grillet was born in Brest (Finist猫re, 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'Ann茅e Derni猫re 脿 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 comit茅 pour la d茅fense et l麓expansion de la langue fran莽aise). In addition Robbe-Grillet also led the Centre for Sociology of Literature (Centre de sociologie de la litt茅rature) 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 Acad茅mie fran莽aise, but was never actually formally received by the Acad茅mie because of disputes regarding the Acad茅mie'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 Acad茅mie'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
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 Acad茅mie fran莽aise on March 25, 2004, succeeding Maurice Rheims at seat #32.
He was married to .
Alain Robbe-Grillet was born in Brest (Finist猫re, 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'Ann茅e Derni猫re 脿 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 comit茅 pour la d茅fense et l麓expansion de la langue fran莽aise). In addition Robbe-Grillet also led the Centre for Sociology of Literature (Centre de sociologie de la litt茅rature) 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 Acad茅mie fran莽aise, but was never actually formally received by the Acad茅mie because of disputes regarding the Acad茅mie'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 Acad茅mie'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
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April 5, 2024
The Erasers is a mystery but it is nowhere near any hardboiled detective stories.
The structure of The Erasers is a structure of labyrinth 鈥� the characters constantly roam the labyrinths of streets and they incessantly rove in the labyrinths of their thoughts鈥�
Incertitude and uncertainty 鈥� the characters keep roaming the labyrinths of the crime versions until they get lost in the maze.
That is our consciousness and this is our world. We are sure that we know everything about the world we live in but we鈥檙e just wandering the labyrinths of our own misconceptions鈥�
The structure of The Erasers is a structure of labyrinth 鈥� the characters constantly roam the labyrinths of streets and they incessantly rove in the labyrinths of their thoughts鈥�
Usually this landscape has little relief and looks rather unattractive, but this morning the grayish yellow sky of snowy days gives it unaccustomed dimensions. Certain outlines are emphasized, others are blurred; here and there distances open out, unsuspected masses appear; the whole view is organized into a series of planes silhouetted against one another, so that the depth, suddenly illuminated, seems to lose its natural look鈥攁nd perhaps its reality鈥攁s if this over-exactitude were possible only in a painting. Distances are so affected that they become virtually unrecognizable, without it being possible to say in just what way they are transformed: extended or telescoped鈥攐r both at once鈥攗nless they have acquired a new quality that has more to do with geometry鈥� Sometimes this happens to lost cities, petrified by some cataclysm for centuries鈥攐r only for a few seconds before their collapse, a wink of hesitation between life and what already bears another name: after, before, eternity.
Incertitude and uncertainty 鈥� the characters keep roaming the labyrinths of the crime versions until they get lost in the maze.
In the murky water of the aquarium, furtive shadows pass鈥攁n undulation whose vague existence dissolves of its own accord鈥� and afterward it is questionable whether there had been anything to begin with. But the dark patch reappears and makes two or three circles in broad daylight, soon coming back to melt, behind a curtain of algae, deep in the protoplasmic depths. A last eddy, quickly dying away, makes the mass tremble for a second. Again everything is calm鈥� Until, suddenly, a new form emerges and presses its dream face against the glass鈥�
That is our consciousness and this is our world. We are sure that we know everything about the world we live in but we鈥檙e just wandering the labyrinths of our own misconceptions鈥�
April 13, 2024
鈥淚 am certain that a novelist is someone who attributes a different reality-value to the characters and events of his story than to those of 'real' life. A novelist is someone who confuses his own life with that of his characters.鈥�
鈥� Alain Robbe-Grillet
The Erasers is one of the most convoluted, complex, knotty novels a reader could possibly encounter, a novel that can be approached from multiple perspectives and on multiple levels, everything from an intricate detective mystery to a meditation on the circularity of time, from the phenomenology of perception to the story of Oedipus.
For the purpose of this review, I will focus on one aspect of The Erasers I have not come across in any of the commentary I鈥檝e read by scholars, literary critics or book reviewers 鈥� the prevalence of ugliness in the city where the novel is set.
With its winding streets and system of canals, the novel鈥檚 city has been likened to Amsterdam, but any likeness to this beautiful, charming Dutch city ends there. The cold Northern European industrial city we encounter in The Erasers is ugly and creepy, lacking any trace of charm or warmth.
The main character, special agent Wallas, who travels to the city to solve a murder, repeatedly reflects on this lack of aesthetic attraction and beauty, as when we read: 鈥渁 city completely barren of appeal for an art lover," and then again, 鈥渁 huge stone building ornamented with scrolls and scallops, fortunately few in number 鈥� in short, of rather somber ugliness.鈥� From Wallas鈥檚 multiple observations, this unnamed city鈥檚 stark ugliness can bring to my mind Golconda by the surrealist Ren茅 Magritte, a painting of a cityscape raining men in black suits and bowlers, painted in the same year as the publication of The Erasers.
This unattractiveness also extends to the people inhabiting the city. Two men described in some detail are both fat and flabby and move in a stiff and mechanical way: first, the manager of the caf茅, portrayed as follows: 鈥淎 fat man is standing here, the manager . . . greenish, his features blurred, liverish, and fleshy in his aquarium.鈥� Second, Laurent, the chief commissioner: 鈥淗e is a short, plump man with a pink face and a bald skull . . . his overfed body shakes from fits of laughter.鈥�
Tom, one of the condemned prisoners, from Jean-Paul Sartre鈥檚 story The Wall is such a flabby, fat man. Also, Antoine Roquentin, the main character in Sartre鈥檚 novel Nausea, describes the shaking hands of another fat man: 鈥淭hen there was his hand like a fat white worm in my own hand. I dropped it almost immediately and the arm fell back flabbily.鈥�
So, why am I highlighting these facts? Because I have the strong impression both Robbe-Grillet and Sartre (a great influence on the author) saw flab and fat as repulsive and ugly, a counter to the possibility of freedom and spontaneity and fluidity we can experience in our human embodiment.
In contradistinction, Wallas is a tall, calm young man with regular features and who walks with an elastic, confident gate. But at every turn Wallas encounters ugliness, even in an automat where there is a sign reading: 鈥淧lease Hurry. Thank you.鈥� And this sign is repeated many times on the white walls of the automat. How nauseating! Not surprisingly, Wallas eats too fast, resulting in an upset stomach. Shortly thereafter he returns to a familiar dirty caf茅 and he continues to feel ill.
Here are few more direct quotes on what Wallas sees in this city:
鈥� 鈥淢outh open, the man is staring into space, one elbow on the table propping up his bloated head.鈥�
鈥� 鈥淥nce again, Wallas is walking toward the bridge. Ahead of him, under a snowy sky, extends the Rue de Brabant 鈥� and its grim housefronts.鈥�
鈥� 鈥淔rom another angle, the man assumes an almost coarse expression that has something vulgar, self-satisfied, rather repugnant about it.鈥�
True, Wallas encounters one saleswoman who is upbeat and slightly provocative, but the other people he encounters, to the extent these men and woman are described, are drab and shabby and decidedly unattractive.
An entire city of unsightly sights and repellent people. Is it too much of a stretch to interpret the pistol Wallas shoots at the end of the novel as, in part, a reaction to overbearing ugliness? Perhaps in the same way the pistol shots in Albert Camus鈥檚 The Stranger (a work Alain Robbe-Grillet counts as one of his prime influences) are a reaction to the searing heat and glare from the sun and the young Arab鈥檚 knife blade?
Rather than providing a definitive answer, this raises another set of questions: Are we as readers so coarse and dull and deadened by the modern mechanized world that we accept the ugly as the norm? Does this acceptance account for the fact that all the essays and reviews I have read on this novel do not draw attention to the ugliness Wallas confronts?
February 25, 2025
THE ERASING OF VALUE!
Don鈥檛 be misled by this book鈥檚 sombre unfolding of mysteries. The mysteries are not the point.
The truth of this book, as my reading of Kierkegaard forces me to say, is its REMORSE. For the grim and endless battles of WWII had recently collapsed, in Robbe-Grillet鈥檚 Europe, into peace: a dystopian debacle of utter hopelessness.
I finished this book in March of 1972, during the beginning of the final spring thaw. I still remember walking through the puddled, misty, grey streets of our sleepy Ontario university town, musing deeply.
For its streets, like the U2 song says, now seemed to be nameless - and endless - for that was part and parcel of the greyly monotonous magic spell that Alain Robbe-Grillet had by then woven into the fabric of my mind!
A 鈥減athetic fallacy鈥� indeed on the part of my dozing imagination...
It was, after Beckett, my first encounter with postmodernism. And I enjoyed it; for as only one year now remained till graduation, I needed every escape I could find from my heavy course load.
But there is grave danger in certain escapes!
And Robbe-Grillet鈥檚 road does indeed wind forever into nowhere... with plenty of sharp, alarming revelations appearing suddenly into the field of vision of the protagonist - a S没ret茅 cop - only to disappear in even deeper folds of mist. Such in fact is our life!
Where are we going? What do we know for sure?
So Robbe-Grillet, hunkered down at his writing desk in the shambles that was postwar Europe, seems to ask...
Nobel Laureate Patrick Modiano was 8 years old in 1953 - the year Les Gommes was published. But he seems to have been unaware of the power of the nouveau roman until he was 17, when one of the writers of that genre, Raymond Queneau, took him under his wing.
Robbe-Grillet was by then the genre鈥檚 leading theorist. And his influence on this soon-to-be cause-c茅l猫bre youth is unmistakeable. So Modiano鈥檚 novel Missing Person must have had its nascence in his attentive reading of The Erasers!
So The Erasers was utterly groundbreaking in its time.
A lot of us are moving in endless grey foggy spaces, like Robbe-Grillet鈥檚 inspector, especially in these unsettling days.
Why鈥檚 that?
Well, think back to as late as the early twentieth century.
It was a world of plain facts.
You could be sure that the sun would always shine again, that weather patterns wouldn鈥檛 act in a schizoid manner, that tomorrow would be much the same as today.
You even see that still in the 1970鈥檚 in the drab grey French provincial towns patrolled by the drab Inspector Maigret鈥檚 clones. The predictable is comforting, and even murder can appear mundane under such comforting predictability.
But wasn鈥檛 it Mauriac who said of Georges Simenon鈥檚 perennial sameness that it can horribly expose 鈥渢he depths of this nightmare that (he) paints with such unendurable art鈥�? And the nightmare lives on and grabs us in Robbe-Grillet.
Now that鈥檚 all changed, because our postmodernism, like one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, rides the Pale Horse of Brute Nothingness.
We are assaulted by the Absurd at every turn.
Instead of facts we have become an appalled world, hyper-conscious of its Breaking Tweets.
Is there hope in that?
There will be, if we put our endless wanderings through rootlessness to good use.
But that day may have to wait, until that day when we can finally
Redeem the Time. Redeem the Dream.
The token of the word unheard
Unspoken...
Peace of mind may be closer than we think, if we learn to return to ourselves and our Original Vision of things -
Unconstrained by the dismal prison of our dour everyday 鈥渇actual鈥� refusal to dream.
For it is in our dreams that we recover our life!
Don鈥檛 be misled by this book鈥檚 sombre unfolding of mysteries. The mysteries are not the point.
The truth of this book, as my reading of Kierkegaard forces me to say, is its REMORSE. For the grim and endless battles of WWII had recently collapsed, in Robbe-Grillet鈥檚 Europe, into peace: a dystopian debacle of utter hopelessness.
I finished this book in March of 1972, during the beginning of the final spring thaw. I still remember walking through the puddled, misty, grey streets of our sleepy Ontario university town, musing deeply.
For its streets, like the U2 song says, now seemed to be nameless - and endless - for that was part and parcel of the greyly monotonous magic spell that Alain Robbe-Grillet had by then woven into the fabric of my mind!
A 鈥減athetic fallacy鈥� indeed on the part of my dozing imagination...
It was, after Beckett, my first encounter with postmodernism. And I enjoyed it; for as only one year now remained till graduation, I needed every escape I could find from my heavy course load.
