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Commemoration, monument and identity in Bergounioux, Darrieussecq and Rouaud

in Thresholds of Meaning: Passage, Ritual and Liminality in Contemporary French Narrative

This chapter examines the treatment of the themes of personal and collective commemoration in three French novels. These include Kpélié by Pierre Bergounioux, Le Pays by Marie Darrieussecq and ... More

This chapter examines the treatment of the themes of personal and collective commemoration in three French novels. These include Kpélié by Pierre Bergounioux, Le Pays by Marie Darrieussecq and Loire-Inférieure quintet by Jean Rouaud. It analyses the engagement of the characters of these novels with various sorts of monumental art and highlights the importance of ritual and commemorative topography. This chapter also considers the tension between the dutiful observance of traditional commemorative ritual and the deviant or transgressive affirmation of self.Less

Being and Notness

Leo Bersani

in Thoughts and Things

This chapter provides, principally through a study of Pierre Bergounioux’s recent novel La Casse, a counter-argument to the book’s defense of connectedness. Bergounioux’s narrator desperately and ... More

This chapter provides, principally through a study of Pierre Bergounioux’s recent novel La Casse, a counter-argument to the book’s defense of connectedness. Bergounioux’s narrator desperately and unsuccessfully seeks to connect to his orphaned and solitary father. He fails to convince his father that they communicate within the Cartesian universal community of “thinking things.” The narrator attempts to escape from his human aloneness through disappearing into nonhuman matter (trees and junk metal). Does the father, the novel implicitly asks, provide a unique, indispensable path into a human community? Bergounioux’s work suggests but does not exploit the possibility of a more productive connection through the mother.Less

Suicide and saving face in Bon, Mauvignier and Bergounioux

in Thresholds of Meaning: Passage, Ritual and Liminality in Contemporary French Narrative

This chapter analyzes similarities in the construction of themes of three French novels. These include L'Enterrement by Francois Bon, Loin d'eux by Laurent Mauvignier and La Maison rose by Pierre ... More

This chapter analyzes similarities in the construction of themes of three French novels. These include L'Enterrement by Francois Bon, Loin d'eux by Laurent Mauvignier and La Maison rose by Pierre Bergounioux. It explains that these novels are structured around the evocation of funerals and mourning and explore the aftermath of the suicide of a young man. This chapter also explores the ways in which the proches and the wider social community acknowledge or avoid the implications of a radically transgressive act such as suicide.Less

Introduction

in Thresholds of Meaning: Passage, Ritual and Liminality in Contemporary French Narrative

This introductory chapter discusses the themes of this volume: passage, ritual and liminality in contemporary French narrative. This volume examines the works of several French authors including ... More

This introductory chapter discusses the themes of this volume: passage, ritual and liminality in contemporary French narrative. This volume examines the works of several French authors including Laurent Mauvignier, Francois Bon, Pierre Bergounioux, Marie Darrieussecq, Helene Lenoir and Jean Rouaud. It analyzes the experience of passage/change of state, the foregrounding of a wide range of ritual activities and evidence of a shared interest in orality in the works of these authors.Less