L’ÉCRITURE BLANCHE – L’APATHIE MISE EN EXERGUE
White Writing – Apathy as Exergue

Summary/Abstract: Michel Lambert’s book, Soirées blanches, explores a sort of fictional staging of the concept of apathy, which was treasured by the stoics trying to liberate the soul from any kind of passion. The apathy, the absolute indifference, is the existential goal of the principal character of this collection of short stories. Between the ideal of apathy and everyday troubles there appears the word that liberates and corners at the same time. The search for apathy is conducted by means of a « white writing », a concept proposed by Roland Barthes, in Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (1953), in order to describe the stylistic minimalism that characterized the writing after WWII. The white writing presupposes a certain impassibility, neutrality and indifference. This collection of short stories expresses an indetermined, monotonous, neutral and apathic existence.

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