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On the Romanesque in Contemporary French Literature

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On the Romanesque in Contemporary French Literature University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2013 Problematic Returns: On the Romanesque in Contemporary French Literature Lucas Hollister University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Aesthetics Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, and the Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons Recommended Citation Hollister, Lucas, "Problematic Returns: On the Romanesque in Contemporary French Literature" (2013). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 641. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/641 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/641 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Problematic Returns: On the Romanesque in Contemporary French Literature Abstract This dissertation examines the discourse that emerged in the late 1980s positing a “retour du romanesque” in French literature. Through a survey of the scholarly work on the subject of contemporary literature and the romanesque, as well as a close analysis of three major authors associated with the “retour du romanesque”--Jean Echenoz, Jean Rouaud, and Antoine Volodine--this dissertation aims to provide a fuller account of the modalities, stakes and goals of the contemporary novel. In particular, it seeks to address the question of how the contemporary return to the romanesque contributes to defining the aesthetic postulates that underpin the last thirty years of French literary production. The broader aim of this study is to interrogate the theoretical positions that might justify alternative readings of a development that could otherwise be considered purely in terms of regression to conservative standards of literary quality. The three authors considered in this study are exemplary of the diverse understandings of the developments of 20th-century literature, and the ways in which these understandings influence decisions pertaining to literary kinship and filiation. Jean chenoE z riffs on the standards of conventional genre fiction, at once sabotaging and renewing its clichés. Jean Rouaud polemically refuses what he sees as a tradition of experimental fiction, and eturnsr to the romanesque as a literature of slow contemplation and strong axiological positions. Antoine Volodine constructs violent alternate realities, as well as an entire fictional community, in an attempt to sever his literary works from any relation to literary past, present, or future. This dissertation finally argues that these writing projects all point to the need for a theoretical paradigm which would reconcile critical and naive, reflective and immersive reading practices. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Romance Languages First Advisor Gerald Prince Keywords contemporary, Echenoz, French, romanesque, Rouaud, Volodine Subject Categories Aesthetics | English Language and Literature | Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/641 PROBLEMATIC RETURNS: ON THE ROMANESQUE IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH LITERATURE Lucas C. Hollister A DISSERTATION in French For the Graduate Group in Romance Languages Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Supervisor of Dissertation ____________________ Gerald Prince, Professor of Romance Languages Graduate Group Chairperson ____________________ Kevin Brownlee, Professor of Romance Languages Dissertation Committee Philippe Met, Professor of Romance Languages Lydie Moudileno, Professor of Romance Languages PROBLEMATIC RETURNS: ON THE ROMANESQUE IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH LITERATURE COPYRIGHT 2013 Lucas Coyote Hollister Acknowledgments This thesis, in its completed form, would not have been possible without the help of a number of people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Gerald Prince, for his guidance and support throughout this process. It has been a great honor to work with him these past five years. I would also like to thank Lydie Moudileno and Philippe Met for their insightful comments on this dissertation. I should add that I owe a great deal to the entire faculty of the Department of French. This project reflects in many ways the lessons I have learned from Kevin Brownlee, Joan DeJean, Lance Donaldson- Evans, Andrea Goulet and Michèle Richman. The support staff of the Department of Romance Languages are warmly thanked for all that they have done to help me with the practical ins and outs of life as a graduate student. I would also like to recognize my fellow graduate students, who have given me friendship and support, and who have provided me with formal and informal feedback and criticism as I developed the ideas in this thesis. In particular, Caroline Grubbs, Charlotte Ritzmann, Matt Pagett, Samuel Martin and George MacLeod have helped me sharpen my analysis of contemporary literature. I should also thank François Massonnat, Lucy Swanson, Anne Bornschein and Bryan Cameron, who have provided me with informal advising throughout my time as a graduate student. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Lee, for everything she has done to help me develop and finish this thesis. It goes without saying that any shortcomings that this project may have are, regrettably, attributable only to its author. iii ABSTRACT PROBLEMATIC RETURNS: ON THE ROMANESQUE IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH LITERATURE Lucas C. Hollister Gerald Prince This dissertation examines the discourse that emerged in the late 1980s positing a “retour du romanesque” in French literature. Through a survey of the scholarly work on the subject of contemporary literature and the romanesque, as well as a close analysis of three major authors associated with the “retour du romanesque”—Jean Echenoz, Jean Rouaud, and Antoine Volodine—this dissertation aims to provide a fuller account of the modalities, stakes and goals of the contemporary novel. In particular, it seeks to address the question of how the contemporary return to the romanesque contributes to defining the aesthetic postulates that underpin the last thirty years of French literary production. The broader aim of this study is to interrogate the theoretical positions that might justify alternative readings of a development that could otherwise be considered purely in terms of regression to conservative standards of literary quality. The three authors considered in this study are exemplary of the diverse understandings of the developments of 20th- century literature, and the ways in which these understandings influence decisions pertaining to literary kinship and filiation. Jean Echenoz riffs on the standards of conventional genre fiction, at once sabotaging and renewing its clichés. Jean Rouaud polemically refuses what he sees as a tradition of experimental fiction, and returns to the romanesque as a literature of slow contemplation and strong axiological positions. iv Antoine Volodine constructs violent alternate realities, as well as an entire fictional community, in an attempt to sever his literary works from any relation to literary past, present, or future. This dissertation finally argues that these writing projects all point to the need for a theoretical paradigm which would reconcile critical and naive, reflective and immersive reading practices. v Table of Contents INTRODUCTION……………………………………………....................................... 1 CHAPTER 1. Definitional Problems: The “Return” “of” the “Romanesque” in “Contemporary” “French” “Literature……………………………………………........ 7 CHAPTER 2. Jean Echenoz, or How and When to Return to the Romanesque.............. 67 CHAPTER 3. An Eternal Return? Jean Rouaud’s Romanesque Between Slow Literature and Ressentiment………………………………………………………......... 127 CHAPTER 4. Point of No Return? Antoine Volodine’s ‘Post-Exotic’ Romanesque…..177 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………… 238 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………… 244 vi Introduction It is customary to begin a study of contemporary French literature by telling the reader that the French novel (or French literature, or French culture) is definitely dead, or definitely not dead. Like all literary periods, particularly those that precede the arrival of big, arbitrary, round-number dates, the contemporary has its fair share of declinologists. From the left, we hear that mass media and commercialization have eroded the literary values of the modernist novel. From the right, we hear that multiculturalism, identity politics, and valueless postmodernism have destroyed a once proud national literary tradition. So clamorous were these declarations of the death of the French novel, that a new critical cliché took hold, making it de rigueur to begin any study of contemporary literature by explaining that it was not, in fact, dead (littérature pas morte – essai suit). Now that we are, by most accounts, over thirty years into the “contemporary” period, the yearly arrival of a profusion of new works that call themselves literature and that appear to be written in French seems to announce to us: “reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” If French literature is dead, its death has certainly been of the drawn out, theatrical variety, and its death throes show no sign of hastening toward an ultimate conclusion. The declinological accounts should not be dismissed outright, however, as they do suggest intriguing
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