Le Nouveau Roman en questions 5. Une 'nouvelle autobiographie'? (review)

By choosing to consider the autobiographical writings of the nouveaux romanciers in the context of the nouveau roman, this volume emphasizes the continuities between the two forms of writing. However, in doing so it also invites a reconsideration of the profile and extent of the nouveau roman itself, and so offers as much to those interested in recent autobiography as to devotees of the nouveau roman. The continuities concern, first of all, the nouveau roman's insistence on the priority of writing over its objects — or subjects. As Simon puts it in a comment quoted in the editors' introduction: 'Ce que l'on constitue c'est un texte, et ce texte ne correspond qu'à une seule chose, à ce qui se passe dans l'écrivain au moment où il écrit. On ne décrit pas des choses qui préexistent à l'écriture, mais ce qui se passe aux prises avec l'écriture.' The uncertain subject who grapples with his writing is, as Robbe-Grillet points out in a comment cited by Christian Milat, sustaining the nouveau roman's original attack on the humanist notion of character: 'un autre homme est en train de naître . . ., fait de fragments mobiles et dépareillés'. Finally, the nouveau roman's dismantling of causal narrative is pursued in the autobiographical texts in a manner which is nicely summed up in an aphorism from Ollier included in an article by Angela Cozea: 'Je fais une distinction entre raconter sa vie et écrire sa vie.' The autobiographical potential written into the nouveau roman is demonstrated here through the inclusion of discussion of quasi-autobiographical works by authors such as Ollier, Pinget and Butor who, à propos of his Portrait de l'artiste en jeune singe, comments in an interview included in this volume, that 'il y a de l'autobiographie, mais ce n'est pas du tout une autobiographie au sens habituel'. A fine contribution by Deborah Keller on Sarraute argues that the key concept of 'authenticity' in her work is skewed when understood in a Sartrean sense, but, by tracing its repeated association with childhood, it becomes possible to see Enfance as its eventual culmination. The picture of the nouveau roman that emerges when seen from the perspective of autobiography has the effect of giving a relatively unprecedented prominence to Simon whose work was increasingly concerned with proto-autobiographical issues, but who had been one of the more theoretically reticent of the nouveaux romanciers whose critical essays had played such an important role in establishing the phenomenon. A subtle analysis of Simon's fiction by Michel Thouillot traces the way in which Simon's self-presentation in his writing gradually evolves from the account of an existence authored by others (ancestors, parents, history) to a position where he becomes its co-author, 'la plume à la main, cherchant dans le texte de sa vie, lacunaire et opaque, imbriquée dans celui de l'Histoire, les quelques lumières que le miroir de sa fabrication peut en refléter'. Equally, an essay by Mokhtar Belarbi attempting to define 'l'autobiographie moderne' against a classical model, also takes Simon as his exemplary instance of the phenomenon. In addition to the articles by his eight contributors, the indefatigable Allemand has assembled a set of 'documents': interviews with Robbe-Grillet, Butor and Simon and a letter from Philippe Lejeune. All are lavishly footnoted and the volume contains a good deal of useful bibliographical information.