But there is grave danger in certain escapes!
And Robbe-Grillet鈥檚 road does indeed wind forever into nowhere... with plenty of sharp, alarming revelations appearing suddenly into the field of vision of the protagonist - a S没ret茅 cop - only to disappear in even deeper folds of mist. Such in fact is our life!
Where are we going? What do we know for sure?
So Robbe-Grillet, hunkered down at his writing desk in the shambles that was postwar Europe, seems to ask...
Nobel Laureate Patrick Modiano was 8 years old in 1953 - the year Les Gommes was published. But he seems to have been unaware of the power of the nouveau roman until he was 17, when one of the writers of that genre, Raymond Queneau, took him under his wing.
Robbe-Grillet was by then the genre鈥檚 leading theorist. And his influence on this soon-to-be cause-c茅l猫bre youth is unmistakeable. So Modiano鈥檚 novel Missing Person must have had its nascence in his attentive reading of The Erasers!
So The Erasers was utterly groundbreaking in its time.
A lot of us are moving in endless grey foggy spaces, like Robbe-Grillet鈥檚 inspector, especially in these unsettling days.
Why鈥檚 that?
Well, think back to as late as the early twentieth century.
It was a world of plain facts.
You could be sure that the sun would always shine again, that weather patterns wouldn鈥檛 act in a schizoid manner, that tomorrow would be much the same as today.
You even see that still in the 1970鈥檚 in the drab grey French provincial towns patrolled by the drab Inspector Maigret鈥檚 clones. The predictable is comforting, and even murder can appear mundane under such comforting predictability.
But wasn鈥檛 it Mauriac who said of Georges Simenon鈥檚 perennial sameness that it can horribly expose 鈥渢he depths of this nightmare that (he) paints with such unendurable art鈥�? And the nightmare lives on and grabs us in Robbe-Grillet.
Now that鈥檚 all changed, because our postmodernism, like one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, rides the Pale Horse of Brute Nothingness.
We are assaulted by the Absurd at every turn.
Instead of facts we have become an appalled world, hyper-conscious of its Breaking Tweets.
Is there hope in that?
There will be, if we put our endless wanderings through rootlessness to good use.
But that day may have to wait, until that day when we can finally
Redeem the Time. Redeem the Dream.
The token of the word unheard
Unspoken...
Peace of mind may be closer than we think, if we learn to return to ourselves and our Original Vision of things -
Unconstrained by the dismal prison of our dour everyday 鈥渇actual鈥� refusal to dream.
For it is in our dreams that we recover our life!
July 2, 2017
Notes: Twenty-four hours in 256 pages: 5.6 pages per hour. Over description for purposes of derealisation or , a technique out of Russian Formalism. Much movement of characters through physical space鈥攖he streets of an unnamed provincial city beset by canals and drawbridges, a derelict inn, etc.鈥攆ocusing on externals. Even interior monologues focus on the external world. Virtually no introspection into the individual lives of the characters: their preferences or peccadilloes. Even for the victim, Professor Daniel Dupont, most detail given is about how to achieve his murder. There's little curiosity about his work, which never gets more specific than "political work," though two texts are mentioned, one on economic cycles and another on phenomenology. There is also a mention of anarchists. The novel has elements of the police procedural; it might also be called, in part, a murderers' procedural. Published in 1953, some of its more obvious models would probably have been , , etc. Reminds me in some ways, too, of Joseph Conrad's . Probably because of the anarchists, though in that earlier novel (1907) they tend to promote terror by bombing things. The mode of terror here is death by gunshot. The diction is moderately freighted. This is no light, airy read by any means. Moreover, it is utterly humorless. The book must contain twenty points of view, each with its own unique perspective on events rigorously thought out. Streets of the unnamed town are labyrinthine. Wallas, the newbie detective, is often lost. A shrewdly thought out work that grips the reader consistently. The post-modernist bits don't get in the way. Mostly, a very dense thriller requiring close reading. An unusual, rewarding read.
October 29, 2020
Les Gommes = The Erasers, Alain Robbe-Grillet
Alain Robbe-Grillet is internationally hailed as the chief spokesman for the noveau roman and one of the great novelists of the 20th century.
The Erasers, his first novel, reads like a detective story but is primarily concerned with weaving and then probing a complete mixture of fact and fantasy.
The narrative spans the twenty-four-hour period following a series of eight murders in eight days, presumably the work of a terrorist group. After the ninth murder, the investigation is turned over to a police agent, who may in fact be the assassin. Both an engrossing mystery and a sinister deconstruction of reality, The Erasers intrigues and unnerves with equal force as it pull us along to its ominous conclusion.
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毓賳賵丕賳: 倬丕讴 讴賳 賴丕貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 丌賱賳 乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 倬乇賵蹖夭 卮賴丿蹖貨 賲卮禺氐丕鬲 賳卮乇 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳卮乇 丿卮鬲爻鬲丕賳貨 1379貙 丿乇 336氐貙 卮丕亘讴: 9649285210貨 賲賵囟賵毓: 丿丕爻鬲丕賳賴丕蹖 賮乇丕賳爻賵蹖 - 爻丿賴 20賲
趩丕倬 丿蹖诏乇 賴賲蹖賳 毓賳賵丕賳: 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳爻賱 丌賮鬲丕亘貙 1389貙 丿乇 344氐貙 卮丕亘讴 9786005847291貨
丌賱賳貙 丕蹖賳 乇賲丕賳 禺賵蹖卮 乇丕貙 丿乇 爻丕賱 1951賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 亘賳诏丕卮鬲賴 丕爻鬲貨 芦乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴禄 丕夭 趩賴乇賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 噩賳亘卮 丕丿亘蹖 賵 賴賳乇蹖 乇賲丕賳 賳賵貙 蹖丕 賲賵噩 賳賵貙 亘賵丿賳丿貙 讴賴 丿乇 丿賴賴 爻 1960賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貙 賴蹖丕賴賵蹖 亘爻蹖丕乇蹖 亘賴 倬丕 讴乇丿賳丿貨 芦乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴禄 丕夭 賳馗乇 丕賳丿蹖卮賴 亘賴 賮賱丕爻賮賴 蹖 芦丌賱賲丕賳蹖禄貙 亘賴 賵蹖跇賴 亘賴 芦賴丕蹖丿诏乇禄 賵 爻亘讴 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 倬乇丿丕夭蹖 芦讴丕賮讴丕禄貙 诏乇丕蹖卮 丿丕卮鬲賳丿貙 賵 丿蹖丿诏丕賴 丕蹖卮丕賳貙 亘丕 鬲賮丕賵鬲 賯丕卅賱 卮丿賳貙 賲蹖丕賳 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲 賵 乇卅丕賱貙 亘賴 丕蹖賳 賲毓賳蹖 讴賴 丿乇讴 乇卅丕賱蹖爻鬲蹖 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲貙 賳賲蹖鈥屫堌з嗀� 鬲賲丕賲蹖 丌賳 乇丕 亘蹖丕賳 讴賳丿貙 亘爻蹖丕乇 賳夭丿蹖讴 亘賴 噩乇蹖丕賳 賮賱爻賮蹖 芦倬爻鬲 賲丿乇賳蹖爻賲禄 賲蹖鈥屫簇� 讴賴 丿乇 賴賲丕賳 夭賲丕賳貙 丿乇 芦賮乇丕賳爻賴禄 倬丕 亘诏乇賮鬲賴 亘賵丿貨 芦乇賵賱丕賳 亘丕乇鬲禄貙 丕夭 亘乇噩爻鬲賴鈥� 鬲乇蹖賳 卮丕乇丨丕賳 芦倬爻鬲 賲丿乇賳蹖爻賲禄貙 亘賴 賵蹖跇賴 丿乇 丨賵夭賴 賴賳乇 賵 丕丿亘蹖丕鬲貙 賴賲丕乇賴 亘賴 胤乇夭 丕睾乇丕賯鈥� 丌賲蹖夭蹖貙 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥屬囏й� 芦丌賱賳 乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴禄 乇丕 賲蹖鈥屫池堌嗀� 芦乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴禄 丕夭 乇丕賵蹖鬲 芦乇卅丕賱 丿丕賳丕蹖 讴賱禄貙 丌賳 趩賳丕賳鈥屭┵� 丿乇 丌孬丕乇 芦亘丕賱夭丕讴禄 亘賴 趩卮賲 賲蹖鈥屫③屫� 倬乇賴蹖夭 賲蹖鈥屭┴必嗀� 賵 亘丕 鬲賵氐蹖賮 噩夭卅蹖丕鬲貙 賵 禺賵丿丿丕乇蹖 丕夭 亘讴丕乇诏蹖乇蹖 氐賮鬲貙 亘賴 芦诏賵爻鬲丕賵 賮賱賵亘乇禄 賳夭丿蹖讴 賲蹖鈥屫簇嗀� 乇賵卮 丕蹖卮丕賳貙 丿乇 亘賴乇賴鈥� 诏蹖乇蹖 丕夭 鬲賱賮蹖賯 乇丐蹖丕 賵 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲貙 賵 丿乇 賴賲 乇蹖禺鬲賳 禺胤 胤賵賱蹖 夭賲丕賳貙 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥屬囏й� 芦賲丕乇爻賱 倬乇賵爻鬲禄 乇丕 亘賴 蹖丕丿 禺賵丕賳卮诏乇 賲蹖鈥屫①堌必�
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 07/08/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
Alain Robbe-Grillet is internationally hailed as the chief spokesman for the noveau roman and one of the great novelists of the 20th century.
The Erasers, his first novel, reads like a detective story but is primarily concerned with weaving and then probing a complete mixture of fact and fantasy.
