VARIATIONS SUR L’ALLÉGORIE D’UN DOUBLE PIÉTINEMENT CHEZ ÉRIC CHEVILLARD
VARIATIONS ON THE DOUBLE TRIPPING IN ÉRIC CHEVILLARD’S WRITING

Summary/Abstract: An equally poetical and unsettling approach, which may be assimilated to a mourning of literature as was familiar to us, best characterizes the writing of Éric Chevillard, one of the most spectacular contemporary French writers. In his 1997 novel, Au plafond, the mere presence of a historically marked discourse (inconceivable in his other novels) is a testament to his desire to return to a tradition which a whole literary generation had razed to the ground. But the very remote past is regarded with lucidity and a good deal of humour and querulousness; for, while it may be true that there is a desire to re-enchant the world, it is equally true that this re-enchantment is devoid of any illusion. In this way, the content of the novel is a radical change of the doxa, of the known and recognized relation between objects and beings, which also entails a variation on the allegory of a double tripping: on the opacity of the real and on the opacity of the text.

• Details
• Contents