Will Crichton, the Heuristics of Narrativity in the Works of Jean
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The Heuristics of Narrativity in the Works of Jean-Philippe Toussaint by Will Crichton University ID Number: 1257975 A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in French Studies University of Warwick, Department of French Studies, School of Modern Languages and Cultures March 2016 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents 2 Acknowledgements 4 Declaration of Inclusion of Material from a Prior Thesis 5 Abstract 6 Introduction, Literature Review, Aims 8 - Thesis Structure 25 Chapter 1: Self in the World 29 - Ubiquitous Narrativity and the Threefold Mimesis 30 - Mêmeté and ipséité 39 - Fictive Experiences of Time in La Salle de bain and L’Appareil-photo 43 - La Salle de bain 47 - L’Appareil-photo 64 - La Réticence 80 - Conclusion 99 Chapter 2: The Other in the Self 103 - Irony 105 - Monsieur 110 - La Télévision 127 - ‘Moi, quoi’ 132 - ‘Le travail, quoi’ 139 2 - Toussaint’s cinematic ironies 144 - La Sévillane 151 - La Patinoire 167 - Conclusion 186 Chapter 3: Selfhood in the Other 188 - The sublime 192 - Faire l’amour and the Conquering Sublime 196 - Fuir 222 - La Vérité sur Marie and the Immanent Sublime 244 - Nue 265 - Conclusion 285 Conclusions 287 - Possible directions for future research 293 Bibliography 296 3 Acknowledgements I would like to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to the Wolfson Foundation for funding my research through a Wolfson Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship. The generous support I received from the Wolfson Foundation was essential to the completion of my thesis and I am proud to have benefited from the Foundation’s continued support for, and belief in, the protection and promotion of the Humanities in a time of institutional crisis. My thanks to the University of Warwick and particularly to the staff and postgraduates in the French Department for their friendship, advice and support. My special thanks to my principal supervisor, Dr. Douglas Morrey, whose discussions, debates, precisions and patience have been extremely invaluable throughout, and for taking my early decision to excise Michel Houellebecq from my thesis, in order to concentrate fully on the works of Jean-Philippe Toussaint, in his stride. My great thanks to my secondary supervisor, Dr. Oliver Davis, for giving me many key insights about the approach of my thesis, especially with regard to the third chapter. Thank you also to Professor Andy Leak for first introducing me to Toussaint’s work and supervising my Master’s thesis. My thanks to my parents, for their amazing love and support, and to my two brothers who both live in far off places, but were there when I needed them. Finally, my thanks to Chloe, for everything. 4 Declaration of Inclusion of Material from a Prior Thesis Brief sections of Chapter 1 contain passages from my thesis submitted for the degree of MA in French and Francophone Studies: Language, Culture and History at University College London in 2011. These are referenced within the text. 5 Abstract This thesis analyses nine novels and two films by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, spanning the period from La Salle de bain (1985) to Nue (2013). Drawing on the hermeneutic phenomenology of Paul Ricœur, it argues that Toussaint’s texts can be fruitfully analysed by treating them as forms of fictionalised reflexive narrativity. Through the close readings of the texts developed in this thesis, it will be argued that Toussaint’s anonymous fictional narrators are presented as both the readers and writers of their own lives, engaged in re-imagining their own past experiences in ways which are heuristically motivated towards future possibilities for action, and that these re-imaginings are represented both as and through the formal variations of the texts themselves. However, the thesis will also seek to emphasise the ways in which such refigurative narrative engagements are frequently depicted as deceptive or problematic in Toussaint’s work. The first chapter, Self in the World, analyses three novels, La Salle de bain (1985), L’Appareil-photo (1988), and La Réticence (1991), focusing on the ways in which these novels treat thematic questions of subjectivity, identity, agency and the human capacity for reflexive narrativity. The second chapter, The Other in the Self, analyses two novels, Monsieur (1986) and La Télévision (1997), along with two films, La Sévillane (1992) and La Patinoire (1999), focusing on the ways in which Toussaint’s texts deploy various forms of ironic discourse in the critical mediation of the relationship between individual subjectivity and the exigencies of society, the workplace, and issues of creative agency. 