The narrative spans the twenty-four-hour period following a series of eight murders in eight days, presumably the work of a terrorist group. After the ninth murder, the investigation is turned over to a police agent, who may in fact be the assassin. Both an engrossing mystery and a sinister deconstruction of reality, The Erasers intrigues and unnerves with equal force as it pull us along to its ominous conclusion.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 丿賵賲 賲丕賴 賲丕乇爻 爻丕賱 2003賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 倬丕讴 讴賳 賴丕貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 丌賱賳 乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 倬乇賵蹖夭 卮賴丿蹖貨 賲卮禺氐丕鬲 賳卮乇 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳卮乇 丿卮鬲爻鬲丕賳貨 1379貙 丿乇 336氐貙 卮丕亘讴: 9649285210貨 賲賵囟賵毓: 丿丕爻鬲丕賳賴丕蹖 賮乇丕賳爻賵蹖 - 爻丿賴 20賲
趩丕倬 丿蹖诏乇 賴賲蹖賳 毓賳賵丕賳: 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳爻賱 丌賮鬲丕亘貙 1389貙 丿乇 344氐貙 卮丕亘讴 9786005847291貨
丌賱賳貙 丕蹖賳 乇賲丕賳 禺賵蹖卮 乇丕貙 丿乇 爻丕賱 1951賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 亘賳诏丕卮鬲賴 丕爻鬲貨 芦乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴禄 丕夭 趩賴乇賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 噩賳亘卮 丕丿亘蹖 賵 賴賳乇蹖 乇賲丕賳 賳賵貙 蹖丕 賲賵噩 賳賵貙 亘賵丿賳丿貙 讴賴 丿乇 丿賴賴 爻 1960賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貙 賴蹖丕賴賵蹖 亘爻蹖丕乇蹖 亘賴 倬丕 讴乇丿賳丿貨 芦乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴禄 丕夭 賳馗乇 丕賳丿蹖卮賴 亘賴 賮賱丕爻賮賴 蹖 芦丌賱賲丕賳蹖禄貙 亘賴 賵蹖跇賴 亘賴 芦賴丕蹖丿诏乇禄 賵 爻亘讴 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 倬乇丿丕夭蹖 芦讴丕賮讴丕禄貙 诏乇丕蹖卮 丿丕卮鬲賳丿貙 賵 丿蹖丿诏丕賴 丕蹖卮丕賳貙 亘丕 鬲賮丕賵鬲 賯丕卅賱 卮丿賳貙 賲蹖丕賳 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲 賵 乇卅丕賱貙 亘賴 丕蹖賳 賲毓賳蹖 讴賴 丿乇讴 乇卅丕賱蹖爻鬲蹖 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲貙 賳賲蹖鈥屫堌з嗀� 鬲賲丕賲蹖 丌賳 乇丕 亘蹖丕賳 讴賳丿貙 亘爻蹖丕乇 賳夭丿蹖讴 亘賴 噩乇蹖丕賳 賮賱爻賮蹖 芦倬爻鬲 賲丿乇賳蹖爻賲禄 賲蹖鈥屫簇� 讴賴 丿乇 賴賲丕賳 夭賲丕賳貙 丿乇 芦賮乇丕賳爻賴禄 倬丕 亘诏乇賮鬲賴 亘賵丿貨 芦乇賵賱丕賳 亘丕乇鬲禄貙 丕夭 亘乇噩爻鬲賴鈥� 鬲乇蹖賳 卮丕乇丨丕賳 芦倬爻鬲 賲丿乇賳蹖爻賲禄貙 亘賴 賵蹖跇賴 丿乇 丨賵夭賴 賴賳乇 賵 丕丿亘蹖丕鬲貙 賴賲丕乇賴 亘賴 胤乇夭 丕睾乇丕賯鈥� 丌賲蹖夭蹖貙 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥屬囏й� 芦丌賱賳 乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴禄 乇丕 賲蹖鈥屫池堌嗀� 芦乇亘 诏乇蹖 蹖賴禄 丕夭 乇丕賵蹖鬲 芦乇卅丕賱 丿丕賳丕蹖 讴賱禄貙 丌賳 趩賳丕賳鈥屭┵� 丿乇 丌孬丕乇 芦亘丕賱夭丕讴禄 亘賴 趩卮賲 賲蹖鈥屫③屫� 倬乇賴蹖夭 賲蹖鈥屭┴必嗀� 賵 亘丕 鬲賵氐蹖賮 噩夭卅蹖丕鬲貙 賵 禺賵丿丿丕乇蹖 丕夭 亘讴丕乇诏蹖乇蹖 氐賮鬲貙 亘賴 芦诏賵爻鬲丕賵 賮賱賵亘乇禄 賳夭丿蹖讴 賲蹖鈥屫簇嗀� 乇賵卮 丕蹖卮丕賳貙 丿乇 亘賴乇賴鈥� 诏蹖乇蹖 丕夭 鬲賱賮蹖賯 乇丐蹖丕 賵 賵丕賯毓蹖鬲貙 賵 丿乇 賴賲 乇蹖禺鬲賳 禺胤 胤賵賱蹖 夭賲丕賳貙 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥屬囏й� 芦賲丕乇爻賱 倬乇賵爻鬲禄 乇丕 亘賴 蹖丕丿 禺賵丕賳卮诏乇 賲蹖鈥屫①堌必�
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 07/08/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
August 26, 2017
Nine murders in nine days, one by one, every evening at seven-thirty. Sounds like a typical plot for a lurid, pulpy thriller鈥� instead, what you get is a mindbender of postmodern writing that turns conventional tropes of detective fiction upside down & becomes, at times, too smart for its own good.
Part thrilling, part annoying, the book explores a murder that
The same event is revisited several times, involving different characters, and reconstructing the crime scene from different angles. Using repetition, & mirroring devices, the text produces a disorienting effect & the numerous roads, canals, and bridges become a labyrinth in which the readers feel lost, much like the special agent investigating the crime.
The book boasts of high end literary influences like Sophocles, Borges, and Joyce. While the stylistic experiments are interesting, hardcore detective fiction fans; looking for a tightly-woven yarn, will be somewhat disappointed.
An awareness of Robbe-Grillets's theory of the New Novel, Por une Nouveau Roman (1963), would be helpful in appreciating this innovative work of fiction and so would a viewing of his cinematic masterpiece, Last Year at Marienbad. Chances are, if you loved that movie, you would be better prepared to tackle this book.
Here's an excerpt from Robbe-Grillet's Paris Review interview which is a kind of good explanation of this book :
INTERVIEWER
I would like to discuss certain recurrent themes in your work. For example, there are similarities between your books and detective novels. Is that a deliberate choice?
ROBBE-GRILLET
Do you know Borges鈥檚 preface to Adolfo Bioy Casares鈥檚 The Invention of Morel? In it, Borges maintains that all the great novels of the twentieth century are detective novels, and he mentions Henry James鈥檚 The Turn of the Screw, Faulkner鈥檚 Sanctuary, Kafka鈥檚 The Castle, and many others. Then he explains why. It seems that the structure of police investigation is very close to the technique of modern novels, in particular the non-resolved investigation, as in The Castle. The difference is that in the traditional detective novel there must be a solution, whereas in ours there is just the principle of investigation. Detective novels are consumer products, sold by millions, and are made in the following way: there are clues to an event, say a murder, and someone comes along and puts the the pieces together in order that truth may be revealed. Then it all makes sense. In our novels what is missing is 鈥渟ense.鈥� There is a constant appeal to sense, but it remains unfulfilled, because the pieces keep moving and shifting and when 鈥渟ense鈥� appears it is transitory. Therefore, what is important is not to discover the truth at the end of the investigation, but the process itself.
Part thrilling, part annoying, the book explores a murder that
The same event is revisited several times, involving different characters, and reconstructing the crime scene from different angles. Using repetition, & mirroring devices, the text produces a disorienting effect & the numerous roads, canals, and bridges become a labyrinth in which the readers feel lost, much like the special agent investigating the crime.
The book boasts of high end literary influences like Sophocles, Borges, and Joyce. While the stylistic experiments are interesting, hardcore detective fiction fans; looking for a tightly-woven yarn, will be somewhat disappointed.
An awareness of Robbe-Grillets's theory of the New Novel, Por une Nouveau Roman (1963), would be helpful in appreciating this innovative work of fiction and so would a viewing of his cinematic masterpiece, Last Year at Marienbad. Chances are, if you loved that movie, you would be better prepared to tackle this book.
Here's an excerpt from Robbe-Grillet's Paris Review interview which is a kind of good explanation of this book :
INTERVIEWER
I would like to discuss certain recurrent themes in your work. For example, there are similarities between your books and detective novels. Is that a deliberate choice?
ROBBE-GRILLET
Do you know Borges鈥檚 preface to Adolfo Bioy Casares鈥檚 The Invention of Morel? In it, Borges maintains that all the great novels of the twentieth century are detective novels, and he mentions Henry James鈥檚 The Turn of the Screw, Faulkner鈥檚 Sanctuary, Kafka鈥檚 The Castle, and many others. Then he explains why. It seems that the structure of police investigation is very close to the technique of modern novels, in particular the non-resolved investigation, as in The Castle. The difference is that in the traditional detective novel there must be a solution, whereas in ours there is just the principle of investigation. Detective novels are consumer products, sold by millions, and are made in the following way: there are clues to an event, say a murder, and someone comes along and puts the the pieces together in order that truth may be revealed. Then it all makes sense. In our novels what is missing is 鈥渟ense.鈥� There is a constant appeal to sense, but it remains unfulfilled, because the pieces keep moving and shifting and when 鈥渟ense鈥� appears it is transitory. Therefore, what is important is not to discover the truth at the end of the investigation, but the process itself.
March 16, 2022
Alain Robbe-Grillet鈥檇en okudu臒um ilk kitap, 莽ok farkl谋, 莽ok zekice yaz谋lm谋艧 bir polisiye-dedektiflik roman谋. Asl谋nda bana deneysel bir roman gibi geldi, ger莽ek polisiyelerdeki gibi bir olay etraf谋nda 枚r眉lm眉yor roman. Bir cinayet var ama su莽 olu艧mam谋艧, 枚ld眉r眉len biri var ama ki艧i hen眉z 枚lmemi艧, ger莽ek ile d眉艧sel kavramlar birbiri 眉zerinde kay谋yor, roman sonunda 眉st眉ste 莽ak谋艧谋yor.
T眉m olay tabancadan 莽谋kan kur艧unun 24 saat sonra amac谋na ula艧mas谋 眉zerine kurgulanm谋艧. Kurgular o kadar 莽ok ki beyin jimnasti臒ini ka莽谋n谋lmaz k谋l谋yor. A. Robbe-Grillet tan谋mlama ustas谋, mekanlar谋, nesneleri, ki艧ileri m眉kemmel betimliyor. Zaman kavram谋n谋 e臒ip b眉k眉yor, geri d枚n眉艧ler, d枚n眉艧 i莽indeki tekrar ba艧a d枚n眉艧ler ba艧 d枚nd眉r眉c眉 g眉zellikte. Yeni-modern roman yazar谋ndan yeni bir tarz polisiye okumak hem keyif verdi hem de polisiye ile aramdaki buzlar谋 eritti diyebilirim.
Kitab谋 okuduktan sonra l眉tfen a艧a臒谋daki 鈥淣evcihan鈥澞眓 yorumunu okuyun, kitap 莽ok daha iyi oturacakt谋r zihninizde.
/review/show...
T眉m olay tabancadan 莽谋kan kur艧unun 24 saat sonra amac谋na ula艧mas谋 眉zerine kurgulanm谋艧. Kurgular o kadar 莽ok ki beyin jimnasti臒ini ka莽谋n谋lmaz k谋l谋yor. A. Robbe-Grillet tan谋mlama ustas谋, mekanlar谋, nesneleri, ki艧ileri m眉kemmel betimliyor. Zaman kavram谋n谋 e臒ip b眉k眉yor, geri d枚n眉艧ler, d枚n眉艧 i莽indeki tekrar ba艧a d枚n眉艧ler ba艧 d枚nd眉r眉c眉 g眉zellikte. Yeni-modern roman yazar谋ndan yeni bir tarz polisiye okumak hem keyif verdi hem de polisiye ile aramdaki buzlar谋 eritti diyebilirim.
Kitab谋 okuduktan sonra l眉tfen a艧a臒谋daki 鈥淣evcihan鈥澞眓 yorumunu okuyun, kitap 莽ok daha iyi oturacakt谋r zihninizde.
/review/show...
June 12, 2018
听
Nightmare Noir
The noir mood is familiar to anyone who has read one of the Inspector Maigret novels of Georges Simenon. The bleary-eyed proprietor of a small bar in a French provincial town gets up at dawn to take the chairs from off the tables and wipe their stained marble tops; he is almost sleep-walking. Eventually, the waiter arrives, excitedly carrying the morning paper. There has been a murder in the very next street.
Or has there? There seems to be some discrepancy as to the victim's name: Daniel Dupont, a reclusive professor, or Albert Dupont, a shipping merchant? Also some doubt as to whether the was killed or merely wounded. And what has become of the body? Wallas, the stranger who arrived the previous night to rent a room, may have something to do with it, but he has gone out before dawn. We see him wandering through the town in the early hours, heading down endless grey streets from the docks to the city center, but taking for ever to get there. From time to time in the book, he will go into a shop to buy an eraser, but can never find the one he wants. Time and space seem entirely fluid; characters morph from one into another; the only thing tying the story down is an obsessive cataloguing of small detail. [As I read this in French, I will give all quotations both in the originals and my own translations; open whichever version you want.]
My first reaction on reading this, as I said, was to look back to Georges Simenon. But almost immediately after came another one, to look forward to Patrick Modiano. Modiano was still a child, of course, when this was written, but he would surely have grown up reading noir novels as a boy, and so have been interested in Robbe-Grillet's repurposing of them when he began to think of becoming a writer himself. There is no great surprise that both authors should have chosen to write against the same tradition. What struck me is how many of the techniques of the nouveau roman Modiano also inherited. Those obsessive lists, for example: just think of Modiano's catalogs of place names, or people, or books. That wandering through the back streets of a city. That fluid sense of identity. Both authors are existential, questioning the nature of being. But while Modiano's references all point outwards to the real world鈥攕treets you can find on a map, people who actually existed, his own family history鈥擱obbe-Grillet's all turn inwards and lose themselves in the pages of his book. Which, for me, makes Modiano the greater writer.
