Alain Robbe-Grillet (French: [a.lɛ̃ ʁɔb ɡʁi.jɛ]; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman (new novel) trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon. Alain Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on 25 March 2004, succeeding Maurice Rheims at seat No. 32. He was married to Catherine Robbe-Grillet (née Rstakian).
Alain Robbe-Grillet | |
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Born | (1922-08-18)18 August 1922 Brest, Finistère, France |
Died | 18 February 2008(2008-02-18) (aged 85) Caen, France |
Occupation | Writer filmmaker |
Years active | 1953–2008 |
Known for | Member of the Académie française |
Spouse | Catherine Robbe-Grillet |
Alain Robbe-Grillet was born in Brest (Finistère, France) to a family of engineers and scientists. He was trained as an agricultural engineer. During the years 1943 and 1944, he participated in compulsory labor in Nuremberg, where he worked as a machinist. The initial few months were seen by Robbe-Grillet as something of a holiday, since, in between the very rudimentary training he was given to operate the machinery, he had free time to go to the theatre and the opera. In 1945, he completed his diploma at the National Institute of Agronomy. Later, his work as an agronomist took him to Martinique, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, and Morocco. In 1960, he was a signatory to the Manifesto of the 121 in support of the Algerian struggle for independence. He died in Caen after succumbing to heart problems.[1]
Robbe-Grillet's first published novel was The Erasers (Les Gommes), which was issued by Les Éditions de Minuit in 1953. After that, he dedicated himself full-time to his new occupation. His early work was praised by eminent critics, such as Roland Barthes and Maurice Blanchot. Around the time of his second novel, he became a literary advisor for Les Éditions de Minuit and occupied this position from 1955 until 1985. After publishing four novels, in 1961, he worked with Alain Resnais, writing the script for Last Year at Marienbad (L'Année dernière à Marienbad), and he subsequently wrote and directed his own films.
In 1963, Robbe-Grillet published For a New Novel (Pour un Nouveau Roman), a collection of previously published theoretical writings concerning the novel. From 1966 to 1968, he was a member of the High Committee for the Defense and Expansion of French (Haut comité pour la défense et l'expansion de la langue française). In addition, Robbe-Grillet also led the Centre for Sociology of Literature (Centre de sociologie de la littérature) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles from 1980 to 1988. From 1971 to 1995, Robbe-Grillet was a professor at New York University, lecturing on his own novels.
Although Robbe-Grillet was elected to the Académie française in 2004, in his eighties, he was never formally received by the Académie because of disputes regarding the Académie's reception procedures. Robbe-Grillet both refused to prepare and submit a welcome speech in advance, preferring to improvise his speech, as well as refusing to purchase and wear the Académie's famous green tails (habit vert) and sabre, which he considered outdated.
His writing style has been described as "realist" or "phenomenological" (in the Heideggerian sense) or "a theory of pure surface". Methodical, geometric, and often repetitive descriptions of objects replace (though often reveal) the psychology and interiority of the character. The reader must slowly piece together the story and the emotional experience of jealousy, for example, in the repetition of descriptions, the attention to odd details, and the breaks in repetitions, a method that resembles the experience of psychoanalysis in which the deeper unconscious meanings are contained in the flow and disruptions of free associations. Timelines and plots are fractured, and the resulting novel resembles the literary equivalent of a cubist painting. Yet his work is ultimately characterized by its ability to mean many things to many different people.[2]
Robbe-Grillet wrote his first novel A Regicide (Un Régicide) in 1949, but it was rejected by Gallimard, a major French publishing house, and only later published with minor corrections by his lifelong publisher Les Éditions de Minuit in 1978. His second novel, The Erasers (Les Gommes), superficially resembles a detective novel, but it contains within it a deeper structure based on the tale of Oedipus. The detective is seeking the assassin in a murder that has not yet occurred, only to discover that it is his destiny to become that assassin.[3]
His next and most acclaimed novel is The Voyeur (Le Voyeur), first published in French in 1955 and translated into English in 1958 by Richard Howard. The Voyeur relates the story of Mathias, a traveling watch salesman who returns to the island of his youth with a desperate objective. As with many of his novels, The Voyeur revolves around an apparent murder: throughout the novel, Mathias unfolds a newspaper clipping about the details of a young girl's murder and the discovery of her body among the seaside rocks. Mathias' relationship with a dead girl, possibly that hinted at in the story, is obliquely revealed in the course of the novel so that we are never actually sure if Mathias is a killer or simply a person who fantasizes about killing. Importantly, the "actual murder," if such a thing exists, is absent from the text. The narration contains little dialogue, and an ambiguous timeline of events. Indeed, the novel's opening line is indicative of the novel's tone: "It was as if no one had heard." The Voyeur was awarded the Prix des Critiques.