6 The final chapter, Selfhood in the Other, analyses the novels of Toussaint’s Marie tetralogy, Faire l’amour (2002), Fuir (2005), La Vérité sur Marie (2009), and Nue (2013), focusing on how this series interrogates philosophical questions of intersubjectivity by drawing on a number of historical conceptualisations of the aesthetic concept of the sublime. 7 Introduction, Literature Review, Aims This thesis will analyse all of Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s published fiction novels to date, as well as two films which he wrote and directed, La Sévillane (1992) and La Patinoire (1999). The methodological approach will draw heavily on the ‘hermeneutic phenomenology’ of the philosopher, Paul Ricœur, particularly in the areas of narrativity, temporality, personal identity, agency and intersubjectivity. The close readings of Toussaint’s texts contained herein will be informed by Ricœur’s analysis of the ways in which narrative practices are intrinsic features of human experience, both allowing us and compelling us to dynamically graft structures of intelligibility and meaning onto our disjointed, heterogeneous experience of a world of objects, events and other agents. September 2013 saw the publication of Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s ninth novel, Nue (2013).1 The fourth instalment of Toussaint’s Marie series, Nue represents the culmination of a cycle which began eleven years earlier with Faire l’amour (2002),2 presenting an anonymous first-person narrator elliptically reflecting upon several periods in his fractious romantic relationship with a globally acclaimed fashion designer, Marie de Montalte. The series has received both commercial and critical acclaim in France, Jordan Stump writing that the second novel of the series, ‘Fuir, […] Houellebecq notwithstanding, was unmistakably the major event of the 2005 literary season.’3 The curator of graphic arts at the Louvre, Pascal Torres, was so impressed by one of this novel’s scenes, set in France’s most famous art gallery, that he took the highly unusual step of inviting Toussaint to stage an original exhibition there, 2012’s Livre/Louvre, a rare opportunity for a contemporary novelist. 1 Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Nue (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 2013). Hereafter cited in the format ‘(N, x)’. 2 Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Faire L’amour (Paris: Minuit, 2002). Hereafter cited in the format ‘(FA, x)’. 3 Jordan Stump, ‘Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Unfinished’, SubStance, 35.111 (2006), 95–111, p. 95. 8 Comprising photography, film and sculpture, the exhibition was conceived by Toussaint as ‘un hommage visuel au livre’.4 Both Nue and the Marie series’ third instalment, La Vérité sur Marie (2009) appeared on shortlists for the Goncourt Prize, France’s most prestigious literary award, for the years in which they were released, and Fuir (2005)5 and La Vérité sur Marie received the prix Medicis and the prix Décembre, in 2005 and 2009 respectively.6 Since the publication of his first novel, La Salle de bain,7 in 1985, Toussaint’s readership has grown internationally as well as domestically, and translations of Fuir and La Vérité sur Marie have been positively reviewed in major publications including The Independent, the New York Times and Der Spiegel.8 Nicolas Lezard, in his review of La Vérité sur Marie for the Guardian, writes that ‘Toussaint is carving out one of the most fascinating literary oeuvres of our times.’9 Despite this growing level of critical and commercial attention at home and abroad and although, as Sarah Glasco notes, Toussaint’s novels now form ‘part of French literature curricula at universities worldwide’, 10 this does not yet appear to have translated into a particularly great deal of published academic research, particularly not in English. As of the time of writing, Glasco’s Parody and Palimpsest remains the only English-language, book-length monograph to have been published on Toussaint’s work, taking its place alongside around a dozen journal 4 Jean-Philippe Toussaint, La Main et le regard: Livre/Louvre (Paris: Musée du Louvre Éditions, 2012). 5 Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Fuir (Paris: Minuit, 2005). Hereafter cited in the format ‘(F, x)’. 6 In 2009, La Vérité sur Marie was beaten by another Minuit novel, Marie NDiaye’s Trois Femmes Puissantes. 7 Jean-Philippe Toussaint, La Salle de bain (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1985). Hereafter cited in the format ‘(SB, x)’. 8 ‘The Truth About Marie, By Jean-Philippe Toussaint’, The Independent; ‘Die besten Romane des Herbstes: Hier wachsen Ihnen Hörner beim Lesen!’, Spiegel Online, 1 January 2010; Christopher Byrd, ‘Book Review | “Running Away,” By Jean-Philippe Toussaint; Translated by Matthew B. Smith’, The New York Times, 24 December 2009. 9 Nicholas Lezard, ‘The Truth About Marie by Jean-Philippe Toussaint – Review’, The Guardian, 6 September 2011. 10 Sarah L. Glasco, Parody and Palimpsest: Intertextuality, Language and the Ludic in the Novels of Jean-Philippe Toussaint