[The photographs (both of Paris, however) are by Ren茅-Jacques: Caf茅 des vents (1947) and Montmartre (1970).]
Nightmare Noir
The noir mood is familiar to anyone who has read one of the Inspector Maigret novels of Georges Simenon. The bleary-eyed proprietor of a small bar in a French provincial town gets up at dawn to take the chairs from off the tables and wipe their stained marble tops; he is almost sleep-walking. Eventually, the waiter arrives, excitedly carrying the morning paper. There has been a murder in the very next street.
Or has there? There seems to be some discrepancy as to the victim's name: Daniel Dupont, a reclusive professor, or Albert Dupont, a shipping merchant? Also some doubt as to whether the was killed or merely wounded. And what has become of the body? Wallas, the stranger who arrived the previous night to rent a room, may have something to do with it, but he has gone out before dawn. We see him wandering through the town in the early hours, heading down endless grey streets from the docks to the city center, but taking for ever to get there. From time to time in the book, he will go into a shop to buy an eraser, but can never find the one he wants. Time and space seem entirely fluid; characters morph from one into another; the only thing tying the story down is an obsessive cataloguing of small detail. [As I read this in French, I will give all quotations both in the originals and my own translations; open whichever version you want.]
French:This, of course, is Alain Robbe-Grillet, the screenwriter of Last Year at Marienbad, writing in 1953; Les gommes (The Erasers) was his first novel, and the combination of detailed visual description and vagueness in most other respects is a hallmark of the nouveau roman, which he virtually invented. That staircase will come back in the book again and again, in different contexts, often mutually contradictory. The entire novel is a web of simple acts and shape-shifting repetitions. Robbe-Grillet takes the conventions of the policier or French detective novel and turns them on their head. You might think that the genre is a model of logical deduction, a chain of clues leading to the inevitable denouement. But this is where Robbe-Grillet goes his own way. Wallas, who turns out to be a detective, realizes that he may be investigating a murder that has not yet taken place. And where's the mystery? Quite early on, we meet the man who shot Daniel (or was it Albert?) Dupont, we meet his boss, we meet the local chief of police who does not even bother to investigate, but we do not know how all these fit together. The more solutions we find, the more the mystery deepens. The d茅j脿 vu quality begins to extend beyond the novel itself. That drunkard in a raincoat who keeps on turning up to ask meaningless riddles ("What is the animal that is black, that steals, and has six feet?"), where have we seen him before? Perhaps in Oedipus鈥�?
English:
French:
English:
My first reaction on reading this, as I said, was to look back to Georges Simenon. But almost immediately after came another one, to look forward to Patrick Modiano. Modiano was still a child, of course, when this was written, but he would surely have grown up reading noir novels as a boy, and so have been interested in Robbe-Grillet's repurposing of them when he began to think of becoming a writer himself. There is no great surprise that both authors should have chosen to write against the same tradition. What struck me is how many of the techniques of the nouveau roman Modiano also inherited. Those obsessive lists, for example: just think of Modiano's catalogs of place names, or people, or books. That wandering through the back streets of a city. That fluid sense of identity. Both authors are existential, questioning the nature of being. But while Modiano's references all point outwards to the real world鈥攕treets you can find on a map, people who actually existed, his own family history鈥擱obbe-Grillet's all turn inwards and lose themselves in the pages of his book. Which, for me, makes Modiano the greater writer.
[The photographs (both of Paris, however) are by Ren茅-Jacques: Caf茅 des vents (1947) and Montmartre (1970).]
June 28, 2023
This is certainly an enigmatic book, not at all what one would expect from a detective story and requiring (in my view) at least 2 re-reads. Robbe-Grillet seems to be playing games with the reader and leading him/her up several garden paths. Although theoretically the protagonist appears to be investigating a murder (which may or may not have taken place), he may also be living out a 'modern' version of the Oedipus myth. The plot, if it may be called that, keeps the reader's attention while the lengthy descriptions introduce us to one of the most famous aspects of the nouveau roman of the 1950s. I would not recommend this to a reader wanting a traditional detective story but I did enjoy it and would consider reading more of Robbe-Grillet's work.
July 5, 2020
Robbe-Grillet isn't known for his storytelling prowess, but THE ERASERS offers an intricately plotted and satisfying inversion of the traditional detective narrative. Every clue, false lead, and theory builds throughout the final chapter, generating an unusual sense of suspense, culminating in the elegant revelation of the final pages.
There's also his trademark use of repetitions, detailed descriptions, submerged psychology, and objects which stand in for emotion -- his style appears here basically fully formed. In the shifting perspectives and overlaid version of the Oedipus myth, you can also spot the influence of Joyce, albeit in a hardboiled register. A remarkable debut novel.
4.5 stars
There's also his trademark use of repetitions, detailed descriptions, submerged psychology, and objects which stand in for emotion -- his style appears here basically fully formed. In the shifting perspectives and overlaid version of the Oedipus myth, you can also spot the influence of Joyce, albeit in a hardboiled register. A remarkable debut novel.
4.5 stars
July 31, 2007
The only time I was ever smart was reading this book in grad school. I cracked it, and the rest of my class thought I was nuts. Then, good ol' Dicky Dillard said, "Even Harold Bloom didn't get it at first."
I've since gone back to being dumb.
I've since gone back to being dumb.
July 22, 2019
Silah patlad谋 m谋? 陌艧lendi臒i s枚ylenen ama ortada olmayan bir su莽, d眉臒眉m眉 莽枚zmeye gelen ama hep 鈥渒aybolan鈥� bir dedektif... Bu roman谋 su莽, adalet, yasa kavramlar谋n谋n nas谋l bir oyun 枚rg眉s眉 i莽inde bir araya getirildi臒ini sorgulayarak okuyor insan.
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January 4, 2021Rob-Grije je danas poznat pre svega po tome 拧to je pisao scenario za remekdelo "Pro拧le godine u Marijenbadu" i po tome 拧to je glavni predstavnik francuskog novog romana. "Gumice" su njegovo rano delo i dosta dobar primer toga 拧ta novi roman jeste, 拧ta je u njemu ta膷no novo i zanimljivo a 拧ta beskrajno prevazi膽eno i, da se ne la啪emo, smrtno dosadno.
Naime, kad se prepri膷a, ovaj roman deluje fascinantno: dok se probijamo kroz matricu detektivskog romana koji se odvija u sivom francuskom gradi膰u, lagano popu拧taju uzro膷no-posledi膷ne veze, hronologija se sistemati膷no zamu膰uje, a odasvud iska膷u vizuelni i semanti膷ki nagove拧taji koji upu膰uju na pri膷u o Edipu, i sve se to postepeno ukr拧ta dok se u finalu ne odigra jo拧 jedna repriza Edipovog oceubistva - i kao 拧to Edip poku拧ava da prona膽e Lajevog ubicu, tako i ovde mladi detektiv koji istra啪uje ubistvo zapravo hrli ka njegovom izvr拧enju.
ME膼UTIM. Sve je to napisano mrtva膷ki i monotono. Jeste svaka kockica uglavljena gde treba, a svaki smara膷ki repetetivni opis funkcionalan kao deo celine. Ali, naprosto, nema Alena Renea da od toga napravi hipnoti膷ki i prelep film nego ostanemo na jednom mlakom pasti拧u Edgara Valasa za intelektualce (ba拧 Valasa jer je i ime detektiva mali oma啪 u tom smeru).
Naime, kad se prepri膷a, ovaj roman deluje fascinantno: dok se probijamo kroz matricu detektivskog romana koji se odvija u sivom francuskom gradi膰u, lagano popu拧taju uzro膷no-posledi膷ne veze, hronologija se sistemati膷no zamu膰uje, a odasvud iska膷u vizuelni i semanti膷ki nagove拧taji koji upu膰uju na pri膷u o Edipu, i sve se to postepeno ukr拧ta dok se u finalu ne odigra jo拧 jedna repriza Edipovog oceubistva - i kao 拧to Edip poku拧ava da prona膽e Lajevog ubicu, tako i ovde mladi detektiv koji istra啪uje ubistvo zapravo hrli ka njegovom izvr拧enju.
ME膼UTIM. Sve je to napisano mrtva膷ki i monotono. Jeste svaka kockica uglavljena gde treba, a svaki smara膷ki repetetivni opis funkcionalan kao deo celine. Ali, naprosto, nema Alena Renea da od toga napravi hipnoti膷ki i prelep film nego ostanemo na jednom mlakom pasti拧u Edgara Valasa za intelektualce (ba拧 Valasa jer je i ime detektiva mali oma啪 u tom smeru).
September 20, 2010
Robbe-Grillet in noir-est noir form for his first published novel. Even in a story of detection and murder, of course, his prose is highly subjective and filled with ambiguous repetition of detail. These tendencies were mostly early in their arc of development at this point, though, meaning the clearest plotting of anything I've read from him, but also less of that rarefied aesthetic atmosphere that continually permeated his work thereafter. It reads like Robbe-Grillet, but doesn't entirely feel like him. And it is the feeling he creates, so hard to describe but so strangely magnetic, which seems his strongest point. Still, this was often fascinating in its own right.
February 9, 2024
This was even better than I expected. A detective arrives in town to investigate what has been reported as a murder. He's trying to work out not only who might have done it but even if the murder occurred at all.
Confusion is piled on confusion as we get lost in a labyrinth of possibilities.
What pleasantly surprised me was that the novel has quite a satisfying (at least for me) conclusion
Confusion is piled on confusion as we get lost in a labyrinth of possibilities.
What pleasantly surprised me was that the novel has quite a satisfying (at least for me) conclusion
November 23, 2024
La experimentaci贸n formal en literatura ni me arredra ni me disgusta, pero hay circunstancias vitales en que se indigesta, en que la capacidad intelectual de un servidor, de por s铆 no muy sobresaliente, ni est谩 dispuesta al disfrute. Porque con la experimentaci贸n o con el exceso no emociona el coraz贸n, sino que acaricia las circunvoluciones cerebrales; no seduce, no emociona, sino que provoca admiraci贸n y respeto. Con esto quiero decir que entiendo la propuesta de Alain Robbe-Grillet, y que en otro momento la hubiera aprehendido y disfrutado como toca, a saber, frente al hogar, mi copa de bal贸n llena de brandy, embozado en mi bat铆n y zapatillas mullidas y con la mano acariciando mi mast铆n.
Las gomas es una novela policiaca que juega con el lector. Un ciudadano ilustre de la ciudad, Dupont ha sido asesinado, o no, por una asociaci贸n terrorista secreta. El encargado de la investigaci贸n ser谩 el inspector Wallas, que nunca ha estado en la ciudad y que ha ingresado en una brigada contraterrorista, tambi茅n secreta, en la que sus hombres son seleccionados atendiendo a un exhaustivo an谩lisis frenol贸gico. Cuando inicia las pesquisas descubrir谩 que nadie sabe qu茅 fue de Dupont: si fue v铆ctima de un asalto en su domicilio, si lo mataron durante el asalto o solo lo hirieron; si el m茅dico que acudi贸 a su llamada lo auxili贸, certific贸 la muerte o lo ayud贸 a desaparecer; si existe realmente una organizaci贸n que atenta contra determinados ciudadanos o es un delirio del cuerpo de polic铆a franc茅s; si el comisario encargado del caso sabe realmente qu茅 le ocurri贸 a Dupont o su paradero o el de su cadaver, si sospecha de dicha organizaci贸n o de Wallas, convertido de pronto en sospechoso pues, inexplicablemente, en el cargador de su pistola falta una bala. Las gomas es una novela que se construye sobre todas estas posibilidades, que se dan todas a la vez y que ninguna es completamente falsa. Ese es el juego que nos propone Robbe-Grillet: un laberinto.