Next, he wrote La Jalousie in 1957, one of his few novels to be set in a non-urban location, in this instance a banana plantation. In the first year of publication only 746 copies were sold, despite the popularity of The Voyeur. Over time, it became a great literary success and was translated into English by Richard Howard. Robbe-Grillet himself argued that the novel was constructed along the lines of an absent third-person narrator. In Robbe-Grillet's account of the novel the absent narrator, a jealous husband, silently observes the interactions of his wife (referred to only as "A...") and a neighbour, Franck. The silent narrator who never names himself (his presence is merely implied, e.g. by the number of place settings at the dinner table or deck chairs on the verandah) is extremely suspicious that A... is having an affair with Franck. Throughout the novel, the absent narrator continually replays his observations and suspicions (that is, created scenarios about A... and Franck) so much so that it becomes impossible to distinguish between 'observed' moments or 'suspicious' moments. 'Jalousie' is also translatable as Persian blinds, the horizontal shutters common in France that are usually made of wood or sometimes metal. Over the course of the novel the main character looks through his blinds repeatedly in different scenes, the 'jalousie' he looks out to the world that mutates ever so slightly each time.
In 1984 he published what he described as an intentionally traditional autobiography, entitled Le Miroir qui revient, translated into English as Ghosts in the Mirror by Jo Levy (1988).
Robbe-Grillet's career as a creator of fiction was not restricted to the writing of novels. For him, creating fiction in the form of films was of equal importance. His film career began when Alain Resnais chose to collaborate with him on his 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad. The film was nominated for the 1963 Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay and won the Golden Lion when it came out in 1961. In the credits it was presented as a film equally co-authored by Robbe-Grillet and Resnais.
Robbe-Grillet then went on to launch a career as a writer-director of a series of cerebral and often sexually provocative feature films which explored similar themes to those in his literary work (e.g. Voyeurism, The Body as Text, The 'Double'). He commenced with L'Immortelle (The Immortal One) (1962) which won the coveted Louis Delluc Prize of 1962. This was followed by his most commercially successful film after Last Year at Marienbad: Trans-Europ-Express (1966) starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, who worked with Robbe-Grillet on his next four films, his French-Slovak film L'homme qui ment/Muž, ktorý luže (The Man Who Lies) (1968), L'Eden et après/Eden a potom (Eden and After) (1970), Glissements progressifs du plaisir (Progressive Slidings towards Pleasure) (1974) and Le jeu avec le feu (Playing with Fire) (1975). It was almost a decade before the appearance of his next feature film, La belle captive (The Beautiful Captive) (1983), where Robbe-Grillet enlisted the services of Henri Alekan as cinematographer. Subsequently, more than a decade passed before Robbe-Grillet got behind the lens again, this time filming a mystery thriller on a small Greek island with Fred Ward starring as the confused Frank in Un bruit qui rend fou (A Maddening Noise, aka: The Blue Villa) (1995). Before his death in 2008 Robbe-Grillet was to direct one more film, Gradiva (C'est Gradiva qui vous appelle) (2006) which brought once more to the fore his preoccupation with sadism and bondage in his fiction. Perhaps the best introduction to the film works of Alain Robbe-Grillet is the volume The Erotic Dream Machine by Professors Roch C.Smith and Anthony N. Fragola. Also of great value is the volume In the Temple of Dreams: The Writer on the Screen in which Robbe-Grillet explains the relationship between his literary fiction and his cinematic fiction (ed. Edouard d'Araille, 1996).
