Un libro-terremoto, una lettura che fa guardare la letteratura in modo diverso. So poco del "nouveau roman" e dello stesso Robbe Grillet (ma ho visto Marienbad di Resnais), ma questo racconto del 1958 stravolge la struttura del romanzo "introspettivo", mostrando che ci può essere tutto anche solo sulla superficie. E poi c'è la struttura temporale, mobile, sfuggente, imprevedibile. È un romanzo cubista e come nota Lucentini (che qui traduce in modo eccellente e cura pre e post-fazione) è un poliziesco nella misura in cui la struttura indiziaria della scrittura conferisce al lettore un ruolo attivo di interpretazione. È infatti un libro che va letto con attenzione e partecipazione, e anche in questo si discosta da tanta letteratura di intrattenimento cui siamo andati abituandoci. Si potrebbe criticare a Robbe Grillet la freddezza del tutto, la mancanza di empatia e la riduzione del libro a un esercizio di stile. Ma chi se ne frega: da un esercizio di stile così, chiunque sia interessato alla scrittura può apprendere tantissimo.

PS: se le recensioni di Goodreads sono un buon barometro, in Italia non sembra leggerlo nessuno... se hai intercettato queste mie righe, corri subito a comprare questo libro, fidati. ( )

though robbe-grillet is a thomas bernhard of greater repute, it is unclear whether the (factitious) technique of writing the visual fact is beneficial, or even necessary

best images: disappearance of the tar spot into the refractive defect of the window. counting the banana trees.

worst image: the (false) centipede ( )

More experimental writing! Definitely unlike any other book I have read before. In someways an easy read, but when I finished it, I was not 100% that I had understood the whole story.

Who exactly was the narrator? ( )

An early edition of La jalousie, 7e mille, printed on December 10th 1959. I read the novel some time in the early 1970s and found its detailed descriptions seen through the eyes of the narrator as very abstract and analytical. This time round I found it strange for other reasons. I had been listening to Proust’s Remembrance of things past on multiple CDs in the car. Jealousy is examined so clearly there through the relationships of Swann and Odette and the narrator and Albertine. Hundreds of pages are devoted to the experience of jealousy through actions and dialogue. The theme of jealousy in La jalousie (and the use of the word 'jalousie' meaning a slatted window to stop intrusive peeping) is seen through the eyes of another narrator who never speaks but just observes the objects of his jealousy. To make matters more interesting I realise that I am reading the book through the eyes of a previous reader. One Lilian Rowlinson has written her name in ink in the top right hand corner of the front free endpaper and has dated it 1961. Not only that, Lilian through her pencilled annotations within the text has helped me understand some of the difficult words, for instance:
mediane, page 9
strie, page 11
de plain-pied, page12
en quinconce, page 13
casier, page 14
cloison, page 15
sous-main, page 15
cruche, page 21
amovible, page 21
anse, page 22
maculant, page 24
carnassier, page 27
vrombissement, page 27
scarabee, page 27
I can picture Lilian in 1961 sitting at a desk thumbing through a French-English dictionary. I wonder why she stopped annotating the text on page 27 only to pick it up again with the word ‘enduit’ on page 129. Did she run out of patience with the novel, struggling as I did, with the nouveau roman style? Did she skip to the summary in the back cover where she checked out the meaning of ‘aimant’ and ‘limaille’? Was she asked by someone, a teacher perhaps, to concentrate on pages 129-133 and 151-162, the only other pages subject to pencilled translations? ( )

Although this is a book about nothing, it still EFFICIENTLY accomplishes what it sets out to do. It's an outline of a novel that makes its empty spaces made known. It leaves you with that charming little empty feeling that absurdity gives you. A good antidote from the formulaic novels. And guess what - it came from the 1950s! It definitely deserves to be read at least twice to fully appreciate how many times it tries to derail you from any actual plot. ( )