Normal que esta novela sedujera a muchos escritores. Lo que no es tan normal es que no conectara conmigo, y dudo que fuera por completo culpa de la novela o el autor y s铆 que fuera por culpa m铆a. Quiz谩, con los a帽os, vuelva a ella, m谩s experimentado y m谩s viejo, que no m谩s inteligente ni m谩s sabio, y pueda entrar en ese laberinto sin sentirme desorientado todo el rato.
Las gomas es una novela policiaca que juega con el lector. Un ciudadano ilustre de la ciudad, Dupont ha sido asesinado, o no, por una asociaci贸n terrorista secreta. El encargado de la investigaci贸n ser谩 el inspector Wallas, que nunca ha estado en la ciudad y que ha ingresado en una brigada contraterrorista, tambi茅n secreta, en la que sus hombres son seleccionados atendiendo a un exhaustivo an谩lisis frenol贸gico. Cuando inicia las pesquisas descubrir谩 que nadie sabe qu茅 fue de Dupont: si fue v铆ctima de un asalto en su domicilio, si lo mataron durante el asalto o solo lo hirieron; si el m茅dico que acudi贸 a su llamada lo auxili贸, certific贸 la muerte o lo ayud贸 a desaparecer; si existe realmente una organizaci贸n que atenta contra determinados ciudadanos o es un delirio del cuerpo de polic铆a franc茅s; si el comisario encargado del caso sabe realmente qu茅 le ocurri贸 a Dupont o su paradero o el de su cadaver, si sospecha de dicha organizaci贸n o de Wallas, convertido de pronto en sospechoso pues, inexplicablemente, en el cargador de su pistola falta una bala. Las gomas es una novela que se construye sobre todas estas posibilidades, que se dan todas a la vez y que ninguna es completamente falsa. Ese es el juego que nos propone Robbe-Grillet: un laberinto.
Normal que esta novela sedujera a muchos escritores. Lo que no es tan normal es que no conectara conmigo, y dudo que fuera por completo culpa de la novela o el autor y s铆 que fuera por culpa m铆a. Quiz谩, con los a帽os, vuelva a ella, m谩s experimentado y m谩s viejo, que no m谩s inteligente ni m谩s sabio, y pueda entrar en ese laberinto sin sentirme desorientado todo el rato.
July 6, 2019
Such a brand new experience! This was the most unusual novel I could think of! At some point you realize it's an adaptation of Oedipus Rex but then everything is so weird in it. It's a story that unfolds in 24 hours, plus a bit of flashbacks, so... pretty aristotelean! Then you see this whole bunch of telling and retelling and re-retelling where on each occasion the narrative is partially different. I have been reading this book beside another one which is a series of speeches by Alain Robbe Grillet and his takes on the Nouveau Roman and how it started and how it evolved; this was really helpful and I definitely suggest if you have not had any "training" on this sort of literature, try to read or listen to Robbe Grillet's reasoning about it and how, for example, the French novel from Balzac evolved into Flaubert, out of whom Nouveau Roman was constructed! Tgere are peculiarities that you need to get used to and at the beginning they seem a bit boring!
The goal in my opinion, is to demolish the reliability of an omnisapient narrator who tells you everything and you follow them blindly! The narrator in this book says things over and over, 24 hours in around 330 pages, and they vary each time! This could actually be very interesting from a husserlian point of view, we remember things differently each time because everytime we remember them we are basically a different person and we are looking at what we remember from a different perspective... So remembering is an act of present, not of past...
Plus: some memories in the book are told using past verbs, then retold using present verbs! This is so weird!!
The main issue that drives the book, in this case: a murder, is neither solved and nor has it even occurred... And the reader comes to know this fact pretty early! Robbe Grillet has made movies too and although he used to say when there was an idea in his mind he would immediately know whether it was a book or a movie, this book seemed very movie-like to me... Definitely a great reading, and reading it in French made it even greater!
The goal in my opinion, is to demolish the reliability of an omnisapient narrator who tells you everything and you follow them blindly! The narrator in this book says things over and over, 24 hours in around 330 pages, and they vary each time! This could actually be very interesting from a husserlian point of view, we remember things differently each time because everytime we remember them we are basically a different person and we are looking at what we remember from a different perspective... So remembering is an act of present, not of past...
Plus: some memories in the book are told using past verbs, then retold using present verbs! This is so weird!!
The main issue that drives the book, in this case: a murder, is neither solved and nor has it even occurred... And the reader comes to know this fact pretty early! Robbe Grillet has made movies too and although he used to say when there was an idea in his mind he would immediately know whether it was a book or a movie, this book seemed very movie-like to me... Definitely a great reading, and reading it in French made it even greater!
June 6, 2013
I began reading this book three years ago, read about 75% of it, then I had to put it aside when I started grad school. I recently picked it up again and started from the beginning once more. I'm pretty sure that this was the best way to read this book. It is a time and thought consuming read and you will benefit by re-reading parts or all of it. Read, repeat, read, repeat.
This book is a bumbling comedic novel layered in a dark, mysterious tone. As I came to the end of the book I laughed at loud as I realized what was unfolding.
Includes on of the best descriptions of a tomato I have read.
I think this would make a really great dark comedy movie.
This book is a bumbling comedic novel layered in a dark, mysterious tone. As I came to the end of the book I laughed at loud as I realized what was unfolding.
Includes on of the best descriptions of a tomato I have read.
I think this would make a really great dark comedy movie.
March 27, 2008
Allain Robbe-Grillet is one of those writers one either gets or not gets. Care or not care. I care, but do i get? I don't know, but I do enjoy his writings and it brings me back to a time when you can get experimental fiction published by a big publishing house at your local bookstore. Things are a tad different these days...
So what we have here is a thriller of sorts. The subjectivity erased out of the narration. An interesting read, and everyone should read Robbe-Grillet at least once.
So what we have here is a thriller of sorts. The subjectivity erased out of the narration. An interesting read, and everyone should read Robbe-Grillet at least once.
July 15, 2024
螣 未慰位慰蠁蠈谓慰蟼, 蟿慰 胃蠉渭伪 蟿慰蠀, 慰 蔚蟺喂胃蔚蠅蟻萎蟿畏蟼 蟿慰蠀 蔚纬魏位萎渭伪蟿慰蟼 魏伪喂 慰 蟺蟻慰喂蟽蟿维渭蔚谓慰蟼 蟿慰蠀.
螌蟿伪谓 蟺萎纬伪 蟺蟻蠈蟽蠁伪蟿伪 蟽蔚 苇谓伪 伪蟺慰 蟿伪 伪纬伪蟺畏渭苇谓伪 渭慰蠀 渭喂魏蟻维 尾喂尾位喂慰蟺蠅位蔚委伪 蟿慰蠀 螞慰谓未委谓慰蠀 魏伪喂 魏伪胃蠋蟼 魏慰喂蟿慰蠉蟽伪 蟿伪 蟻维蠁喂伪 纬喂伪 谓伪 未蠋 蟿喂 胃伪 蟺维蟻蠅, 蔚委未伪 蟽蔚 蟺蔚蟻委慰蟺蟿畏 胃苇蟽畏 蟿慰 The Erasers 蟿慰蠀 Alain Robbe-Grillet. 螔位苇蟺慰谓蟿伪蟼 蟿委蟿位慰 魏伪喂 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪, 蟽魏苇蠁蟿畏魏伪 蟺蠅蟼 渭慰蠀 蔚委谓伪喂 纬谓蠅蟽蟿维 魏伪喂 伪蠁蠈蟿慰蠀 蟿蟽苇魏伪蟻伪 蟿喂蟼 位委蟽蟿蔚蟼 渭慰蠀 蔚委未伪 蟺蠅蟼 蠈谓蟿蠅蟼 蟿慰 蔚委蠂伪 尾维位蔚喂 蟽蟿畏 位委蟽蟿伪. 螒纬谓慰慰蠉蟽伪 蠈渭蠅蟼 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委蠂蔚 尾纬蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟽蔚 伪纬纬位喂魏萎 苇魏未慰蟽畏. 螌蟿伪谓 蟺萎纬伪 谓伪 蟺位畏蟻蠋蟽蠅 渭慰蠀 蔚委蟺蔚 慰 蟿伪渭委伪蟼 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 魏伪位蠈 尾喂尾位委慰 魏伪喂 蠂伪委蟻蔚蟿伪喂 蟺慰蠀 蔚蟺喂蟿苇位慰蠀蟼 胃伪 尾蟻蔚喂 魏维蟺慰喂伪 魏伪喂谓慰蠉蟻纬喂伪 蟽蟿苇纬畏, 魏伪胃蠋蟼 蟿慰 蔚委蠂蔚 魏伪喂蟻蠈 蔚魏蔚委 渭蟺蟻慰蟽蟿维, 伪位位维 魏伪谓蔚委蟼 未蔚谓 蟿慰 苇蟺伪喂蟻谓蔚.
韦慰 尾喂尾位委慰 伪蠁慰蟻维 蟿畏谓 蔚尉喂蠂谓委伪蟽畏 渭喂伪蟼 蟽蔚喂蟻维蟼 未慰位慰蠁慰谓喂蠋谓 渭蔚 蔚蟺委魏蔚谓蟿蟻慰 蟿喂蟼 蟿蔚位蔚蠀蟿伪委蔚蟼 24 蠋蟻蔚蟼 伪蟺慰 蟿畏谓 未慰位慰蠁慰谓委伪 蟿慰蠀 蟿蔚位蔚蠀蟿伪委慰蠀 胃蠉渭伪蟿慰蟼. 桅伪喂谓慰渭蔚谓喂魏维, 蟺蟻蠈魏蔚喂蟿伪喂 纬喂伪 蟿慰 苇蟻纬慰 渭喂伪蟼 蟺慰位喂蟿喂魏萎蟼 蟿蟻慰渭慰魏蟻伪蟿喂魏萎蟼 慰蟻纬维谓蠅蟽畏蟼, 蟺慰蠀 蟽魏慰蟺蔚蠉蔚喂 蟽蟿慰 谓伪 蔚尉慰谓蟿蠋蟽蔚喂 蟽畏渭伪委谓慰谓蟿伪 蟺蟻蠈蟽蠅蟺伪 蟿畏蟼 维蟻蠂慰蠀蟽伪蟼 蟿维尉畏蟼(;). 危蟿畏谓 渭喂魏蟻萎 蟺蠈位畏 蠈蟺慰蠀 位伪渭尾维谓蔚喂 蠂蠋蟻伪 畏 蟺喂慰 蟺蟻蠈蟽蠁伪蟿畏 未慰位慰蠁慰谓委伪 蟽蟺蔚蠉未蔚喂 慰 渭蠀蟽蟿喂魏蠈蟼 蟺蟻维魏蟿慰蟻伪蟼 螕慰蠀维位伪蟼 纬喂伪 谓伪 未喂蔚蠀蟻蔚谓萎蟽蔚喂 蟿畏谓 蠀蟺蠈胃蔚蟽畏.