In 1975, Robbe-Grillet and René Magritte published a book entitled La Belle Captive. The book is referred to as a "roman" (novel) and is illustrated with 77 paintings by Magritte interspersed with discourse written by Robbe-Grillet.[5] The eponymous film La Belle captive, written and directed by Robbe-Grillet, was released in 1983.[6]
In 1981, Robbe-Grillet and Yvone Lenard published Le Rendez-vous (The Meeting) in the United States as a textbook for intermediary French courses that included an original novel and grammar exercises.[7] As Trinity College professor Sara Kippur explains, "As a language-learning tool, Le rendez-vous advanced a systematic approach that introduced students to increasing complex verb tenses and grammatical constructions."[8] Le Rendez-vous was released in the United States a month before Djinn was released in France. The text of Djinn was identical to that of Le Rendez-vous absent the grammar exercise and with the addition of the prologue and epilogue.[8]
Académie française seat 32 | |
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Recipients of the Mondello Prize | |
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Single Prize for Literature: Bartolo Cattafi (1975) • Achille Campanile (1976) • Günter Grass (1977) | |
Special Jury Prize: Denise McSmith (1975) • Stefano D'Arrigo (1977) • Jurij Trifonov (1978) • Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz (1979) • Pietro Consagra (1980) • Ignazio Buttitta, Angelo Maria e Ela Ripellino (1983) • Leonardo Sciascia (1985) • Wang Meng (1987) • Mikhail Gorbaciov (1988) • Peter Carey, José Donoso, Northrop Frye, Jorge Semprún, Wole Soyinka, Lu Tongliu (1990) • Fernanda Pivano (1992) • Associazione Scrittori Cinesi (1993) • Dong Baoucum, Fan Boaci, Wang Huanbao, Shi Peide, Chen Yuanbin (1995) • Xu Huainzhong, Xiao Xue, Yu Yougqnan, Qin Weinjung (1996) • Khushwant Singh (1997) • Javier Marías (1998) • Francesco Burdin (2001) • Luciano Erba (2002) • Isabella Quarantotti De Filippo (2003) • Marina Rullo (2006) • Andrea Ceccherini (2007) • Enrique Vila-Matas (2009) • Francesco Forgione (2010) | |
First narrative work: Carmelo Samonà (1978) • Fausta Garavini (1979) | |
First poetic work: Giovanni Giuga (1978) • Gilberto Sacerdoti (1979) | |
Prize for foreign literature: Milan Kundera (1978) • N. Scott Momaday (1979) • Juan Carlos Onetti (1980) • Tadeusz Konwicki (1981) | |
Prize for foreign poetry: Jannis Ritsos (1978) • Joseph Brodsky (1979) • Juan Gelman (1980) • Gyula Illyés (1981) | |
First work: Valerio Magrelli (1980) • Ferruccio Benzoni, Stefano Simoncelli, Walter Valeri, Laura Mancinelli (1981) • Jolanda Insana (1982) • Daniele Del Giudice (1983) • Aldo Busi (1984) • Elisabetta Rasy, Dario Villa (1985) • Marco Lodoli, Angelo Mainardi (1986) • Marco Ceriani, Giovanni Giudice (1987) • Edoardo Albinati, Silvana La Spina (1988) • Andrea Canobbio, Romana Petri (1990) • Anna Cascella (1991) • Marco Caporali, Nelida Milani (1992) • Silvana Grasso, Giulio Mozzi (1993) • Ernesto Franco (1994) • Roberto Deidier (1995) • Giuseppe Quatriglio, Tiziano Scarpa (1996) • Fabrizio Rondolino (1997) • Alba Donati (1998) • Paolo Febbraro (1999) • Evelina Santangelo (2000) • Giuseppe Lupo (2001) • Giovanni Bergamini, Simona Corso (2003) • Adriano Lo Monaco (2004) • Piercarlo Rizzi (2005) • Francesco Fontana (2006) • Paolo Fallai (2007) • Luca Giachi (2008) • Carlo Carabba (2009) • Gabriele Pedullà (2010) | |
