French
novelist, essayist, filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008) was a
leading voice of the Nouveau Roman (New Novel) school back in the 1950s
and 1960s, a man whose creative juices flowed in original and innovative
ways, revolting against the old and fixed and thriving on the new and
fresh, a man whose literary output reminds me of the avant-garde,
experimental music of John Cage or the outlandish turn-the-art
world-on-its head creations of Marcel Duchamp. Reflecting
philosophically on the novel and its possibilities, Robbe-Grillet wrote
these 12 insightful, provocative essays with such titles as: `A Future
for the Novel', `On Several Obsolete Notions', `A Novel That Invents
Itself' and `New Novel, New Man'.
From the titles of the essays,
it’s abundantly clear the author was supremely serious about lighting a
stick of dynamite in order to blow up well-worn novelistic forms in
order to expand narrative boundaries and create new literary landscapes.
KABOOM! To provide a modest taste of what a reader will find in these
explosive essays, below are several quotes along with my brief comments.
‘New
Novel’ is a convenient label applicable to all those seeking new forms
for the novel, forms capable of expressing (or of creating) new
relations between man and the world, to all those who have determined to
invent the novel, in other words, to invent man.”
Literary
anarchy, anyone? When did you last read a novel that invented or, at the
very least, creatively expanded what it means to be human?
"The
art of the novel, however, has fallen into such a state of stagnation - a
lassitude acknowledged and discussed by the whole of critical opinion -
that it is hard to imagine such an art can survive for long without
some radical change."
Fortunately, the novel is alive and well
today, sixty years after Robbe-Grillet penned this statement. And
fortunately, the novel's many forms and shapes, ranging from
ultra-traditional to hyper-radical, accommodate the tastes of millions
of readers worldwide.
“Art is not a more or less brilliantly
colored envelope intended to embellish the author’s “message,” a gilt
paper around a package of cookies, a whitewash on a wall, a sauce that
makes the fish go down easier.”
By the author’s reckoning, if we
as readers are looking for the author’s underlying message, we are
betraying the novel as an art form; if a novelist writes a novel for the
purpose of imparting a message (“In Dubious Battle” by John Steinbeck
comes to mind), that novelist is likewise betraying the art of the
novel.
"Each novelist, each novel must invent its own form. No
recipe can replace this continual reflection. The book makes its own
rules for itself, and for itself alone."
To underscore the truth
of this statement, all one need do is read Robbe-Grillet's `The Erasers'
or Raymond Queneau's `Exercises in Style', two novels a universe
removed from any preset rules.
"A novel, for most readers - and
critics - is primarily a "story." . . . To tell a story well is
therefore to make what one writes resemble the prefabricated schemas
people are used to, in other words, their ready-made idea of reality."
Now,
this is radical. Who doesn't like a good story? Well, according to
Robbe-Grillet, the story can merely reinforce our small-minded view of
the world. In a way, this can be the acid test for what it means for a
novel to be great literature: does the novel we are reading challenge us
to expand our vision, enabling us to see the world and language with
fresh eyes?
"How much we've heard about the `character"! . . . It
is a mummy now, but one still enthroned with the same - phony -
majesty, among the values revered by traditional criticism. In fact,
that is how this criticism recognizes the "true" novelist: "he creates
characters".
Again, truly radical. Who doesn't like a novel with
strong, memorable characters? And, again, Robbe-Grillet challenges us
to examine why character is so important. Do we want the men and women
in the novels we read to underpin our precanned view of the
possibilities of what it means to be human?
"Why seek to
reconstruct the time of clocks in a narrative which is concerned only
with human time? Is it not wiser to think of our own memory, which is
never chronological? Why persist in discovering what an individual's
name is in a novel which does not supply it? Every day we meet people
whose names we do not know."
Ha! Vintage Robbe-Grillet. This is
why I see the author's novels as the literary counterpart of the music
of John Cage. Do we need conventional time and an individual's name to
have a novel? Do we need a musician to play melody and rhythm to hear
music?
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