螡伪喂, 蔚委谓伪喂 渭喂伪 伪蟺位萎 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委伪 委蟽蠅蟼 魏伪喂 蟿蔚蟿蟻喂渭渭苇谓畏, 渭喂伪蟼 魏伪喂 蟿慰 尾喂尾位委慰 纬蟻维蠁蟿畏魏蔚 蟿慰 1953. 螒位位维 蠈蟿喂 蔚谓未蔚蠂慰渭苇谓蠅蟼 蠂维谓蔚喂 蟽蔚 蟺位慰魏萎 蟿慰 魏蔚蟻未委味蔚喂 蟽蟿伪 蠀蟺蠈位慰喂蟺伪 蟽蟿慰喂蠂蔚委伪 蟿慰蠀: 蟽蟿蠀位, 蠉蠁慰蟼, 魏伪喂 未慰渭萎 蠈位伪 位蔚喂蟿慰蠀蟻纬慰蠉谓 蟽蟿慰 谓伪 渭蟺蔚蟻未苇蠄慰蠀谓 蟿慰 蟺蟻伪纬渭伪蟿喂魏蠈 渭蔚 蟿慰 蠁伪谓蟿伪蟽蟿喂魏蠈 魏伪喂 谓伪 未畏渭喂慰蠀蟻纬萎蟽慰蠀谓 伪渭蠁喂尾慰位委蔚蟼 纬喂伪 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 未喂伪尾维味慰蠀渭蔚. 螚 蠂蟻慰谓喂魏萎 伪谓伪魏伪蟿伪谓慰渭萎 蟿蠅谓 纬蔚纬慰谓蠈蟿蠅谓, 慰喂 伪蟺蠈蟿慰渭蔚蟼 蔚谓伪位位伪纬苇蟼 魏伪喂 苇谓伪 伪蟻魏蔚蟿维 未蠀谓伪蟿蠈 蠁喂谓维位蔚 未委谓慰蠀谓 渭喂伪 蟺慰位蠉 蠅蟻伪委伪 伪谓蟿委位畏蠄畏 纬喂伪 蟿慰 蟿喂 渭蟺慰蟻蔚委 谓伪 蔚委谓伪喂 蟿慰 谓慰蠀维蟻. 螔维蟽蔚喂 蟿蠅谓 位委纬蠅谓 蟺蟻伪纬渭维蟿蠅谓 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂蠅 未喂伪尾维蟽蔚喂 蟿慰 尾喂尾位委慰 胃蔚蠅蟻蔚委蟿伪喂 伪蟻魏蔚蟿维 蔚蟺喂未蟻伪蟽蟿喂魏蠈 蟽蟿畏 螕伪位位委伪, 魏伪胃蠋蟼 苇蠂蔚喂 蟺慰位位维 蟽蟿慰喂蠂蔚委伪 蟿伪 慰蟺慰委伪 蠂蟻畏蟽喂渭慰蟺慰委畏蟽蔚 畏 Nouvelle Vague 蟽蟿慰谓 魏喂谓畏渭伪蟿慰纬蟻维蠁慰 渭蔚蟻喂魏维 蠂蟻蠈谓喂伪 伪蟻纬蠈蟿蔚蟻伪.
螌蟽慰 蟺蔚蟻谓维蔚喂 慰 魏伪喂蟻蠈蟼 蟿蠈蟽慰 蟺蔚蟻喂蟽蟽蠈蟿蔚蟻慰 渭慰蠀 伪蟻苇蟽蔚喂 蟿慰 纬伪位位喂魏蠈 蟺慰位喂蟿喂魏蠈 谓慰蠀维蟻. 螒蟼 蠈蠄蔚蟿伪喂 慰 螠蠅蟻委蟼 螁蟿蟿喂伪 蟺慰蠀 渭蔚 蔚喂蟽萎纬伪纬蔚 未蠀谓伪渭喂魏维 蟽蟿慰 蠂蠋蟻慰.
螌蟿伪谓 蟺萎纬伪 蟺蟻蠈蟽蠁伪蟿伪 蟽蔚 苇谓伪 伪蟺慰 蟿伪 伪纬伪蟺畏渭苇谓伪 渭慰蠀 渭喂魏蟻维 尾喂尾位喂慰蟺蠅位蔚委伪 蟿慰蠀 螞慰谓未委谓慰蠀 魏伪喂 魏伪胃蠋蟼 魏慰喂蟿慰蠉蟽伪 蟿伪 蟻维蠁喂伪 纬喂伪 谓伪 未蠋 蟿喂 胃伪 蟺维蟻蠅, 蔚委未伪 蟽蔚 蟺蔚蟻委慰蟺蟿畏 胃苇蟽畏 蟿慰 The Erasers 蟿慰蠀 Alain Robbe-Grillet. 螔位苇蟺慰谓蟿伪蟼 蟿委蟿位慰 魏伪喂 蟽蠀纬纬蟻伪蠁苇伪, 蟽魏苇蠁蟿畏魏伪 蟺蠅蟼 渭慰蠀 蔚委谓伪喂 纬谓蠅蟽蟿维 魏伪喂 伪蠁蠈蟿慰蠀 蟿蟽苇魏伪蟻伪 蟿喂蟼 位委蟽蟿蔚蟼 渭慰蠀 蔚委未伪 蟺蠅蟼 蠈谓蟿蠅蟼 蟿慰 蔚委蠂伪 尾维位蔚喂 蟽蟿畏 位委蟽蟿伪. 螒纬谓慰慰蠉蟽伪 蠈渭蠅蟼 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委蠂蔚 尾纬蔚喂 魏伪喂 蟽蔚 伪纬纬位喂魏萎 苇魏未慰蟽畏. 螌蟿伪谓 蟺萎纬伪 谓伪 蟺位畏蟻蠋蟽蠅 渭慰蠀 蔚委蟺蔚 慰 蟿伪渭委伪蟼 蟺蠅蟼 蔚委谓伪喂 魏伪位蠈 尾喂尾位委慰 魏伪喂 蠂伪委蟻蔚蟿伪喂 蟺慰蠀 蔚蟺喂蟿苇位慰蠀蟼 胃伪 尾蟻蔚喂 魏维蟺慰喂伪 魏伪喂谓慰蠉蟻纬喂伪 蟽蟿苇纬畏, 魏伪胃蠋蟼 蟿慰 蔚委蠂蔚 魏伪喂蟻蠈 蔚魏蔚委 渭蟺蟻慰蟽蟿维, 伪位位维 魏伪谓蔚委蟼 未蔚谓 蟿慰 苇蟺伪喂蟻谓蔚.
韦慰 尾喂尾位委慰 伪蠁慰蟻维 蟿畏谓 蔚尉喂蠂谓委伪蟽畏 渭喂伪蟼 蟽蔚喂蟻维蟼 未慰位慰蠁慰谓喂蠋谓 渭蔚 蔚蟺委魏蔚谓蟿蟻慰 蟿喂蟼 蟿蔚位蔚蠀蟿伪委蔚蟼 24 蠋蟻蔚蟼 伪蟺慰 蟿畏谓 未慰位慰蠁慰谓委伪 蟿慰蠀 蟿蔚位蔚蠀蟿伪委慰蠀 胃蠉渭伪蟿慰蟼. 桅伪喂谓慰渭蔚谓喂魏维, 蟺蟻蠈魏蔚喂蟿伪喂 纬喂伪 蟿慰 苇蟻纬慰 渭喂伪蟼 蟺慰位喂蟿喂魏萎蟼 蟿蟻慰渭慰魏蟻伪蟿喂魏萎蟼 慰蟻纬维谓蠅蟽畏蟼, 蟺慰蠀 蟽魏慰蟺蔚蠉蔚喂 蟽蟿慰 谓伪 蔚尉慰谓蟿蠋蟽蔚喂 蟽畏渭伪委谓慰谓蟿伪 蟺蟻蠈蟽蠅蟺伪 蟿畏蟼 维蟻蠂慰蠀蟽伪蟼 蟿维尉畏蟼(;). 危蟿畏谓 渭喂魏蟻萎 蟺蠈位畏 蠈蟺慰蠀 位伪渭尾维谓蔚喂 蠂蠋蟻伪 畏 蟺喂慰 蟺蟻蠈蟽蠁伪蟿畏 未慰位慰蠁慰谓委伪 蟽蟺蔚蠉未蔚喂 慰 渭蠀蟽蟿喂魏蠈蟼 蟺蟻维魏蟿慰蟻伪蟼 螕慰蠀维位伪蟼 纬喂伪 谓伪 未喂蔚蠀蟻蔚谓萎蟽蔚喂 蟿畏谓 蠀蟺蠈胃蔚蟽畏.
螡伪喂, 蔚委谓伪喂 渭喂伪 伪蟺位萎 喂蟽蟿慰蟻委伪 委蟽蠅蟼 魏伪喂 蟿蔚蟿蟻喂渭渭苇谓畏, 渭喂伪蟼 魏伪喂 蟿慰 尾喂尾位委慰 纬蟻维蠁蟿畏魏蔚 蟿慰 1953. 螒位位维 蠈蟿喂 蔚谓未蔚蠂慰渭苇谓蠅蟼 蠂维谓蔚喂 蟽蔚 蟺位慰魏萎 蟿慰 魏蔚蟻未委味蔚喂 蟽蟿伪 蠀蟺蠈位慰喂蟺伪 蟽蟿慰喂蠂蔚委伪 蟿慰蠀: 蟽蟿蠀位, 蠉蠁慰蟼, 魏伪喂 未慰渭萎 蠈位伪 位蔚喂蟿慰蠀蟻纬慰蠉谓 蟽蟿慰 谓伪 渭蟺蔚蟻未苇蠄慰蠀谓 蟿慰 蟺蟻伪纬渭伪蟿喂魏蠈 渭蔚 蟿慰 蠁伪谓蟿伪蟽蟿喂魏蠈 魏伪喂 谓伪 未畏渭喂慰蠀蟻纬萎蟽慰蠀谓 伪渭蠁喂尾慰位委蔚蟼 纬喂伪 伪蠀蟿蠈 蟺慰蠀 未喂伪尾维味慰蠀渭蔚. 螚 蠂蟻慰谓喂魏萎 伪谓伪魏伪蟿伪谓慰渭萎 蟿蠅谓 纬蔚纬慰谓蠈蟿蠅谓, 慰喂 伪蟺蠈蟿慰渭蔚蟼 蔚谓伪位位伪纬苇蟼 魏伪喂 苇谓伪 伪蟻魏蔚蟿维 未蠀谓伪蟿蠈 蠁喂谓维位蔚 未委谓慰蠀谓 渭喂伪 蟺慰位蠉 蠅蟻伪委伪 伪谓蟿委位畏蠄畏 纬喂伪 蟿慰 蟿喂 渭蟺慰蟻蔚委 谓伪 蔚委谓伪喂 蟿慰 谓慰蠀维蟻. 螔维蟽蔚喂 蟿蠅谓 位委纬蠅谓 蟺蟻伪纬渭维蟿蠅谓 蟺慰蠀 苇蠂蠅 未喂伪尾维蟽蔚喂 蟿慰 尾喂尾位委慰 胃蔚蠅蟻蔚委蟿伪喂 伪蟻魏蔚蟿维 蔚蟺喂未蟻伪蟽蟿喂魏蠈 蟽蟿畏 螕伪位位委伪, 魏伪胃蠋蟼 苇蠂蔚喂 蟺慰位位维 蟽蟿慰喂蠂蔚委伪 蟿伪 慰蟺慰委伪 蠂蟻畏蟽喂渭慰蟺慰委畏蟽蔚 畏 Nouvelle Vague 蟽蟿慰谓 魏喂谓畏渭伪蟿慰纬蟻维蠁慰 渭蔚蟻喂魏维 蠂蟻蠈谓喂伪 伪蟻纬蠈蟿蔚蟻伪.
螌蟽慰 蟺蔚蟻谓维蔚喂 慰 魏伪喂蟻蠈蟼 蟿蠈蟽慰 蟺蔚蟻喂蟽蟽蠈蟿蔚蟻慰 渭慰蠀 伪蟻苇蟽蔚喂 蟿慰 纬伪位位喂魏蠈 蟺慰位喂蟿喂魏蠈 谓慰蠀维蟻. 螒蟼 蠈蠄蔚蟿伪喂 慰 螠蠅蟻委蟼 螁蟿蟿喂伪 蟺慰蠀 渭蔚 蔚喂蟽萎纬伪纬蔚 未蠀谓伪渭喂魏维 蟽蟿慰 蠂蠋蟻慰.
March 2, 2012
For my full review, please visit .
Perhaps the most notable member of the group of experimental authors practicing the tenets of the Nouveau Roman (New Novel), Alain Robbe-Grillet's first novel is a fascinating, fun and frustrating murder mystery. It deals with a detective by the name of Wallas who is sent to an unnamed town to investigate the murder of Economics Professor Daniel Dupont. The murder is believed to be linked to a series of eight other murders occurring across the country over the past eight days, each at precisely 7:30 P.M. What's different about this particular murder is that there is no body, and moreover, unknown to Wallas but revealed early to the reader, is that Dupont is in fact not dead.