Foreign author: Alain Robbe-Grillet (1982) • Thomas Bernhard (1983) • Adolfo Bioy Casares (1984) • Bernard Malamud (1985) • Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1986) • Doris Lessing (1987) • V. S. Naipaul (1988) • Octavio Paz (1989) • Christa Wolf (1990) • Kurt Vonnegut (1991) • Bohumil Hrabal (1992) • Seamus Heaney (1993) • J. M. Coetzee (1994) • Vladimir Vojnovič (1995) • David Grossman (1996) • Philippe Jaccottet (1998) • Don DeLillo (1999) • Aleksandar Tišma (2000) • Nuruddin Farah (2001) • Per Olov Enquist (2002) • Adunis (2003) • Les Murray (2004) • Magda Szabó (2005) • Uwe Timm (2006) • Bapsi Sidhwa (2007) • Viktor Erofeev (2009) • Edmund White (2010) • Javier Cercas (2011) • Elizabeth Strout (2012) • Péter Esterházy (2013) • Joe R. Lansdale (2014) • Emmanuel Carrère (2015) • Marilynne Robinson (2016) • Cees Nooteboom (2017) | |
Italian Author: Alberto Moravia (1982) • Vittorio Sereni alla memoria (1983) • Italo Calvino (1984) • Mario Luzi (1985) • Paolo Volponi (1986) • Luigi Malerba (1987) • Oreste del Buono (1988) • Giovanni Macchia (1989) • Gianni Celati, Emilio Villa (1990) • Andrea Zanzotto (1991) • Ottiero Ottieri (1992) • Attilio Bertolucci (1993) • Luigi Meneghello (1994) • Fernando Bandini, Michele Perriera (1995) • Nico Orengo (1996) • Giuseppe Bonaviri, Giovanni Raboni (1997) • Carlo Ginzburg (1998) • Alessandro Parronchi (1999) • Elio Bartolini (2000) • Roberto Alajmo (2001) • Andrea Camilleri (2002) • Andrea Carraro, Antonio Franchini, Giorgio Pressburger (2003) • Maurizio Bettini, Giorgio Montefoschi, Nelo Risi (2004) • pr. Raffaele Nigro, sec. Maurizio Cucchi, ter. Giuseppe Conte (2005) • pr. Paolo Di Stefano, sec. Giulio Angioni (2006) • pr. Mario Fortunato, sec. Toni Maraini, ter. Andrea Di Consoli (2007) • pr. Andrea Bajani, sec. Antonio Scurati, ter. Flavio Soriga (2008) • pr. Mario Desiati, sec. Osvaldo Guerrieri, ter. Gregorio Scalise (2009) • pr. Lorenzo Pavolini, sec. Roberto Cazzola, ter. (2010) • pr. Eugenio Baroncelli, sec. Milo De Angelis, ter. Igiaba Scego (2011) • pr. Edoardo Albinati, sec. Paolo Di Paolo, ter. Davide Orecchio (2012) • pr. Andrea Canobbio, sec. Valerio Magrelli, ter. Walter Siti (2013) • pr. Irene Chias, sec. Giorgio Falco, ter. Francesco Pecoraro (2014) • pr. Nicola Lagioia, sec. Letizia Muratori, ter. Marco Missiroli (2015) • pr. Marcello Fois, sec. Emanuele Tonon, ter. Romana Petri (2016) • pr. Stefano Massini, sec. Alessandro Zaccuri, ter. Alessandra Sarchi (2017) | |
"Five Continents" Award: Kōbō Abe, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Germaine Greer, Wilson Harris, José Saramago (1992) • Kenzaburō Ōe (1993) • Stephen Spender (1994) • Thomas Keneally, Alberto Arbasino (1996) • Margaret Atwood, André Brink, David Malouf, Romesh Gunesekera, Christoph Ransmayr (1997) | |
"Palermo bridge for Europe" Award: Dacia Maraini (1999), Premio Palermo ponte per il Mediterraneo Alberto Arbasino (2000) | |
"Ignazio Buttitta" Award: Nino De Vita (2003) • Attilio Lolini (2005) • Roberto Rossi Precerotti (2006) • Silvia Bre (2007) | |
Supermondello Tiziano Scarpa (2009) • Michela Murgia (2010) • Eugenio Baroncelli (2011) • Davide Orecchio (2012) • Valerio Magrelli (2013) • Giorgio Falco (2014) • Marco Missiroli (2015) • Romana Petri (2016) • Stefano Massini (2017) | |
Special award of the President: Ibrahim al-Koni (2009) • Emmanuele Maria Emanuele (2010) • Antonio Calabrò (2011) | |
Poetry prize: Antonio Riccardi (2010) | |
Translation Award: Evgenij Solonovic (2010) | |
Identity and dialectal literatures award: Gialuigi Beccaria e Marco Paolini (2010) | |
Essays Prize: Marzio Barbagli (2010) | |
Mondello for Multiculturality Award: Kim Thúy (2011) | |
Mondello Youths Award: Claudia Durastanti (2011) • Edoardo Albinati (2012) • Alessandro Zaccuri (2017) | |
"Targa Archimede", Premio all'Intelligenza d'Impresa: Enzo Sellerio (2011) | |
Prize for Literary Criticism: Salvatore Silvano Nigro (2012) • Maurizio Bettini (2013) • Enrico Testa (2014) • Ermanno Cavazzoni (2015) • Serena Vitale (2016) • Antonio Prete (2017) | |
Award for best motivation: Simona Gioè (2012) | |
Special award for travel literature: Marina Valensise (2013) | |
Special Award 40 Years of Mondello: Gipi (2014) |
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