For once, I'm not overthinking it, and will just rest snug in my good feeling for this one. ( )

"Things are things, and man is only man."

Writing Against the Pathetic Fallacy

No longer the bête noire of the literary world (or of anything anymore), the contemporary Alain Robbe-Grillet (ARG) is a conscientious professor of creative writing. In his (mono)maniacal aversion to the Pathetic Fallacy (i.e. writing the anthropomorphized landscape/object) he is justified: This is the perennial feature of bad undergraduate writing.

But ARG goes beyond your Freshman (Sophomoric?) English comp elective: Demanding the novel be freed of the Elizabethan conventions of Plot, Character, Metaphor, and that Objects be freed of the heretofore unquestioned relation to the Human i.e. only to be seen as a virtual image, which is the reflection/refraction of a projection of a human desire or relation. A so-called 'objective' object - one not caught up in this relation - would then be free to be as 'real' as reality, and the human would be free to be only what it is - without supplement. Yet ARG's techniques (repetition, contradiction, multiplicity) fail to achieve this stated end (forgivable), and his 'transitional' style bungles the art of the attempt (unforgivable).

***THOUGHT

If we are seeking to unburden our perception from the tragic/emotional sensibility which can only relate to the world via the medium of a subjective impression of self-relation, and to thereby reach visual/scientific clarity/'objectification', we would be incorrect to apply ARG's approach. The 'Brechtian' undermining of a narrative/description by contradictions/repetitions in the description itself produces a void of 'subjective' meaning, but this is only a 'transition state' (in the unstable chemical sense). An object-relation in explicit contradiction with itself does not free the object, but creates a kind of "metaphysical vacuum" in ARG's terms. When Camus's 'Absurdity' is the source of this vacuum ARG responds with the following limpid analysis:

"Metaphysics loves a vacuum, and rushes into it like smoke up a chimney; for, within immediate signification, we find the absurd, which is theoretically nonsignification, but which as a matter of fact leads immediately, by a well-known metaphysical recuperation, to a new transcendence; and the infinite fragmentation of immediate meaning thus establishes a new totality,"

The elimination of all sense-relations to the object does not free it, for what is "theoretically nonsignification" leads immediately to a new transcendence. ARG's objects collapse under the weight of his technique. Trapped in a field of multiplicities, they are not revealed as objects themselves, but rather show themselves to be (transcendent) metaphor (the centipede in Jealousy), or become mere (transcendent) Words (signs without signified): In Repetition the broken champagne flute, the torn underwear, the firearm with empty cartridges - there is no question whether these objects are real or not: of course they have never existed. ARG appears to be aware of this guilty association (i.e. ARG's object is nothing more than language). ARG discusses this relation in this selfsame collection, but he appears to be engaging in apologetics. As ARG's objects have been revealed not to extend past an empty referent (word), he hypostatizes the word itself as something 'real' and thereby rescues the object.

"Hence beyond language there is probably nothing else. The world "creates itself in us" and "ends in speech," for speech is truth: "Truth when by the act of naming an object it produces the accession of man." To write is "to give our reality to truth, from which we derived it, in order to become once again, within it, light as dreams.""

It takes a certain boldness to find the base of one's 'objective objects' to be a bottomless signifier and to then declare this signifier to be the stable base you had been pursuing the whole time.

***STYLE

ARG's greatest successes occur when he eschews description and enumerates instead. (see the watches in The Voyeur, the rows of trees in Jealousy) The success of complete abstraction in the form of the number/set provides the negative space for objects to be themselves (reference to Alain Badiou/Set theory would be apt here if I were more familiar with his work). ARG should have gone further, to write more like Thomas Bernhard, whose speakers are so alienated from objects that 'objectivity' can flourish in the negative space.

Though more limited, ARG'S detailed description of the observed object are also successful. The warp/defect in the window in Jealousy is emblematic here. This is one of the few instances of successful implementation of ARG's theoretical writing. For lasting success he should have written like DFW, but he is prevented by inadequate technical knowledge and the refusal to acquire it. ARG - the savior of the object - by his own admission does not even care to look at them:

"Like everyone else, I have been the victim, on occasion, of the realistic illusion. At the period when I was writing The Voyeur, for example, while I was trying to describe exactly the flight of sea gulls or the movement of waves, I had occasion to make a brief trip in winter to the coast of Brittany. On the way, I told myself: here is a good opportunity to observe things "from life" and to "refresh my memory." But from the first gull I saw, I understood my error: on the one hand, the gulls I now saw had only very confused relations with those I was describing in my book, and on the other it couldn't have mattered less to me whether they did or not. The only gulls that mattered to me at that moment were those which were inside my head. Probably they came there, one way or another, from the external world, and perhaps from Brittany; but they had been transformed, becoming at the same time somehow more real because they were now imaginary."

This is the perennial mistake of the ambitious writer who thinks he can write anything, though in reality he is incapable of writing anything. Was it Adorno who remarked that these notions of objectivity are often reversed; that while we call 'subjective' the process which engages specific matter and substitutes perception of the object for the consensus of those who do not even care to look at it - that this is, in fact, the 'objective'. ( )

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? ( )

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? ( )

This is also an essay which is pretty interesting to me. In this essay, which was written in the early sixties, argues that every novel must be re-interpreted by every new generation. This is an interesting point to me for him to make because I have often thought this thought before, myself! when we read books in high-school or college such as "Catcher in the Rye" or even "Shakespeare," they are so long and boring, and often have little if any meaning to me or any of my peers in class. For example, when I read Shakespeare's "The Tempest," I wanted to throw myself out a glass window, to say the least. However, when we discuss the deeper meanings in class and what Shakespeare was really getting at, it has much more meaning.
When we read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," the generation who read it as the book came out, thought about the year 2000 and thought the world would be over or we would have flying cars and teleporting things, but they were far mistaken. They still compared it to cultural change and things of that nature, but differently to how we do today. Back then, their little mood organ could be compared to a phone or the news, nowadays, we directly think of facebook or myspace or anything of that nature. Even texting!
I liked this article and I loved how it was interdisciplinary. It is such a simple idea that I am sure everyone thinks about, but nobody addresses. I strongly recomend this essay for any reader because it is quick and to the point, just how I like it.