Six Narratives in Search of a Novel

摘要

Surveying the horizon of the contemporary French novel, one is necessarily struck by the multiplicity of that form. Such a phenomenon is most apparent in the domain of what might be termed the “critical novel,” that is, a text devised with considerable deliberation, and which demands reflection on the reader's part; a text that is aware of the tradition it has inherited, and which positions itself with regard to that tradition in a variety of manners; a text that puts its own “literariness” into play for the benefit of readers who are attuned to that discursive gesture; a text that questions (either implicitly or more explicitly) prevailing literary norms; that puts commonplaces on trial through irony or parody; that asks us to rethink what the novel may be as a cultural form. Amid that multiplicity, however, there runs a common thread: the search for a new kind of novel, one more closely suited to our expressive needs than the forms that are currently being practiced. Most characteristically, that new form is sketched out in a hypothetical, conditional mode; typically, the critical novel adumbrates that new form, but does not exemplify it. My intention—here at least—is not to analyze that phenomenon in detail, but rather to suggest the degree of its amplitude. In that perspective, I shall speak briefly about six recent novels which put it on display in interesting ways.View full textDownload full textKeywords Critical novel , Extreme contemporary , French fiction , fable , Ludics , Metaliterature Related var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2011.624019