There are many wonderful aspects to this novel. The setting itself is incredibly well designed, and the nameless town becomes a familiar geography. Characters are colourful, at times comical and often pathetic, like the detective Wallas who is cursed with poor phrenological features which he suspects are linked to his constant failings, while he roams the streets almost at a loss as to how to investigate. The premise that his career is to be judged on the merits of whether or not he can solve a murder that never happened is masterful tragic irony. His fate is perfectly summed up by the fact that he regularly pauses in his investigations to search for a pencil eraser that he remembers well but that may not even exist. Erasers are plentiful throughout the novel, from the pencil erasers to more subtle suggestions, such as pervasive forgetfulness, changing or replacing facts and even actual events, along with the conspiracies that these nine murders were part of a series of hits conducted by hit-men, or "erasers."
The novel contains a number of recurring elements, from notions of duality to the idea that everything and everyone is mirrored. Wallas has an uncanny resemblance to the main suspect in this case, and is constantly being mistaken for that other, shadowy individual. People and objects have their twins and their alternates, as do events which are constantly repeating themselves. It is almost as though the novel is only one link from a never-ending cycle. The bar that opens and closes the novel is described as an aquarium, so that all its inhabitants are fish living in a glass bowl, swimming around in eternal circles.
Perhaps the most notable member of the group of experimental authors practicing the tenets of the Nouveau Roman (New Novel), Alain Robbe-Grillet's first novel is a fascinating, fun and frustrating murder mystery. It deals with a detective by the name of Wallas who is sent to an unnamed town to investigate the murder of Economics Professor Daniel Dupont. The murder is believed to be linked to a series of eight other murders occurring across the country over the past eight days, each at precisely 7:30 P.M. What's different about this particular murder is that there is no body, and moreover, unknown to Wallas but revealed early to the reader, is that Dupont is in fact not dead.
There are many wonderful aspects to this novel. The setting itself is incredibly well designed, and the nameless town becomes a familiar geography. Characters are colourful, at times comical and often pathetic, like the detective Wallas who is cursed with poor phrenological features which he suspects are linked to his constant failings, while he roams the streets almost at a loss as to how to investigate. The premise that his career is to be judged on the merits of whether or not he can solve a murder that never happened is masterful tragic irony. His fate is perfectly summed up by the fact that he regularly pauses in his investigations to search for a pencil eraser that he remembers well but that may not even exist. Erasers are plentiful throughout the novel, from the pencil erasers to more subtle suggestions, such as pervasive forgetfulness, changing or replacing facts and even actual events, along with the conspiracies that these nine murders were part of a series of hits conducted by hit-men, or "erasers."
The novel contains a number of recurring elements, from notions of duality to the idea that everything and everyone is mirrored. Wallas has an uncanny resemblance to the main suspect in this case, and is constantly being mistaken for that other, shadowy individual. People and objects have their twins and their alternates, as do events which are constantly repeating themselves. It is almost as though the novel is only one link from a never-ending cycle. The bar that opens and closes the novel is described as an aquarium, so that all its inhabitants are fish living in a glass bowl, swimming around in eternal circles.
October 14, 2024
The Erasers [1953] 鈥� 鈽呪槄鈽呪槄
French author Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922 鈥�2008) was one of the main proponents of the experimental Nouveau Roman (French New Novel) style in literature. In this book of his, translated from the French by Richard Howard, the story concerns special agent Wallas who arrives to one obscure Flemish town to investigate the murder of one Professor Dupont. He is only yet another one dead in the series of gruesome murders that have already been committed in town: 鈥渋n nine days, nine violent deaths have occurred one after another, of which at least six are definitely murders鈥� [Robbe-Grillet/Howard, 1953/64: 57]. One possible witness is Professor Dupont鈥檚 housekeeper Madame Smite, but she cannot provide any help. On the scene was also Doctor Juard, who took the victim, the wounded man, to the hospital where he allegedly died. Commissioner Laurent and Wallas have started a murder investigation, seeking an assassin, but was there even a murder? Was there even an assassin? Then, there emerges one horrifying and unbelievable possibility 鈥� did the guilty man himself [took] charge of the investigation? [1953/64: 200]. What is the truth? The Erasers is a mystery novel that constantly questions reality, offering multiple perspectives on the same situation. It is a refreshingly different, kaleidoscopic murder mystery that puts the absurdity and the ambiguity front and centre.
From the very first page, Robbe-Grillet takes an unusual approach in his story. It is set against a rather grim urban landscape of one industrial city. That small town atmosphere and hints of conspiracy and bigger drama lurking behind the quietness of country life are reminiscent of the work of Simenon, but the dreamy plot where events sometimes repeat themselves and come full circle seems to be the author鈥檚 own invention. In fact, The Erasers has been called a literary ouroboros (in mythology, this was a serpent that ate its own tail) because of the circular nature of the story.
Special Agent Wallas finds himself in some labyrinthic streets, often lost while trying to (unsuccessfully) buy very special erasers in newsagent鈥檚 shops. Questions upon questions pile up in his tricky investigation and soon names are dropped: Assassin Garinati, Merchant Marchant, some Group Leader Bona and Chief Fabius. Every character seems to have a hidden agenda, and Commissioner Laurent soon has plenty of versions of what might have happened to Professor Dupont, among which are a botched burglary, a murder by a terrorist organisation and a suicide. Strange witnesses emerge, including a man who pestered the supposed murderer just after or before the commission of his crime and Dupont鈥檚 estranged wife. There seems to be no end to possibilities of what happened to the murdered man, but paradoxically and ironically it turns out that the most 鈥渃ommon sense鈥� and logical possibility is also the most unbelievable one.
Perhaps at times unnecessarily confusing, The Erasers is also quite suspenseful. In fact, it is clear that Alain Robbe-Grillet can hold his reader鈥檚 attention in this story almost effortlessly, pulling them into his narrative whose intrigue grows with each page turned. Every word and sentence seem to be weighted and the reader is caught in almost Hitchcockian suspense. The author 鈥減lays鈥� with the reader the way the story characters seems 鈥渢o play鈥� with each other. Time and space shift in the story and that is why Robbe-Grillet鈥檚 work is often described as being metaphysical in nature. There is a collective omniscient narrative, that seems to know the thoughts of individual characters, and each of them at some point is 鈥渘arrating鈥� the story from their own unique perspective. It becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between perceptions, ideas, guesses, flashbacks and pseudo-flashbacks, on the one hand, and the objective reality, on the other. Memories also 鈥渋ntervene鈥� when individual characters 鈥渧oice鈥� their thoughts. But, does objective reality even exists? The 鈥渞eality鈥� at any given point seems to be made up of other people鈥檚 thoughts, feelings and perceptions and all only about their perceivable facts. Facts do change in this detective story and that also depends on who you are in the story. The author seems to be asking another question, too: can reality, facts or truth be guessed by paying close attention to certain seemingly innocuous objects in this story?
馃棟 The Erasers turns the concept of a murder mystery on its head and deconstructs the so-called traditional French novel. With its strong sense of a film noir that inexplicably mixes reality and fantasy, The Erasers is one idiosyncratic, uncanny novel whose reality is complex and that constantly puts its readers鈥� perceptions to the test, compounding and confusing such basic murder mystery concepts as investigators and criminals, suspects and victims, and the dead and the living.
French author Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922 鈥�2008) was one of the main proponents of the experimental Nouveau Roman (French New Novel) style in literature. In this book of his, translated from the French by Richard Howard, the story concerns special agent Wallas who arrives to one obscure Flemish town to investigate the murder of one Professor Dupont. He is only yet another one dead in the series of gruesome murders that have already been committed in town: 鈥渋n nine days, nine violent deaths have occurred one after another, of which at least six are definitely murders鈥� [Robbe-Grillet/Howard, 1953/64: 57]. One possible witness is Professor Dupont鈥檚 housekeeper Madame Smite, but she cannot provide any help. On the scene was also Doctor Juard, who took the victim, the wounded man, to the hospital where he allegedly died. Commissioner Laurent and Wallas have started a murder investigation, seeking an assassin, but was there even a murder? Was there even an assassin? Then, there emerges one horrifying and unbelievable possibility 鈥� did the guilty man himself [took] charge of the investigation? [1953/64: 200]. What is the truth? The Erasers is a mystery novel that constantly questions reality, offering multiple perspectives on the same situation. It is a refreshingly different, kaleidoscopic murder mystery that puts the absurdity and the ambiguity front and centre.
From the very first page, Robbe-Grillet takes an unusual approach in his story. It is set against a rather grim urban landscape of one industrial city. That small town atmosphere and hints of conspiracy and bigger drama lurking behind the quietness of country life are reminiscent of the work of Simenon, but the dreamy plot where events sometimes repeat themselves and come full circle seems to be the author鈥檚 own invention. In fact, The Erasers has been called a literary ouroboros (in mythology, this was a serpent that ate its own tail) because of the circular nature of the story.
Special Agent Wallas finds himself in some labyrinthic streets, often lost while trying to (unsuccessfully) buy very special erasers in newsagent鈥檚 shops. Questions upon questions pile up in his tricky investigation and soon names are dropped: Assassin Garinati, Merchant Marchant, some Group Leader Bona and Chief Fabius. Every character seems to have a hidden agenda, and Commissioner Laurent soon has plenty of versions of what might have happened to Professor Dupont, among which are a botched burglary, a murder by a terrorist organisation and a suicide. Strange witnesses emerge, including a man who pestered the supposed murderer just after or before the commission of his crime and Dupont鈥檚 estranged wife. There seems to be no end to possibilities of what happened to the murdered man, but paradoxically and ironically it turns out that the most 鈥渃ommon sense鈥� and logical possibility is also the most unbelievable one.
Perhaps at times unnecessarily confusing, The Erasers is also quite suspenseful. In fact, it is clear that Alain Robbe-Grillet can hold his reader鈥檚 attention in this story almost effortlessly, pulling them into his narrative whose intrigue grows with each page turned. Every word and sentence seem to be weighted and the reader is caught in almost Hitchcockian suspense. The author 鈥減lays鈥� with the reader the way the story characters seems 鈥渢o play鈥� with each other. Time and space shift in the story and that is why Robbe-Grillet鈥檚 work is often described as being metaphysical in nature. There is a collective omniscient narrative, that seems to know the thoughts of individual characters, and each of them at some point is 鈥渘arrating鈥� the story from their own unique perspective. It becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between perceptions, ideas, guesses, flashbacks and pseudo-flashbacks, on the one hand, and the objective reality, on the other. Memories also 鈥渋ntervene鈥� when individual characters 鈥渧oice鈥� their thoughts. But, does objective reality even exists? The 鈥渞eality鈥� at any given point seems to be made up of other people鈥檚 thoughts, feelings and perceptions and all only about their perceivable facts. Facts do change in this detective story and that also depends on who you are in the story. The author seems to be asking another question, too: can reality, facts or truth be guessed by paying close attention to certain seemingly innocuous objects in this story?
馃棟 The Erasers turns the concept of a murder mystery on its head and deconstructs the so-called traditional French novel. With its strong sense of a film noir that inexplicably mixes reality and fantasy, The Erasers is one idiosyncratic, uncanny novel whose reality is complex and that constantly puts its readers鈥� perceptions to the test, compounding and confusing such basic murder mystery concepts as investigators and criminals, suspects and victims, and the dead and the living.
Read
September 18, 2020I am not ashamed to say that I didn't get this. I adore Robbe-Grillet's work, but this one was just a bit too opaque for me, with none of the teeth-rattling tension that markes some of his best novels. Now I get that this must have had a lot more meaning in the political climate of France at the time, what with the Algerian and Vietnamese imbroglios on everyone's mind, and De Gaulle's merry march into the halls of power. And I get that this is more of a puzzle box to work on than a novel. I consider myself to be a pretty sophisticated reader 鈥� I'm on a first name basis with Thomas (Pynchon) dontcha know 鈥� but this was a bridge too far at the time. Maybe I'll have to give it another go.
