Translated material
"Foreign Literature", # 4, April 2000
The Author as a Character: The Biographical Genre in French Literature
In the wake of the revolution of sixty-eight in France, among other pillars of “retrograde culture,” the figure of the author was overthrown from the pedestal. The end of his reign over the text was announced by the famous literary theorist Roland Barthes, publishing an article entitled “The Death of the Author” - a kind of result of the literary revolution. In previous years, the author actually disappeared from the pages of the “new novel.” Evaluations, judgments, not to mention unforgettable lyrical digressions, are a thing of the past, like everything in which the writer’s personality could directly reveal itself in the narrative: carefully disguising his organizing presence, the writer retreated further and further into the shadows. And suddenly, as if unable to bear it, the author returned to literature through the back door. Biographies and autobiographies of writers, diaries, confessions, and memoirs have poured in in recent decades, overwhelming the novel and all other genres. Even Alain Robbe-Grillet, once the most uncompromising persecutor of the author's self, wrote an autobiographical trilogy, unexpectedly admitting that in his novels he always spoke only about himself. Literature of fact, true history, is crowding fiction before our eyes, invading it, transforming it, rebuilding it, reshaping it. In a change of perspective, renewal is born. And approaching today's literature in France from this side is, perhaps, more interesting than from any other. The genre of biography in French literature and its various incarnations is the topic of our issue. The author has died. Long live the author!
Content
First person
MARGUERITE DURAS - Pain . JEAN-FRANCOIS JOSSELIN - The truth about Duras. ENT ADLER. - What Marguerite Duras didn’t tell (Translations by M. Zlobina) .
BIANCA LAMBLAIN - Memoirs of a confused girl (Translation by I. Radchenko) .
PHILIPPE LEGENE - In defense of autobiography. Essays from different years (Translation and introduction by Boris Dubin) .
Biography-research
SERGEY ZENKIN - Lives of great heretics.
CLAUDE PICHOIS, JEAN ZIEGLER - Charles Baudelaire (Translation by Vera Milchina) .
MICHEL SURIAT - Georges Bataille, or The Work of Death (Translation by E. Galtsova) .
OLIVIER TODD - Albert Camus, life (Translation by M. Anninskaya) .
Writer about writer
PHILIP SOLLERS - Casanova Velikolepny (Translated by Yu.Yakhnino).
GERARD DE NERVAL - Jacques Cazotte (Translation by Irina Volevich) .
Our interviews
Biographies and counter-biographies (Sergei Zenkin talks with Jacques Nef) .
French writers respond to Proust's Questionnaire (Translation and introduction by I. Kuznetsova) .
Authors of the issue
Fragments of publications of the issue
BORIS DUBIN How the literary “I” is made From the introduction to a selection of essays by Philippe Lejeune
In the history of autobiographical literature - this is just one of the countless paradoxes of this amazing genre - the figures of opponents and skeptics are much more numerous and look, perhaps, more prominent and impressive than the rare examples of zealots and adepts. An extremely negative position was formulated by Mark Twain: “It cannot be that a person would tell the truth about himself or allow this truth to reach the reader.” A milder - and more subtle - doubt is expressed by Jorge Luis Borges in connection with the autobiography of his beloved Chesterton: "Father Brown, the sea battle of Lepanto, or the one that scorches everyone who opens it, gave Chesterton much more opportunity to be Chesterton than working on his own biography." As for the defenders of autobiography, among them there are few who can be placed next to Philippe Lejeune.
Psychoanalysis, structuralism, historical studies of “folk culture” and “marginal” literatures (characteristically plural!) in the 60-70s, in less than one generation of readers, erased the clear - or rather, even seemed clear - demarcation line between the “high " and "low" in art. The work of Philippe Lejeune unfolds precisely during these decades. It focuses primarily on what Lejeune called “autobiographical convention.” This refers to a certain agreement that the narrator, most often already in the first lines of his self-description, seems to conclude with a mental or historically specific addressee, when he introduces himself to him, explains the semantic task and literary optics of his future book. Here, Lejeune’s research is partly closer to the developments of the sociology of literature (the same 60-70s - the time of its rapid development in France) - studies of the general cultural traditions of autobiography, on the one hand, and an analysis of the existence of autobiographical literature in society, in publishing practice, in language literary criticism, in the reader's everyday life - on the other.
