Event

by Philippe Sollers, Bruce Benderson (Translator), Ursule Molinaro (Translator)

A superbly translated coupling of Sollers's Drame (1965) and Barthes's contemporary commentary. In this early piece, Sollers, subsequently a bestselling author because of his smug Don Juan persona, discreetly keeps watch over his fictionalizing self as it moves from nonverbal impressions to verbalized thoughts. He wants to escape the limitations imposed by language ("a trap that works . . . when I think I am the most free"). Inevitably failing, he delivers an open narrative in which "I," "he," and "you" interact by association. Barthes's approving essay, containing Sollers's footnotes, translates this doomed narrative quest into critical discourse, thereby assuring readers that they have indeed understood Sollers.
Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Comparative Literature Dept., SUNY at Binghamton

Genres: Fiction

104 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1965

About the author

Philippe Sollers (born Philippe Joyaux) is a French writer and critic. In 1960 he founded the avant garde journal Tel Quel (along with the writer and art critic Marcelin Pleynet), published by Seuil, which ran until 1982. In 1982 Sollers then created the journal L'Infini published by Denoel which was later published under the same title by Gallimard for whom Sollers also directs the series.

Sollers was at the heart of the intense period of intellectual unrest in the Paris of the 1960s and 1970s. Among others, he was a friend of Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser and Roland Barthes. These three characters are described in his novel, Femmes (1983) alongside a number of other figures of the French intellectual movement before and after May 1968. From A Strange Solitude, The Park and Event, through "Logiques", Lois and Paradis, down to Watteau in Venice, Une vie divine and "La Guerre du goût", the writings of Sollers have often provided contestation, provocation and challenging.

In his book Writer Sollers, Roland Barthes discusses the work of Phillippe Sollers and the meaning of language.

Sollers married Julia Kristeva in 1967.

Reviews

[Ripleyland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review upcoming.

[Nico · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story narrating its own coming into being; moving outside the bound limits of thought—Sollers, moving on from Le Parc, now writing a “limit-text.”

“a language in quest of itself, inventing itself. Feeling that I am going to give an exact account of the path of the words on the page—exactly, nothing else, nothing more. It bends, spills, opens up, listens to itself, changes voices, spreads, effortlessly disposes of everything, restores what was lost… Again, the beginning, the outlines, the swift trips to the inside of each rejected, selected sign. Again, the sliding, the lines…” (77).

“A book that would extend and glide into itself and foresee its reading as a way of extending further” (78).

[Robbie O'Keefe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not up to his standard, but well worth the read. If he normally turns your crank, he'll turn it here