The Book: Alain Robbe-Grillet, THE VOYEUR. Translated from the French by Richard Howard. Grove Press trade paperback, 1986 (fifth printing). Fine condition.
First read: 2005
Owned since: 2005
A few other major stories are dominating today's news, but I wanted to note the passing of Alain Robbe-Grillet, who died over the weekend at the age of 85. Robbe-Grillet's invention of the nouveau roman helped create a new way of looking at literature, as well as a whole new branch of academic study, and The Voyeur may be the best-known example of this.
If a picture's worth 1,000 words, Robbe-Grillet tries to flip that around in The Voyeur, taking just over 200 pages to give us vivid images of the inner and outer lives of the salesman Mathias and the island he visits. Little is explicit in The Voyeur, much implied; we experience the narrative as if we were watching a movie, seeing only what the author chooses to show us. Of course this is always true, but Robbe-Grillet wants us to notice his choices.
Richard Howard, a poet in his own right, understands Robbe-Grillet's goals, and gives us a translation that respects the words, not just the story.
I had dinner the other night with a group that included an author friend, and the conversation turned -- as it tends to do -- to other authors, and to the importance of language vs. story. The best books balance the needs of the story with a respect for the language itself.
My position on this (as a professional editor) shouldn't surprise anyone. We are too quick to forgive sloppy language and poor writing in the interest of message delivery or storytelling. I object to textese and am rude to strangers, in particular, who send me messages in that ugly code; Prince lyrics aside, I am not U, the numeral 4 does not mean "for," and while I might cackle, I do not LOL. (But yes, my guilty, secret shame is that I love this site and have even posted comments there. Evangelists get caught with bad women. We must sin in order to be forgiven.)
I'm in a bit of a ranting mood today, so I'll carry this discussion a little further and say that society's embrace of video over text and lolspeak over grammar is a sign of evolutionary backsliding.
Our primitive ancestors lived in fight-or-flight mode. They needed maximum information in minimum time, so they could make split-second decisions about running from saber-toothed tigers or chucking a spear at a mammoth.
Over the past few thousand years, however, we've evolved and created civilizations so that fight and flight are no longer our only options. We've given ourselves the luxury of time; we can consider things, we can discuss them. So why don't we take that time? Why don't we enjoy the luxury our ancestors earned for us?
Other thinkers have spent more time on these questions than I have, with more insightful things to say -- but that's tomorrow's post.
2 comments:
i don't know about lolspeak being the death of grammar, i've always been taught that english over the years gets equally eloquent and efficient. the kind of prose that you admire, at one time, was condemned as watered down, colloquialized.
LOL!
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