Another aspect of the same “agreement” is the problem of the literary personality itself. The autobiographical form - Lejeune writes expressively about this - many of its opponents tried to present it as too unsophisticated, too “natural” to rightfully be considered art, almost primitive. No matter how it is! Autobiography is the embodiment of the independence and conscious position of the individual, his civic, political, moral maturity, his aesthetic responsibility. This form is extremely complex, even sophisticated, which is why it appears so late in the history of culture, in fact simultaneously with the crystallization of the full-fledged figure of the author in literary life (among Lejeune’s contemporaries, the vicissitudes of the development of the author’s image and the author’s profession occupied Michel Foucault more than others, who in made a noisy report about this in the late 60s). Referring to Lejeune's essays for details, I will point out here only two paradoxical features of autobiographical writing.
The first paradox is, let's say, narrative. It involves telling a story about yourself in the first person. It’s sweet naivety to think that the narrator knows himself much better than everyone else and how all these others know him. As we know, a person does not possess any innate, “natural” superiority of self-understanding; he often hides from himself even more deeply than from others, and even cheats on himself much more often and, as it seems to him, more successfully (who here, however, is fooling whom? ). But it’s not just a matter of sincerity, although that is not an easy thing. Our knowledge of ourselves (I think everyone feels this, without it we would not be ourselves) is unique precisely in that it is indescribable, isn’t it? So it’s one thing to know and quite another to tell: the identity of the narrator, the literary “I” of the narrator and the public figure of the author of the book are different things and only with great difficulty are compatible. Lejeune addresses the problem that another of his compatriots and contemporary, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, calls “narrative personality” or “narrator’s identity.” The very possibility of first-person narration, including “ego-novelism” - in French autofiction, literally: “self-inventing” - is associated with a person’s ability to imagine himself as someone else, to mentally look at himself through the eyes of another (among Ricoeur’s recent books is the monograph “I as another"). The author's "I" or the character's "he" acts in such cases as a figurative designation for the reader's "you", giving the reader the opportunity to mentally identify with the hero-narrator. Just as the writer’s “you” - Lejeune examines this incident in a separate essay using the example of the novels of Michel Butor, Nathalie Sarraute, Georges Perec - gives the reader the opportunity to recognize his own “I” in it, to complete himself in the mind to the necessary, albeit conditional, completeness . The life of the “I” is always open, while a narrative without closure (without a designated, meaningful beginning and end) is impossible. So the pronoun is an ideal metaphor for reciprocity, a magical crystal of recognition and transformation.
The second paradox of autobiography, just as briefly, is genre. In principle, any genre - and what if not a specific genre is looked for on the shelves, chosen and loved by the reader? What else but a literary critic identifies and describes him? and, finally, isn’t it his “rules of the game” that the narrator is forced to follow, willy-nilly, in order to tell the story? - a thing by definition is transpersonal. Ideally, the author is not even needed or secondary; a series, a cover, and a standard title are enough. But autobiography - our entire publication is devoted to this circumstance - is a special genre: “I” is irreducible here, since it lies at the very basis - both as the subject of the story and as its method. It is impossible to get around this cardinal contradiction. So autobiography (whose membership in high literature, as we remember, was disputed by the archaists) becomes - now for modernist writing - the very embodiment of “literature as impossibility,” a practice of purposeful self-undermining, endless balancing on the brink of one’s own collapse. Such a radical understanding of literature and the autobiographical genre in France of the 50s and 60s was developed more consistently than others by Maurice Blanchot; Philippe Lejeune examines similar paradoxes of verbal impracticability in articles about the avant-garde autobiographical poetics of Andre Gide, Michel Leiris, Georges Perec, Jacques Roubaud.
Characteristic in this sense are Lejeune's own autobiographical essays and sketches, these, one might say, autobiographies of the “second degree.” All of them are focused on one moment - on a dizzying moment when the thought awakens in a person that he can look at himself from the outside with interest, but without narcissistic complacency and masochistic self-mutilation. On that difficult, rather painful act of growing up, which Lejeune calls the “caesarean section” of thought.
French writers respond to Proust's Questionnaire Translation and introduction by I. KUZNETSOVA
In the Victorian era, a new parlor game appeared in London: a certain standard list of questions was proposed, to which the answers had to be written in a special album - and certainly the truth. This hobby quickly spread throughout Europe and surprisingly did not go out of fashion for a long time. As you know, even Karl Marx answered such a questionnaire (“Your favorite color? - Red,” etc.).
