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A review by paperbird
A Sentimental Novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet
1.0
Here's a book I was eager to read -- A Sentimental Novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet. I geeked out on all the nouveau romanists back in college. I remember sitting on a parking lot reading Jealousy, and an ant bit me on the balls. Now here's this last work by Robbe-Grillet, published a year before he died. It came out in France wrapped in its own condom, the publisher seems proud to report. Wouldn't want any young impressionable minds flipping through this and having their eyeballs pop out.
Because it's basically pornography? The Marquis de Sade is alive and well? But this was published by Dalkey Archive, and the back flap says "French Literature"... Even has a pseudo-scholarly introduction by the translator going off on what a treat it is to see Robbe-Grillet apply his scientific style to his actual sexual fantasies. Golden stuff he's been hoarding to himself since he was 12 years old, apparently. Wow. Some real nuggets we're dealing with.
Did this book really cause that much controversy when it came out in France? I don't remember hearing anything about it in America. Something like this came out last century, though, folks would get arrested. Now I could read this openly in my favorite Vietnamese restaurant while eating pho and the only provocative thing would be the sound of hot girls squeezing rooster sauce and making that wet shitty sound.
I can't consider this a major work because it goes against everything Robbe-Grillet fought to destroy, despite what the translator says in the intro. That is, the preference to name only certain things and depict a reality vs arriving at the truth by coldly listing facts and cataloging objects with no favoritism toward any event.
Writing porn requires that you curate a specific set of details to hopefully convey the maximum erotic impact, which since that's what Robbe-Grillet is doing here, makes me feel like he sold out to his own primal animal. Which leaves us to judge the work based on the strength of its eroticism which while subjective still requires some kind of underlying craft to "pull off" successfully, pun intended.
How does he do as a more traditional storyteller? The writing is impeccable, as expected. It's the dynamics between the characters where I feel he fails. Most good porn the heroine undergoes a transformation / degradation / awakening (and sometimes empowerment) of pussy-consciousness, the more 180 from start to finish the better. In this story the heroine at the start is already mostly on board with the father / daughter incest / BDSM program. Her lack of resistance, her eagerness to please, makes me feel like we're missing a couple of juicy "fight" chapters.
This leads the role of resistance to a cast of secondary characters we don't really care about, they're so disposable, it just becomes a slaughterfest and you're left feeling as if you were just tested on how much you can stomach. I did however enjoy the conceit of girls found guilty and subjected to arrest and rape by the police, then sexual servitude / torture / death, because of the "crime" of being too beautiful.
As far as this being "literature"... By setting all this down, he probably didn't realize how big an arena he was entering and how he could do battle with the inherent enemies of morality and social mores in an interesting way, and so became immediately "dated" as someone two or three steps behind and falling back farther the less prudish / more jaded the world gets. (His solution is to throw spears at everyone, which speaks to how threatened he probably felt, as this was his way of balancing or getting some power back. I could be wrong about this.)
At the very least this could be regarded as an artifact for case study of a brilliant 20th century novelist. The richness of detail makes me wonder if there was a dearth of pornographic materials when the author was a kid. Conversely, does anyone nowadays have sexual fantasies this ornate, or even at all, when any variety of porn is just taps away?
Why couldn't he just leave his oeuvre the hell alone? Claude Simon did, Nathalie Sarraute did. I have to conclude that like any old exhibitionist about to die, he just wanted attention.
Because it's basically pornography? The Marquis de Sade is alive and well? But this was published by Dalkey Archive, and the back flap says "French Literature"... Even has a pseudo-scholarly introduction by the translator going off on what a treat it is to see Robbe-Grillet apply his scientific style to his actual sexual fantasies. Golden stuff he's been hoarding to himself since he was 12 years old, apparently. Wow. Some real nuggets we're dealing with.
Did this book really cause that much controversy when it came out in France? I don't remember hearing anything about it in America. Something like this came out last century, though, folks would get arrested. Now I could read this openly in my favorite Vietnamese restaurant while eating pho and the only provocative thing would be the sound of hot girls squeezing rooster sauce and making that wet shitty sound.
I can't consider this a major work because it goes against everything Robbe-Grillet fought to destroy, despite what the translator says in the intro. That is, the preference to name only certain things and depict a reality vs arriving at the truth by coldly listing facts and cataloging objects with no favoritism toward any event.
Writing porn requires that you curate a specific set of details to hopefully convey the maximum erotic impact, which since that's what Robbe-Grillet is doing here, makes me feel like he sold out to his own primal animal. Which leaves us to judge the work based on the strength of its eroticism which while subjective still requires some kind of underlying craft to "pull off" successfully, pun intended.
How does he do as a more traditional storyteller? The writing is impeccable, as expected. It's the dynamics between the characters where I feel he fails. Most good porn the heroine undergoes a transformation / degradation / awakening (and sometimes empowerment) of pussy-consciousness, the more 180 from start to finish the better. In this story the heroine at the start is already mostly on board with the father / daughter incest / BDSM program. Her lack of resistance, her eagerness to please, makes me feel like we're missing a couple of juicy "fight" chapters.
This leads the role of resistance to a cast of secondary characters we don't really care about, they're so disposable, it just becomes a slaughterfest and you're left feeling as if you were just tested on how much you can stomach. I did however enjoy the conceit of girls found guilty and subjected to arrest and rape by the police, then sexual servitude / torture / death, because of the "crime" of being too beautiful.
As far as this being "literature"... By setting all this down, he probably didn't realize how big an arena he was entering and how he could do battle with the inherent enemies of morality and social mores in an interesting way, and so became immediately "dated" as someone two or three steps behind and falling back farther the less prudish / more jaded the world gets. (His solution is to throw spears at everyone, which speaks to how threatened he probably felt, as this was his way of balancing or getting some power back. I could be wrong about this.)
At the very least this could be regarded as an artifact for case study of a brilliant 20th century novelist. The richness of detail makes me wonder if there was a dearth of pornographic materials when the author was a kid. Conversely, does anyone nowadays have sexual fantasies this ornate, or even at all, when any variety of porn is just taps away?
Why couldn't he just leave his oeuvre the hell alone? Claude Simon did, Nathalie Sarraute did. I have to conclude that like any old exhibitionist about to die, he just wanted attention.