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Description
Praised for his independence, curiosity, intimate knowledge of French literature, and sharp reader's eye, John Taylor is a writer-critic who is naturally skeptical of literary fashions, overnight reputations, and readymade academic categories. Here he examines various genres of politically committed literature (such as Jean Hatzfeld's "narratives" about Rwanda or Tchicaya U Tam'si's verse), some overlooked fiction, and several provocative experiments with literary form (ranging from the poetry of Jean-Paul Michel and Marie etienne to the "three-line novels" of Felix Feneon).Taylor continues to reveal the remarkable resourcefulness of French writing. Besides drawing attention to authors (like Dai Sijie or Albert Cossery) who have come to French from other languages, he has added younger novelists to his critical panorama.Challenging persistent cliches and recovering deserving voices from unjust neglect, Taylor's vision of French literature conjures up the image of a vital nexus. Poetry crisscrosses with prose, writers from one generation meet up with those from the next or the previous one, while the philosophical ideas underlying French writing are scrutinized. This is an essential guide to the realities of French culture today.Table of ContentIntroductionPart 1: What Is, and What Might BePath, Light, Space (Pierre-Albert Jourdan)Strolling out from the Self (Jean Follain, Henri Thomas, Philippe Jaccottet, Jacques Reda, Paul de Roux, Guy Goffette, Gilles Ortlieb)Rare Confi dent Moments (Philippe Jaccottet)In Search of the "Absurd Evidence" (Rene Daumal)Experience and Solitude (Paul Gadenne)A Modern Psalmist (Jean Grosjean)The Angel's Shoulder (Alexandre Romanes)Open-Eyed Drifting (Richard Rognet)The Music of What Is (Jean-Paul Michel)Part 2: Of Amorous CaptivityThe Language of Attachment (Laurence Werner David)Longing for the Ultimate Polestar (Jean Genet)From Sicilian Defenses to Tango Dancing (Brina Svit)Exalting Exitless Exits (Marcel Moreau)The Perils of Absolute Love (Marie-Claude Vincent)Narratives of Mood and Movement (Anne Serre)Crucial Quests (Cecile Wajsbrot)Meditations on the Real and the Imaginary (Emmanuel Hocquard)Styling Melancholy (Irene Schavelzon)Resonating beyond Elegy (Claude Vigee)Part 3: Forms of CommitmentRene Maran's Pioneering BatoualaFor a Reissue of Yambo Ouologuem's Le Devoir de violenceA New Kind of French Engage Writing (Jean Hatzfeld)Bookish Passions (Yannick Haenel)Two Hesitations about the Recent Fiction of J. M. G. Le ClezioThe Flickering Flames (Jean-Pierre Rosnay)Moving, Misguided, Melodious Lines (Louis Aragon)Rereading Tchicaya U Tam'siThree Chinese Francophones (Francois Cheng, Dai Sijie, Gao Xingjian)Drooping Eyelids, a Farcical World (Albert Cossery)Part 4: Narrative ArithmeticThe Arithmetic of Being in the World (Marie etienne)Robert Pinget's EarThree-Line Novels (Felix Feneon)The Languages of Alta IflandUnities and Disunities of Raymond QueneauTwo Instructive Fabulists (Pierre Bettencourt and Jean-Marie Le Sidaner)A Defrocked Ethnologist (Jacques Meunier)A French Modernist a la chinoise (Victor Segalen)Part 5: Hommes De Lettres in the MirrorAn Aloof Modesty (Georges Henein)Myth and Mythomania (Andre Malraux)Ghosts in the Mirror (Alain Robbe-Grillet)The Worm of Insubordination (Georges Belmont)The Gossamer Threads of a Life (Julien Green)Facing Edmond JabesThe Moods of a Man of Letters (Valery Larbaud)NotesBibliographyIndex