A century later, Gerard Philip answered (“Your main drawback? - Pride.” “Your main advantage? - Pride”), and subsequently other celebrities: Andrei Tarkovsky, Updike, Heller, whose answers were published from issue to issue in the appendix to newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Probably, the game would have been forgotten long ago, despite the participation of the leader of the world proletariat in it, if Marcel Proust had not glorified it by answering questions twice: the first time at the age of fourteen, at the request of Antoinette Faure, the daughter of the future president of France, the second time - at twenty.
The questionnaire was called the “Proust Questionnaire,” which immediately transferred it to a different rank and protected it from the condescending ridicule of posterity.
On the advice of Andre Maurois, literary critic and critic Léonce Peillard asked famous French writers of the 20th century to respond to “Proust’s Questionnaire.” Several people resolutely refused: some considered it “an unacceptable emotional striptease,” others considered it stupid social fun. But many agreed and answered, if not all, then at least some of the questions similar to those asked to Proust.
L. Peyard began maintaining his “album” in 1952. In 1969, he published it under the title “One Hundred French Writers Answer Proust’s Questionnaire.” 1 We present some of the answers to the attention of readers.
ROMAN GARY
What do you consider to be an extremely distressing situation? If you mean poverty, then there is no limit. Extreme poverty is a record that cannot be broken.
Where would you like to live? Everywhere, in all people, a thousand lives at the same time.
What is the highest happiness for you? Don't know.
What mistakes do you consider worthy of the greatest leniency? Those for which a person pays himself and because of which no one dies.
Who are your favorite literary heroes? Fabrizio del Dongo, Huckleberry Finn.
Who is your favorite historical figure? I am cautious about historical characters; they are almost always stilted, half-fictional. Maybe Christ, as Byzantine art represents him.
Who are your favorite heroines in real life? All the women there are in the world.
Who are your favorite literary heroines? Sanseverina, Anna Karenina - if only she looks like Greta Garbo.
Who is your favorite artist? Currently Jan Lebenstein. Among the dead is Bonnard.
Who is your favorite musician? Bob Dylan.
What quality do you especially value in a person? Immortality...
What quality do you especially value in a woman? Sensuality.
Which human virtues are most attractive to you? Genuine spiritual chastity, real delicacy, restraint.
What is your favorite activity? Can not say.
Which famous person would you like to be? Leonardo, if he weren't a homosexual.
What is your main character trait? Extremism.
What do you value most in friends? I do not have friends.
What is your main flaw? Intolerance.
What is your dream of happiness? Be happy.
What would be your biggest misfortune? Losing the manuscript of a novel you just finished.
How would you like to see yourself? Romain Gary, but this is impossible.
What's your favorite color? Red.
What is your favorite flower? Woman.
What is your favorite bird? Woman.
Favorite prose writers? Pushkin, Stendhal, Conrad, Kipling, Proust, Malraux, Tolstoy, Casanova.
Favorite poets? Pushkin, Victor Hugo, Rimbaud.
Favorite heroes in real life? I'm already out of my teens.
Favorite heroines in history? Messalina, Theodora of Byzantium.
Favorite names? Those that can be solved in crossword puzzles.
What do you hate most? It’s hard to say, there are too many choices, but probably stinginess and racism have the best chance of coming out on top.
Historical figures you despise? Napoleon, Simon de Montfort, Saint Louis.
What military event do you think deserves the most admiration? Fleeing from the battlefield.
Reform that you particularly appreciate? I'm still waiting for one.
A gift you wish you had? Peace.
How would you like to die? Are you kidding me? No way!
Current state of mind? I just took a drug that causes euphoria. We have to wait about twenty minutes.
What is your motto? "Come what may!"
SISTER IONESCO
What do you consider to be an extremely distressing situation? Man's mortal destiny.
Where would you like to live? Somewhere far away. Although no, not anymore. Now you think: why not here? Yes, I want to live in Paris. But if only Paris could be moved a little to the south!
What is the highest happiness for you? Health, youth, love, half-rich or half-poverty.
What mistakes or misdeeds are you most lenient towards? To everything except real crimes and political stupidity.
Who are your favorite literary heroes? They change. They change all the time. I once really loved Dostoevsky's The Idiot.
Who is your favorite historical figure? There is no such. At the moment, in general, I am not disgusted by de Gaulle - a strange figure on a horse, between history and metaphysics, between earth and sky, a kind of victorious Don Quixote.