December 15, 2009
This book reminded me a little of a David Lynch movie鈥攕pecifically, Blue Velvet. Not so much in terms of theme or plot (although both involve detectives), but style. Robbe-Grillet describes seemingly mundane objects and scenes with intense details, much in the way that Lynch zooms in with extreme close-ups. The effect is peculiar and eerie and leaves much for the observer to conclude for him/herself.
Overall, I think I like Djinn a bit better than The Erasers, but the latter is definitely worth the read. It鈥檚 actually not quite as surreal as I thought it would be, and I think it dragged a little in the middle, but it picks up by the end and gives a satisfying conclusion.
Overall, I think I like Djinn a bit better than The Erasers, but the latter is definitely worth the read. It鈥檚 actually not quite as surreal as I thought it would be, and I think it dragged a little in the middle, but it picks up by the end and gives a satisfying conclusion.
February 28, 2015
倬丕讴 讴賳 賴丕貙 丕賵賱蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賲賳鬲卮乇 卮丿賴 乇亘 诏乇蹖賴 丕爻鬲貙 賵 卮丕蹖丿 亘賴鬲乇蹖賳卮丕賳. 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 賳賵卮鬲賳 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘貙 乇亘-诏乇蹖賴貙 賴賳賵夭 乇賲丕賳 賳賵 賳賵蹖爻 賳亘賵丿貙 賴賳賵夭 乇賵賱丕賳 亘丕乇鬲 芦丕丿亘蹖丕鬲 卮蹖卅蹖賴禄 乇丕 亘賴 賳賵卮鬲丕乇 丕賵 賳爻亘鬲 賳丿丕丿賴 亘賵丿貙 賴賳賵夭 賯氐丿 鬲丨賵賱 讴賱蹖鬲 乇賲丕賳 丿乇 賲蹖丕賳 賳亘賵丿.
丿乇 丕蹖賳 夭賲丕賳貙 乇亘-诏乇蹖賴 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 丕蹖 噩賵丕賳 亘賵丿貙 讴賴 丕夭 噩賵蹖爻貙 讴丕賮讴丕 賵 賮丕讴賳乇 鬲丕孬蹖乇 诏乇賮鬲賴 亘賵丿貙 賵 賲蹖 禺賵丕爻鬲 乇賲丕賳蹖 亘賳賵蹖爻丿 賳夭丿蹖讴 亘賴 丕蹖賳 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 賲賴賲貙 賵 賳爻亘鬲丕 賲鬲賮丕賵鬲 亘丕 丌孬丕乇 讴賱丕爻蹖讴貙 亘賴 禺氐賵氐 亘丕賱夭丕讴. 賴賳賵夭 丿乇 賳馗乇 丕賵 禺賵丕賳賳丿賴 丕賴賲蹖鬲 禺賵丿卮 乇丕 丕夭 丿爻鬲 賳丿丕丿賴 賵 賲噩亘賵乇 賳蹖爻鬲 讴賴 氐賮丨丕鬲 夭蹖丕丿蹖 丕夭 鬲賵氐蹖賮 賴丕蹖 毓噩蹖亘 賵 睾乇蹖亘 乇丕 鬲丨賲賱 讴賳丿.
丿乇 倬丕讴 讴賳 賴丕貙 賴賲賴 趩蹖夭 禺賵亘 丕爻鬲貙 賴賲賴 趩蹖夭 賲毓賯賵賱 賵 丌乇丕賲 丕爻鬲 (亘丕 賵噩賵丿 倬蹖趩蹖丿诏蹖 賳爻亘蹖 丿丕爻鬲丕賳) 賵 賲丕貙 丕賲乇賵夭 賲蹖 鬲賵丕賳蹖賲 亘賮賴賲蹖賲 讴賴 丕蹖賳 爻讴賵鬲貙 鬲賳賴丕 賳卮丕賳賴 丕蹖 丕爻鬲 亘乇丕蹖 卮乇賵毓 胤賵賮丕賳. 胤賵賮丕賳蹖 亘賴 賳丕賲 乇賲丕賳 賳賵.
丿乇 丕蹖賳 夭賲丕賳貙 乇亘-诏乇蹖賴 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 丕蹖 噩賵丕賳 亘賵丿貙 讴賴 丕夭 噩賵蹖爻貙 讴丕賮讴丕 賵 賮丕讴賳乇 鬲丕孬蹖乇 诏乇賮鬲賴 亘賵丿貙 賵 賲蹖 禺賵丕爻鬲 乇賲丕賳蹖 亘賳賵蹖爻丿 賳夭丿蹖讴 亘賴 丕蹖賳 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 賲賴賲貙 賵 賳爻亘鬲丕 賲鬲賮丕賵鬲 亘丕 丌孬丕乇 讴賱丕爻蹖讴貙 亘賴 禺氐賵氐 亘丕賱夭丕讴. 賴賳賵夭 丿乇 賳馗乇 丕賵 禺賵丕賳賳丿賴 丕賴賲蹖鬲 禺賵丿卮 乇丕 丕夭 丿爻鬲 賳丿丕丿賴 賵 賲噩亘賵乇 賳蹖爻鬲 讴賴 氐賮丨丕鬲 夭蹖丕丿蹖 丕夭 鬲賵氐蹖賮 賴丕蹖 毓噩蹖亘 賵 睾乇蹖亘 乇丕 鬲丨賲賱 讴賳丿.
丿乇 倬丕讴 讴賳 賴丕貙 賴賲賴 趩蹖夭 禺賵亘 丕爻鬲貙 賴賲賴 趩蹖夭 賲毓賯賵賱 賵 丌乇丕賲 丕爻鬲 (亘丕 賵噩賵丿 倬蹖趩蹖丿诏蹖 賳爻亘蹖 丿丕爻鬲丕賳) 賵 賲丕貙 丕賲乇賵夭 賲蹖 鬲賵丕賳蹖賲 亘賮賴賲蹖賲 讴賴 丕蹖賳 爻讴賵鬲貙 鬲賳賴丕 賳卮丕賳賴 丕蹖 丕爻鬲 亘乇丕蹖 卮乇賵毓 胤賵賮丕賳. 胤賵賮丕賳蹖 亘賴 賳丕賲 乇賲丕賳 賳賵.
July 25, 2024
if you like this review, i now have website:
130519 read in french: i have read this before in translation years (decades...) past, 3rd r-g i think. since then have read some litcrit, more r-g, arguments that this shows his early development past 'un regicide'. also that this is avant-garde treatment of detective crime subgenre: the failed detective, where investigation seems plausible, believable, redemptive etc... but everything ends wrong, crime not solved, criminals never caught, faith in reason derailed etc. in lit, examples include auster's , durrenmatt's . famous film is 'chinatown'. so, fun literary games. but then i have never been as interested in solutions, detection, resolution etc, as in 'mystery', rather portraits of why the crime and psychology described how...
i enjoy again working on my french. more fun than reading dictionaries... r-g is not yet stylistically 'peak', for me, but part of obsessive mapping of this city, 'the circular boulevard', the intersecting streets, canals, careful reconstruction of crime/detective search, when now, when then, has dual function of r-g avant-garde poetics and detective-fiction presentation of just the facts, madame. perhaps this draws unwary readers into games of detection, but of course who did it is never as important as how the investigation is told. not my fun. but as far as reading it in french, this was good for vocabulary, grammar... but as i was always busy working on words, i may have lost the plot....
i read one assertion that r-g goes further than disrupting faith of the reader in detective, detecting, reason, time, place, as usual 'failed detective', but also subtly/subversively, undermines even the closest reader (lit critics) of the value of embedded 'symbols', of 'signs' in general, pointing to anything, myth, science, art theory etc, outside the work to explain it. eg. why is this called 'les gommes' (the erasers)?... careful with your reading... not my favourite r-g in either french or english but probably essental to read if you read him...
about buried symbols of Oedipal reference,.. i think it is sroltzfus鈥檚 criticism that suggests this is actually an example of r-g deliberately misleading close textual readers (critics) by offering an incoherent but plausible 鈥榤ythic resonance鈥� against r-g鈥檚 insistence that there is nothing- absolutely nothing- outside the text giving it 鈥榤eaning鈥�... thus frustrating the literary detective in all those lit-critics... but then who is an author to say what is or is not meaningful in his work: it is there, he wrote it, he has now no more privileged critical insight than anyone else...
reference:
by Ben Stoltzfus
more:
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francaise-
on-
130519 read in french: i have read this before in translation years (decades...) past, 3rd r-g i think. since then have read some litcrit, more r-g, arguments that this shows his early development past 'un regicide'. also that this is avant-garde treatment of detective crime subgenre: the failed detective, where investigation seems plausible, believable, redemptive etc... but everything ends wrong, crime not solved, criminals never caught, faith in reason derailed etc. in lit, examples include auster's , durrenmatt's . famous film is 'chinatown'. so, fun literary games. but then i have never been as interested in solutions, detection, resolution etc, as in 'mystery', rather portraits of why the crime and psychology described how...
i enjoy again working on my french. more fun than reading dictionaries... r-g is not yet stylistically 'peak', for me, but part of obsessive mapping of this city, 'the circular boulevard', the intersecting streets, canals, careful reconstruction of crime/detective search, when now, when then, has dual function of r-g avant-garde poetics and detective-fiction presentation of just the facts, madame. perhaps this draws unwary readers into games of detection, but of course who did it is never as important as how the investigation is told. not my fun. but as far as reading it in french, this was good for vocabulary, grammar... but as i was always busy working on words, i may have lost the plot....
i read one assertion that r-g goes further than disrupting faith of the reader in detective, detecting, reason, time, place, as usual 'failed detective', but also subtly/subversively, undermines even the closest reader (lit critics) of the value of embedded 'symbols', of 'signs' in general, pointing to anything, myth, science, art theory etc, outside the work to explain it. eg. why is this called 'les gommes' (the erasers)?... careful with your reading... not my favourite r-g in either french or english but probably essental to read if you read him...
about buried symbols of Oedipal reference,.. i think it is sroltzfus鈥檚 criticism that suggests this is actually an example of r-g deliberately misleading close textual readers (critics) by offering an incoherent but plausible 鈥榤ythic resonance鈥� against r-g鈥檚 insistence that there is nothing- absolutely nothing- outside the text giving it 鈥榤eaning鈥�... thus frustrating the literary detective in all those lit-critics... but then who is an author to say what is or is not meaningful in his work: it is there, he wrote it, he has now no more privileged critical insight than anyone else...
reference:
by Ben Stoltzfus
more:
by-
francaise-
on-
December 18, 2015
3.5
A special agent arrives in a bland harbor town to investigate the most recent death in a series of linked murders believed to be carried out by a terrorist organization. The agent's resemblance to the prime suspect leads the story into murky territory. This is Robbe-Grillet's first novel and it prefigures his later trademark narrative techniques and stylistic preoccupations, including the blurring of character roles, reinvention and reconfiguring of key scenes, and obsessive attention to the precise description of objects and the surroundings in which they are situated. Here these elements are slow to appear and not as defining of the text as in his later novels, but when they do expand in prominence, the book becomes more interesting. This could be a good place for readers to start with R-G, and if the disorienting aspects of the book hold appeal, it's likely a good sign to keep reading farther into his oeuvre.
October 31, 2017
If you've ever seen the movie Hot Fuzz, then you can pretty much skip this one. No shit: I don't know if Wright, Pegg, and Frost were riffing on this or not, but the parallels are uncanny. I kept waiting for Jim Broadbent to say, "He had a great big bushy beard!" By no means bad at all, but hard to take very seriously when all you can think of is a buddy-copy/horror pastiche wherein the evildoers wear hooded robes and hold flashlights under their chins. Meh, gimme the Cornetto for Paddy Considine alone. That guy's a revelation. Robbe-Grillet would, er, improve from this first offering. I know, cutting edge criticism...
May 23, 2010
This book played like a movie in my head while I was reading it.
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