WRITING PAST AND PRESENT: NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN THE WORK OF J. M. G. LE CLÉZIO by NICOLE M. THORBURN B.A., University of Wyoming, l993 M.A., University of Wyoming, l995 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of French and Italian 2012 This thesis entitled: Writing Past and Present: Narrative Structure in the Work of J. M. G. Le Clézio written by Nicole M. Thorburn has been approved for the Department of French and Italian _______________________________________________ Dr. Warren Motte _______________________________________________ Dr. Elisabeth Arnould-Bloomfield Date: ____________ The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. iii Thorburn, Nicole M. (Ph.D., French Literature, Department of French and Italian) Writing Past and Present: Narrative Structure in the Work of J. M. G. Le Clézio Thesis directed by Professor Warren Motte Representations of the past figure prominently in the work of J. M. G. Le Clézio. Yet, despite a large and rapidly growing body of criticism devoted to his oeuvre, how Le Clézio incorporates the past into an often more contemporary narrative is one subject that has yet to be treated in detail. In my dissertation, I examine the narrative structure of several of Le Clézio’s novels, short stories and nonfiction texts. After an introduction to Le Clézio’s work, I discuss the various means by which he introduces the past into the narrative, including the use of historical settings, events and figures; characters’ remembrances; embedded narrative; and documents such as letters, journals and photographs. Through an examination of these techniques, I argue that the past plays an important role in the narrative, both thematically and structurally. I then conclude with a discussion of the implications of this use of the past with regard to the present, suggesting that by incorporating the past, Le Clézio shows how past and present are invariably linked. iv CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: J. M. G. LE CLÉZIO AND HIS WORK 1 II. INTRODUCING THE PAST IN THE LE CLÉZIAN NARRRATIVE 28 III. REMEMBERING THE PAST IN THE LE CLÉZIAN NARRATIVE 58 IV. EMBEDDING THE PAST IN THE LE CLÉZIAN NARRATIVE 93 V. DOCUMENTING THE PAST IN THE LE CLÉZIAN NARRATIVE 142 VI. CONCLUSION: WRITING PAST AND PRESENT 182 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………..……………………………………………………196 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: J. M. G. LE CLÉZIO AND HIS WORK Since the inauguration of his career in 1963, with Le procès-verbal, 2008 Nobel Laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has published over 40 works, including novels, collections of short stories, essays, children’s books, autobiographical and biographical texts, and translations. Le Clézio’s interests are wide-ranging, as is his use of genre. He writes about nature (especially the sun, the sea and the desert), modern society and those marginalized by it, and escape; he’s also written about Mexico, Central America and indigenous peoples. Having traveled extensively and lived on different continents himself, Le Clézio sets his stories in various parts of the world: Africa, Europe, Oceania and Asia, as well as North and Central America. Le Clézio’s characters often travel between two or more continents. In Margareta Kastberg Sjöblom’s words, the writer “passe en effet pour l’écrivain-voyageur par excellence” (203). In November 2008, Lire’s François Busnel praised Le Clézio for abolishing borders, which Busnel sees as one of Le Clézio’s greatest strengths (5). In addition, Le Clézio has been praised for his clear, accessible prose, and above all for his descriptions—especially of the desert and the sea—while his writing has been labeled contemplative and nostalgic (Salles Le Clézio 15). His work has been well received by critics and the literary community: Le Clézio was awarded the Prix Théophraste Renaudot for his first novel, Le procès-verbal; the Académie Française’s Grand Prix de Littérature Paul Morand for Désert (1980); for his work as a whole, Grand Prix Jean Giono (1997); and, of course, the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature. Other awards include the Prix Valery 2 Larbaud (1972), the Prix Littéraire de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (1998), and the Stig Dagermanpriset (2008). While many authors find either critical praise or commercial success, Le Clézio has enjoyed both. French readers have proved a welcoming public: in her foreword to Marina Salles’ Le Clézio: Notre contemporain, Francine Dugast-Portes describes how readers, from children to high school students in addition to adults, wait for Le Clézio’s new releases and anticipate his rare radio and television appearances. A documentary, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio entre deux mondes, filmed