Une Ecriture de l'Effraction (review)

L'Esprit Créateur Although Nathalie Sarraute and the Feminist Critic does contain several conspicuous flaws, they should not be overrated. Barbour's work is quite impressive, and although the philosophical basis of her hermeneutics is debatable, her approach and conclusions are worth examining. For any scholar interested in iconoclastic approaches to Sarraute's work and/or feminist literary criticism, Barbour's book offers both a treat and a challenge. Although it does not definitively settle many issues, it does do an excellent job of opening the door to a new world of sarrautien interpretation and discussion. Kenneth D. Beale Pomona College Françoise Asso. Une Ecriture de L'effraction. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995. Pp. 272. 149FF. Through the perpetual agitation, the continual interruption (and repetition) of beginnings which comprise the works of Nathalie Sarraute, the object of Françoise Asso's book is to show the writer's production of an artistic form—which expresses the rejection of form. The book is presented as a quest (une recherche). And in the very Proustian opening sentence, both in form and content, the author evokes the importance of an aesthetic choice regarding a form "qui est au coeur de la recherche et de l'oeuvre tout entière." This choice of form revealed in the evolution of Sarraute's works is inseparable from the "opening of the moment" ("cette fêlure") at the origin of her writing, which Asso calls "une écriture de l'effraction." Consideration of Sarraute's different formal choices leads back invariably to the idea of a breach (effraction)—in the sense of breaking, violation, interruption—which Asso uses to explain technical stylistic questions, but which also elucidates the author's celebrated iconoclasm as regards traditional form: "la phrase elle-même est [. . .] ce qui se fraie une voie en bousculant un ordre classique et en ébréchant sans relâche 'le beau langage.' " Whereas one might expect a formal study of Sarraute to bypass questions of content, Asso shows rather the absence of rupture between form and content, which exist in a relation of mutual imitation: "la violence de la phrase" imitates the violence of the dialogue, which, beginning with Les Fruits d'Or (1963), becomes the veritable subject of Sarraute's works (Les Fruits d'Or being a dialogue on dialogue in which the characters discuss a fictive novel called "Les Fruits d'Or"). Dialogue in Sarraute is essentially conflictual: the relation between her characters takes shape around a compulsive pursuit of dialogue, ending in the systematic refusal of dialogue. The opening of the dialogue, as such, is nothing other than the occasion for its closure, and it is this negative reciprocity between the characters that constitutes the law of the dialogue: "la loi du dialogue est d'amener le sujet à se voir refuser celui-ci par un double pervers, l'interlocuteur à qui il 'donne' la parole, " The subject who meets with the refusal of dialogue is said to be the victim of a perverse double, who, by virtue of being a double, can always substitute for the victim, while the victim in turn plays the role of perverse double. This alternation of roles pervasive of Sarraute's dialogues describes a general relation of victims working in collusion with her persecutors, systematically narrated in her works from the standpoint of the victim: ' 'chaque page, chaque phrase s'écrit et se lit du point de vue de la victime." To the extent that the victim is the one whose pursuit of dialogue meets with refusal, the point of view of the victim coincides with the interruption of dialogue, that is silence—a silence often spoken in the mode of sousconversation , revealing the truth of the dialogue in the suppression of the truth. 118 SUMMER 1996 Book Reviews The characters' pursuit of dialogue reflects the writer's pursuit of an aesthetic form, which, to some degree, has the form of a quest for truth (une recherche de la vérité). Asso artfully shows the contradictions Sarraute poses for criticism ("la recherche de l'écrivain défie l'interprétation"), which she nonetheless manages to reconcile with her own critical objectives. This global reading of Sarraute displays...