The Counter-reaction: the Nouveau Roman in the 1980s

Abstract

The 1980s were in many ways a very productive period for the nouveaux romanciers. The decade began well, with the publication in 1981 of Les Géorgiques, judged by many critics to be Simon’s most important work, of Robbe-Grillet’s Djinn and Sarraute’s L’Usage de la parole. It was also notable for the autobiographical texts that these three writers brought out: Sarraute’s Enfance in 1983, Robbe-Grillet’s Le miroir qui revient in 1985 and Angélique ou l’enchantement in 1988, and Simon’s L’Acacia in 1989 (as well as the short text L’Invitation in 1987). Equally, though, the group’s situation as a group had changed considerably. In the first place, while Butor had for a long time been working quite separately from the Nouveau Roman, the latter had by now — and far more dramatically — severed all connections with Ricardou as well. Thus of the writers I have been considering here only, Simon and Sarraute are left; and between them, too, there is rather less interaction than there was previously.