Who are your favorite heroines in real life? There is none of them. I don't like those who feel overly important.
Who are your favorite literary heroines? Those who are in love.
Who is your favorite artist? There are many, many of them in different eras. Botticelli, but also Watteau, and Canaletto, and Klee, and Van der Meer, and Turner.
Who is your favorite musician? Well, let's say Couperin. Oh no, Mozart!
What qualities do you especially value in a man? Freedom of mind, ability to make friends, kindness.
What qualities do you especially value in a woman? Freedom of mind, kindness, the ability to love.
What is your favorite activity? Perhaps creativity seems the least unpleasant to me.
Which famous person would you like to be? Only by yourself.
What is your main character trait? Pride, impulsiveness. I'm not evil. But I can be angry and vindictive when my pride is affected.
What do you value most in friends? Friendship.
What is your main flaw? Lack of patience.
What is your dream of happiness? Paradise. Eternity.
What would be your biggest misfortune? It will be: this is death.
What kind of person would you like to be? Same as you are, only better.
What's your favorite color? There are three of them: blue, green and light yellow.
What is your favorite flower? Primrose, violet.
What is your favorite bird? I don't like birds. Parrots are pretty funny though.
Favorite prose writers? They change. Once upon a time there were Stendhal, Dostoevsky, Kafka. Even earlier - Nerval, Alain-Fournier, Balzac. At some period - Maupassant. Philosopher Plato - now and always.
Favorite poets? Once upon a time it was Rimbaud. I would like to re-read it. Always Villon. Oh, of course Baudelaire!
Favorite heroes in real life? Parsnip. Socrates.
Favorite heroines in history? Those whose names are unknown to me.
Favorite names? Jean, Zhanna. I like "Jeanne" even better than "Jean".
What do you hate most? Blindness, dishonesty, envy.
Historical figures you despise? Tyrants, fanatics.
What military event do you think deserves the most admiration? All victories are the same. I don't admire military exploits, but I always rejoice when France wins.
Reform that you rate particularly highly? Personal Privacy Law.
How would you like to die? Reconciled, calm, without fear - and with great hope.
Current state of mind? Skeptical; I'm not happy with this. Wary.
What is your motto? I'm still looking for it.
In the next issue of "IL":
PAUL HÜLLE'S NOVEL "WEISER DAVIDEK" / JOSEPH BRODSKY: "FOR WHOM THE CRUMPING BELL TOWER RINGS" / PIERRE BOST'S STORY "LORD LADMIRAL WILL SOON DIE" / CHRISTOPHER COWKER'S "TWILIGHT OF THE WEST" / GUN'S NOBEL SPEECH TERA GRASS / CHAPTERS FROM FRANKLIN REEVE'S BOOK "ROBERT FROST IN RUSSIA"
By the end of 2000, the following will appear on the pages of IL:
“The Hours” is a 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by American writer MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM, where the fates of three women, one of whom is Virginia Woolf, are intricately intertwined.
“Master Georgie” is a novel by the famous English writer, 1998 Booker finalist BERYL BAINBRIDGE, which takes place in England in the middle of the last century and ends on the fields of the Crimean War.
"Elementary Particles" is an intellectual bestseller by the young French writer MICHEL HOULEBECK about the collapse of European civilization, which has caused several lawsuits.
“The Fifth Winter of the Magnetizer” is a novel by the greatest Swedish writer PER ULOV ENKVIST; The prototype of the main character here is the famous Austrian doctor of the 18th century Franz Mesmer.
"Travesties" is a play by the leading English playwright of our time, TOM STOPPARD, whose heroes - James Joyce, Vladimir Ulyanov and Tristan Tzara - meet in a Zurich library in February 1917.
"Diego and Frida" is a documentary novel by the French writer JEAN-MARIE LECLEZIO, the life story of the famous Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Callo.
"Ebony" is a series of essays about Africa from the book by RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI, which became a sensation on the Polish book market in 1999.
"Autobiography" of the outstanding English philosopher, mathematician, sociologist BERTRAND RUSSELL.
In the "Into the depths of the poem" section - "Carrion" by CHARLES BAUDLER.
Literary guides: "JOSEPH CONRAD", "LAURENCE DARRELL", "POLISH CONSTELLATION".
Note:
1 One hundred French writers respond to the “Marcel Proust Questionnaire”. Paris, Editions Albin Michel, 1969.