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A review by msjoanna
Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet
3.0
This novel is an important work of literature, but it was only sort of fun to read. The book uses third-person limited viewpoint in the extreme -- the entire book is told from the perspective of an unnamed "objective" narrator as if the narrator is a video camera recording events by peering through windows. On the one hand, it's an interesting approach that stretches the narrative form. On the other hand, it's pretty distant and sometimes a little obsessively boring (e.g., counting the number of trees and how many rows of each are visible, reviewing the position of shadows over the veranda).
Despite moments of boredom, I still found the book to have a compelling rhythm -- the same events are reviewed over and over in the narrator's mind as he gets more and more jealous and obsessed with the idea that "A..." is involved with the neighbor. While the narrator is unnamed and undescribed, it seems likely that the narrator is A...'s husband.
This would be an interesting book to have read in a literature class where I'd be reading critiques and examinations of the form in parallel and perhaps contrasting the book directly with other efforts to play with narrative structure. In some ways, the narrative reminded me of [b:Infinite Jest|6759|Infinite Jest|David Foster Wallace|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165604485s/6759.jpg|3271542], but I have trouble articulating exactly why.
Despite moments of boredom, I still found the book to have a compelling rhythm -- the same events are reviewed over and over in the narrator's mind as he gets more and more jealous and obsessed with the idea that "A..." is involved with the neighbor. While the narrator is unnamed and undescribed, it seems likely that the narrator is A...'s husband.
This would be an interesting book to have read in a literature class where I'd be reading critiques and examinations of the form in parallel and perhaps contrasting the book directly with other efforts to play with narrative structure. In some ways, the narrative reminded me of [b:Infinite Jest|6759|Infinite Jest|David Foster Wallace|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165604485s/6759.jpg|3271542], but I have trouble articulating exactly why.