in South Korea, Mexico and Brittany (released in 2008), contains travel footage and interviews with the author. Another indication of Le Clézio’s status in contemporary French culture is his inclusion, among authors like Colette, in France: A Traveler's Literary Companion, a different take on a travel guidebook. In it, instead of lists of hotels, restaurants and sites worth visiting, the different regions of France are characterized by literary selections. With Le Clézio’s stories often set in or around his native city of Nice, it is not surprising that his work would be chosen to embody the south of France: the short story “Villa Aurora” from the collection Mondo et autres histoires represents Nice. “Villa Aurora” tells about a villa and garden with almost magical qualities where a boy spent much of his childhood playing. Depicting the harsh reality of the modern world, often a prominent element of Le Clézian fiction, the protagonist then returns in his early adulthood to find the land and villa encroached on by the development of roads, schools and impersonal concrete high-rise buildings. Further evidence of Le Clézio’s increasing popularity, the “Association des lecteurs de J. M. G. Le Clézio” was founded in 2005, its goal being to provide a forum for Le Clézio enthusiasts—including readers, bookstores, publishers, writers, and academics—and to organize and support events designed to publicize his work. Just as Le Clézio’s themes often extend beyond the hexagon (Haddard-Khalil 7), his popularity is not 3 limited to France itself or even the French-speaking world. The website of the “Association des lecteurs de J. M. G. Le Clézio,”1 has members from 15 different countries, and lists 13 languages into which Le Clézio has been translated,2 as well as 13 of his publications which have been translated into English. Having been awarded the Nobel, there is little doubt that much more of his work will soon appear in translation. One could attribute Le Clézio’s popularity, at least in part, to his range. He has proven himself an accomplished author of everything from simple prose for children to engaging novels and essays on history and language. But while Le Clézio has practiced many different genres, his work does not show a clear progression from one to another. Throughout his career, he has moved from genre to genre and back again. He stated in L’extase matérielle that the forms that writing takes have no importance; it is only the act of writing that is important for him (106-107). In an interview with Roger Borderie, Le Clézio suggests: “En ce qui concerne le genre, je continue de penser que ni le roman, ni la nouvelle ni l’essai n’existent plus vraiment” (11). Indeed, some of Le Clézio’s work resists classification. The cover of Le livre des fuites (1969) labels it as a “roman d’aventures,” but the third-person narrative (whose narrator is both intrusive and self-conscious) of the wanderings of Jeune Homme Hogan is interspersed with chapters entitled “Autocritique” which comment on the telling of the story and writing in general. This self-criticism questions the validity and the very existence of the form: Est-ce que cela valait vraiment la peine d’écrire tout ça, comme ça ? Je veux dire, où était la nécessité, l’urgence de ce livre ? Peut-être bien que cela aurait mieux valu d’attendre 1 http://www.associationleclezio.com/ 2 As of 10 March 2012, those languages include Afrikaans, German, English, Bulgarian, Spanish, Finnish, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian and Swedish. 4 quelques années, replié sur soi-même, sans rien dire. Un roman ! Un roman ! Je commence à haïr sérieusement ces petites histoires besogneuses, ces trucs, ces redondances. Un roman ? Une aventure, quoi. Alors qu’il n’y en a pas ! Tout cet effort de coordination, toute cette machinerie—ce théâtre—, tout cela pourquoi ? Pour mettre au jour un récit de plus. (54) That ambivalence toward genre is reiterated in the preface to La fièvre: “La poésie, les romans, les nouvelles, sont de singulières antiquités qui ne trompent plus personne, ou presque. Des poèmes, des récits, pour quoi faire? L’écriture, il ne reste plus que l’écriture, l’écriture seule, qui tâtonne avec ses mots, qui cherche et décrit, avec minutie, avec profondeur, qui s’agrippe, qui travaille la réalité sans complaisance” (8). Les géants (1973) is also categorized as a novel but it, too, has sections which resemble essays more than fiction. In those sections (nine in all, including the opening and closing chapters), the first-person narrator addresses the reader directly, describing the state of the modern world and language and calling the reader to action. The fictional story, whose presentation resembles a parable (Waelti-Walters 125), is told in chapters that alternate with the narrator’s first-person commentary.