Alain Robbe-Grillet

[Inderjit Sanghe]

Anybody else a fan? I personally prefer 'In the Labryinth' to 'Jealousy'.

[stlukesguild]

I find him too "clever"... trying to hard to deconstruct the novel as we know. Sterne already did it and did it far better and with feeling. On the other hand... I did actually love his short story, The Secret Room.

[Inderjit Sanghe]

I do not understand what you mean by him "trying to be clever"-there is nothing wrong with that, as long as it is in the phenomenological, literary, Robbe-Grilletian sense, in the sense that Robbe-Grillet, like Joyce or Proust, was attempting to revolutinze the novel and create his own independent and original writing style. There is nothing wrong with trying to de-construct the novel!

I love 'In the Labryinth', it's descriptions are Kafkaesque (sorry for descending into literary platitudes), the town which Robbe-Grillet writes about echoes the nighthmarish paranoia which envelops Kafka's works, it is, like Kafka, the realm of the pure imagination, an abstract world of malevolent children, spurious soldiers and imaginary wars. I don't think it is overly-apt, or relevant, to compare Robbe-Grillet with Sterne.

[chasestalling]

Not my cup of tea, but I can see how it infuriated the established literati and in that sense I'm a fan.

[NickAdams]

I haven't read anything by him, but I have Le Voyeur on my shelf.

[sofia82]

I bought 'In the Labryinth', a persian translation, two month ago and not read it yet ... hope to start