Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
If Robbe-Grillet's works are about a lack of significant moments, but rather the march of time as marked about by incremental physical markers. then Sarraute's work is all about tiny moments. Dissections of feelings and sensations around a single action or thought, this is perhaps the equivalent of Impressionism in painting.
Ultimately a little light on the palate, with not enough body.
Ultimately a little light on the palate, with not enough body.
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
sth deeply white and bourgeois about this but fine! ill bite!
Finally got around to re-reading this book, which has left an indelible mark on me and my writing. It's been with me since the very beginning of my serious attempt at a writing career. My awareness of Tropisms and its author Nathalie Sarraute must have come in the Nouveau Roman course I took in college, taught by Surrealist great Nanos Valeoritis at San Francisco state University in the early '80s. For whatever reason, I didn't then read it, but I owned a copy and thus it ended up in my shoulder bag when I quit my job, sold pretty much everything I owned, and took off for Europe in 1986, dreaming of living something like the life Henry Miller describes in Quiet Days in Cliche.
I don't exactly recall when I read it--perhaps even in the airport or on the plane to Brussels, or later in Paris, or perhaps still later in Rome, where I settled in that summer to write my first novel. But I do remember vividly its impact, it's uniqueness, the inspiration and feeling of the freedom to experiment myself by writing briefly and to the heart of things that these short, abstract narratives offered me as I began penning the fragments of my own endless satori as I traveled, saw the history I'd dreampt of back in the USA, and began collecting those fragments and a longer narrative together into my first novel Inbetween.
Now, having read I believe five later Sarraute novels, as well as her essays on novel writing, my understanding of her project is perhaps more clear, but the sheer beauty and impact of these short narratives, these Joycean epiphanies if you will, devoid of character (in the traditional sense) or plot, is still largely the same. Yes, there is a kinship here with Joyce's concept of that inner shift, that moment in which the essence of a character is revealed to others or themselves, even if Sarraute has gone him one step further by stripping away most of the exposition, description, background, and the small narrative that make the Dubliners stories still partially resemble the classic short story form.
True to the saying that less is more, I find the raw impact here even greater, at times, than the also awesome beauty of Joyce's tales. For me this is an essential fiction. I should re-read it far more often than I do. It's just exquisite.
----------------------------------
I gave this another reread as I just presented it to students, along with Marguerite Duras's Hiroshima, Mon Amour in my Literature and Gender course. As non-literature majors all they were a bit mystified, but I hope to have peaked their interest. It appears I will always love and return to this book as a wonderful re-imagining of what literature could be.
I don't exactly recall when I read it--perhaps even in the airport or on the plane to Brussels, or later in Paris, or perhaps still later in Rome, where I settled in that summer to write my first novel. But I do remember vividly its impact, it's uniqueness, the inspiration and feeling of the freedom to experiment myself by writing briefly and to the heart of things that these short, abstract narratives offered me as I began penning the fragments of my own endless satori as I traveled, saw the history I'd dreampt of back in the USA, and began collecting those fragments and a longer narrative together into my first novel Inbetween.
Now, having read I believe five later Sarraute novels, as well as her essays on novel writing, my understanding of her project is perhaps more clear, but the sheer beauty and impact of these short narratives, these Joycean epiphanies if you will, devoid of character (in the traditional sense) or plot, is still largely the same. Yes, there is a kinship here with Joyce's concept of that inner shift, that moment in which the essence of a character is revealed to others or themselves, even if Sarraute has gone him one step further by stripping away most of the exposition, description, background, and the small narrative that make the Dubliners stories still partially resemble the classic short story form.
True to the saying that less is more, I find the raw impact here even greater, at times, than the also awesome beauty of Joyce's tales. For me this is an essential fiction. I should re-read it far more often than I do. It's just exquisite.
----------------------------------
I gave this another reread as I just presented it to students, along with Marguerite Duras's Hiroshima, Mon Amour in my Literature and Gender course. As non-literature majors all they were a bit mystified, but I hope to have peaked their interest. It appears I will always love and return to this book as a wonderful re-imagining of what literature could be.
reflective
fast-paced
Imagine watching a scene with people and places and events. Now imagine watching it again but through a veil of meshed curtain, where everything is blurred, vague, and almost ethereal in nature. Well, that's this book and that's Saraute's writing style. There is no story, only the impression of a story, there are no characters, only pronouns such as 'they' and 'he.' There are no actions or events, only a sense of things, a feeling of something taking place. It's all very delicate and fragile.
You will either like that kind of experimental writing or you won't. For me, it was mostly unengaging, and left me with a feeling of frustrated uncertainty. I generally don't like that kind of navel-gazing and, truth be told, tend to find it has a very female energy. The whimsical and dainty, the reflective, the pensive, the woman standing by the pond looking at the lilies and thinking about her lost love, 'the autumn leaves, the lilies, the war, the lilies... oh, the lilies.' It all rather boring if you ask me. I've encountered this kind of writing from a lot of female writers over the years and was immediately reminded of 'Good Morning, Midnight' by Jean Rhys. That too irritated me with all its delicate pondering and wistful banality. The truth is only women who swan about cafes and live in country estates write like this. Get them working down the mines for a decade and they'll soon lose interest in the lilies on the pond.
I'm being a little harsh. But it's not for me. Though it's well written and delightfully short. Definitely worth a read.
You will either like that kind of experimental writing or you won't. For me, it was mostly unengaging, and left me with a feeling of frustrated uncertainty. I generally don't like that kind of navel-gazing and, truth be told, tend to find it has a very female energy. The whimsical and dainty, the reflective, the pensive, the woman standing by the pond looking at the lilies and thinking about her lost love, 'the autumn leaves, the lilies, the war, the lilies... oh, the lilies.' It all rather boring if you ask me. I've encountered this kind of writing from a lot of female writers over the years and was immediately reminded of 'Good Morning, Midnight' by Jean Rhys. That too irritated me with all its delicate pondering and wistful banality. The truth is only women who swan about cafes and live in country estates write like this. Get them working down the mines for a decade and they'll soon lose interest in the lilies on the pond.
I'm being a little harsh. But it's not for me. Though it's well written and delightfully short. Definitely worth a read.