Synopses & Reviews
They were not the "Banquet Years," those anxious wartime years when poets and novelists were made to feel embarrassed by their impulse to write literature. And yet it was the attitude of those writers and critics in the 1930s and 1940s that shaped French literature--the ideas of Derrida, Foucault, de Man, Deleuze, and Ricoeur--and has so profoundly influenced literary enterprise in the English-speaking world since 1968. This literary history, the prehistory of postmodernism, is what Denis Hollier recovers in his interlocking studies of the main figures of French literary life before the age of anxiety gave way to the era of existentialist commitment.
Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois, André Malraux, the early Jean-Paul Sartre are the figures Hollier considers, writers torn between politics and the pleasures of the text. They appear here uneasily balancing the influences of the philosopher and the man of action. These studies convey the paradoxical heroism of writers fighting for a world that would extend no rights or privileges to writers, writing for a world in which literature would become a reprehensible frivolity. If the nineteenth century was that of the consecration of the writer, this was the time for their sacrificial death, and Hollier captures the comical pathos of these writers pursuing the ideal of "engagement" through an exercise in dispossession. His work identifies, as none has before, the master plot for literature that was crafted in the 1940s, a plot in which we are still very much entangled.
Review
"[A] fine collection of essays...which are forceful and ingenious in argument and substantive in effect. The themes are broadly political and the writers that [Hollier] attends to are from the late 1930s and the 40s...Where [he] succeeds is in gathering the scattered and sometimes ambiguous evidence of dialectical tension in the writers he is involved with here--Sartre, Leiris, Roger Caillois, Bataille, Malraux."
--John Sturrock, Times Literary Supplement"In his examination of five writers, Hollier reveals how the self-inflicted and self-willed 'depersonalization' that these writers promote in their work allows it to be subsumed by a mythical dimension, which in turn can lead to an irresponsible abandonment of the self and the individual in favour of a totalitarian environment. Such writers indulge in 'self-mutilation' because they commit themselves to writing on behalf of a kind of world from which they would be excluded...These wide-ranging essays contain new insights and analyses of works that are generally not very well known, so that, for this reason alone, anyone interested in the social, cultural, political, or literary issues of this period will find them worth consulting."
--Peter Tame, Modern &Contemporary France [UK]"Proposing his book as a 'prehistory of postmodernism,' Hollier considers the theoretical writings of a group of novelist/critics during the interwar years--George Bataille, Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois, Andre Malraux, and the early Jean-Paul Sartre. The book documents the self-consciousness that characterizes these writers as they theorize about the possibility of writing a novel in the years leading up to WWII. Perhaps unwittingly, the author demonstrates that the authorial narcissism and self-absorption that have crippled the French novel over the past 35 years have their roots in these interwar years. Students of French literature who are interested in minor and marginal literary groups and movements of the 1930s will find interesting information in this study."
--D. O'Connell, ChoiceReview
[A] fine collection of essays...which are forceful and ingenious in argument and substantive in effect. The themes are broadly political and the writers that [Hollier] attends to are from the late 1930s and the 40s...Where [he] succeeds is in gathering the scattered and sometimes ambiguous evidence of dialectical tension in the writers he is involved with here--Sartre, Leiris, Roger Caillois, Bataille, Malraux. John Sturrock
Review
In his examination of five writers, Hollier reveals how the self-inflicted and self-willed 'depersonalization' that these writers promote in their work allows it to be subsumed by a mythical dimension, which in turn can lead to an irresponsible abandonment of the self and the individual in favour of a totalitarian environment. Such writers indulge in 'self-mutilation' because they commit themselves to writing on behalf of a kind of world from which they would be excluded...These wide-ranging essays contain new insights and analyses of works that are generally not very well known, so that, for this reason alone, anyone interested in the social, cultural, political, or literary issues of this period will find them worth consulting. Times Literary Supplement
Review
Proposing his book as a 'prehistory of postmodernism,' Hollier considers the theoretical writings of a group of novelist/critics during the interwar years--George Bataille, Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois, Andre Malraux, and the early Jean-Paul Sartre. The book documents the self-consciousness that characterizes these writers as they theorize about the possibility of writing a novel in the years leading up to WWII. Perhaps unwittingly, the author demonstrates that the authorial narcissism and self-absorption that have crippled the French novel over the past 35 years have their roots in these interwar years. Students of French literature who are interested in minor and marginal literary groups and movements of the 1930s will find interesting information in this study. Peter Tame - Modern and Contemporary France [UK
Synopsis
Georges Bataille, Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois, André Malraux, the early Jean-Paul Sartre--these were writers torn between politics and the pleasures of the text, maturing in the 1930s and 1940s in a world that would have no place for literature. And yet it was the work of these writers that shaped French literature--influencing Derrida, Foucault, de Man, Deleuze, and Ricoeur--and so profoundly affected literary enterprise in the English-speaking world since 1968. This literary history, the prehistory of postmodernism, is what Hollier recovers in his interlocking studies of the main figures of French literary life before the age of anxiety gave way to the era of existentialist commitment.
About the Author
Denis Hollieris Chairman of the Department of French at <>Yale University. He is the author of many books, including works on Sartre and Bataille.
Table of Contents
Must Literature Be Possible?
Deeds without Words
Mimesis and Castration 1937
Bataille's Tomb
Unsatisfied Desire
On Equivocation between Literature and Politics
Fear and Trembling in the Age of Surrealism
Under the Heading of Holofernes (Notes on Judith)
Poetry from A to Z
The Use Value of the Impossible
When Existentialism Was Not Yet a Humanism
A Farewell to Art
Desperanto
Notes
Credits
Index