Two Novels: Jealousy and In the Labyrinth. Alain Robbe-Grillet

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Two Novels: Jealousy and In the Labyrinth - Alain  Robbe-Grillet

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      TWO NOVELS BY ROBBE-GRILLET

      WORKS BY ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET

      PUBLISHED BY GROVE PRESS

      The Erasers

      The Voyeur

      La Maison de Rendez-Vous & Djinn

      Two Novels: Jealousy & In the Labyrinth

      Recollections of the Golden Triangle

      Two Novels by Robbe-Grillet

      Jealousy

      and

      In the Labyrinth

      Translated by Richard Howard

      GROVE PRESS

      NEW YORK

      Copyright © 1965 by Grove Press, Inc.

      Jealousy copyright © 1959 by Grove Press, Inc. Originally published in 1957 by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, France as La Jalousie.

      In the Labyrinth copyright © 1960 by Grove Press, Inc. Originally published in 1959 by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris. France, as Dans le labyrinthe.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

      Published simultaneously in Canada

      Printed in the United States of America

      Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 65-16711

      ISBN: 978-0-8021-5106-3

      eISBN 978-0-8021-9053-6

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The essay by Bruce Morrissette is a revised adaptation of an article which appeared originally in The French Review, Vol. XXXI, no. 5 (April 1958) under the title “Surfaces et structures dans les romans de Robbe-Grillet," and is printed with the author's permission. Roland Barthe's essay appeared originally in Critique, nos. 86-87 (juillet-août 1954) under the title “Littérature objective Alain Robbe-Grillet," and was subsequently translated in Evergreen Review, No. 5 (Summer 1958). It is reprinted with the author's permission. Mme. Anne Minor's review of Jealousy originally appeared in The French Review, Vol. XXXII (April 1959) under the title “La Jalousie,” and is printed with the author's permission.

      Cover design by Jackie Seow

      Cover photographs by Minori Kawana/Phonotica (top), S. S. Yamamoto/Photonica (bottom)

      Grove Atlantic

      an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

      154 West 14th Street

      New York, NY 10011

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

       www.groveatlantic.com

      10 11 12 13 14 14 13 12 11 10 9

      CONTENTS

      INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS

      Surfaces and Structures in Robbe-Grillet's Novels

      by Bruce Morrissette

      Objective Literature: Alain Robbe-Grillet

      by Roland Barthes

      A Note on Jealousy

      by Anne Minor

      JEALOUSY

      IN THE LABYRINTH

      SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

      INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS

      SURFACES AND STRUCTURES IN ROBBE-GRILLET'S NOVELS

      by Bruce Morrissette

      The rising curve of Alain Robbe-Grillet's literary star continues its dazzling ascent As early as 1953, when Robbe-Grillet launched his career with The Erasers (Les Gommes), Roland Barthes saw in the young author's work a revolutionary aspect comparable to that of the “surrealist attack on rationality.” His second novel, The Voyeur (Le Voyeur, 1955), amazed the critics, won an important literary prize, and gained the attention of the literary public. Robbe-Grillet thereupon began to reveal his talents as a theorist of the novel form, publishing a series of articles in L'Express and two remarkable essays, “A Fresh Start for Fiction” (Evergreen Review, No. 3) and “Old ‘Values’ and the New Novel” (Evergreen Review, No. 9) which led to his being designated widely as the leader of the “school” of the New Novel in France. It is thus that Jean-Louis Curtis depicts him in À la recherche du temps posthume. This witty book describes Marcel Proust's return to earth to conduct an inquiry into the state of modern literature. In the milieu where the master of the psychological novel had expected to hear discussions of Henry James and his disciples, Marcel is astonished to find even Gilberte Swann agreeing that “today we ask something quite different of the novel,” and that “psychology nowadays is out of style, obsolete, no longer possible,” since modern readers have only scorn for the sacrosanct “characters” of the traditional novel. To prove to Marcel redivivus that the modern novel “can no longer be psychological, it has to be phenomenological,” Mme. de Guermantes introduces him to Robbe-Grillet ("with hair and mustache the color of anthracite") who promptly recites, in parodied style, the “new doctrine.” One could also cite to illustrate the uneasiness caused in certain literary quarters by this disturbing new force, a cartoon showing the Tree of Literature with numerous well-known Novelists and Critics clinging to its branches, while below, sawing away at the trunk, stands a smiling Robbe-Grillet.

      Things were at this stage when, in 1957, Jealousy appeared. Hostile critics threw themselves on the novel. The old guard, with André Rousseaux and Robert Kemp, hastened to denounce it, and to assure the reading public that the so-called “new path” for fiction promised by Robbe-Grillet in reality led nowhere. Robbe-Grillet was called a competitor with the “cadastre” or record book of county property lines, because of his minute, geometric descriptions, some of which (like the notorious “counting the banana trees” passage in Jealousy) were read over the radio, for laughs. Well, the critics seemed to say, if that's the renewal of the novel, the new objectivity or the “realism of presence,” there is no need to get excited. A flood of articles, mostly antagonistic, inundated Paris. Critics on the whole (but with some notable exceptions) showed a complete lack of understanding of the new work.

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