Brain Pain discussion
This topic is about
The Erasers
The Erasers - Spine 2013
>
Discussion - Week Three - The Erasers - Chapter Four & Five; Epilogue
"This crime is the first important case he has been given", yet every where that Wallas turns,people seem to recognize him from before."But you know there’s no such thing as a perfect crime; we must look for the flaw that has to exist somewhere."
Wallas' comment will come back to haunt him! (view spoiler) The epigraph from Sophocles now makes sense:"Time that sees all has found you out against your will.”
Wallas has to interrogate the witnesses,trouble is,he resembles the suspect!
"The hat, the raincoat, the approximate height, the general manner…He does not know much that’s very exact. Should he add that the man looks like himself."
The search for an 'eraser'* takes him to the Victor Hugo stationery shop of the ex Mrs. Dupont– her portion really came as a welcome breather. We got some insight into the nature of the solitary professor Dupont & his relation to women,otherwise in keeping with Robbe-Grillet's literary theory,the characters are two dimensional,no insights into their motivations are provided,they just act.
There's a rumour of an illegitimate son & things slowly fall into place– Wallas remembers visiting the house on the Rue des Arpenteurs with his mother long ago...
In the climatic scene,the Oedipal reference is worked out–(view spoiler)
In a Borgesian twist,the distinction between the detective & the killer,the hero & the villain,collapses & they become one and the same.
* The Erasers could be interpreted as Wallas' desire to erase his memories or the frequent reconstruction of the crime,removing one,creating another or they could just mean the object itself!
How closely does this novel fit the writer's own rules of fiction? In his memorable Paris Review interview,AR-G said that "novelists had the right to re-invent the New Novel at every moment, and that there should be a new New Novel. There should never be fixed rules. As soon as rules become fixed, they should be broken, because the imagination must constantly renew itself."So this novel doesn't fully conform to the rules– true, "plot, character,setting, point of view, and chronological time are altered in favor of repetitions, an absence of emotion, minute,objective and sometimes geometric descriptions, the lack of authorial analysis, and the deconstruction of time."
There is a telling scene in chapter four,part seven,on page186:"He glimpses his face in the mirror over the fireplace and, beneath it, the double row of objects arranged on the marble: the statuette and its reflection, the brass candlestick and its reflection, the tobacco jar, the ashtray, the other statuette—a splendid wrestler about to crush a lizard.(...)He reverses the last two objects. The earthenware pot and its reflection, the blind man and his reflection, the candlestick, the athlete with the lizard, the ashtray.Finally he pushes the little red ashtray about an inch toward the corner of the marble mantelpiece."
This is how in the entire book focus is shifted,time,events & characters are manipulated,clues are dropped & left unresolved & the story is made anew.
Actions,objects, and even entire paragraphs are repeated :
In his essay A Fresh Start for Fiction,AR-G wrote:"In this future universe of the novel, gestures and objects will be ‘there’ before being ‘something,’ ” he wrote. “They will still be there afterwards, hard, unalterable, eternally present, mocking their own meaning.”
It was a clever book but I didn't get the 'Aha' moment that you get from successful detective fiction say as in The Name of the Rose. The form/style seemed to dominate the substance but that goes with this writer's creed:"The reality of any work of art is its form, and to separate style from substance is to "remove the novel from the realm of art". Art, Robbe-Grillet reminds us, is not just a pretty way of presenting a message: it is the message. Like the world out there, a novel is self-sufficient and "expresses nothing but itself". Its "necessity" has nothing to do with its "utility". Whenever an author envisages a future book, "it is always a way of writing which first of all occupies his mind," which leads Robbe-Grillet to state – provocatively – that "the genuine writer has nothing to say. He has only a way of speaking". Creative writing classes should always start and end on that note*."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/book...
One point is still not clear– who was Andre WS? Was it Dupont himself (resemblance to Wallas),or Wallas,or someone with the complicity of doctor Juard (as the glasses given to Dupont by the dr for camouflage purpose reveals the connection.)"The girl’s testimony is explicit: the man who calls himself Andre WS resembles Wallas almost exactly. She did not hesitate when she saw the latter present himself at the window—despite the change of clothes.
The other man was wearing quite modest and rather shabby clothes. He almost always wore a beige raincoat that was too tight for his powerful frame; on reflection, he must have been heavier than Wallas.
“And he had glasses." P.164
Or is Andre a different killer?–on page 220 we read "Bona had preferred not to mention to him (Garinati)the execution of Albert Dupont, the wood exporter that “Monsieur Andre” had performed last night. A good job, apparently."
I think after 'accidently' killing Dupont,Wallas didn't return to the cafe in the night,so where was he...?
Mod
In the climatic scene,the Oedipal reference is worked out–[ The ninth murder finally takes place,the son kills the father. (hide spoiler)].."
I'm not sure you've got this correct. Wallas remembers visiting "a" house with his mother, not specifically Dupont's house.
Really? What's the Sophocles connection then? Other reviews also refer to the Oedipal angle.Throughout the narrative,the isolated house in the corner stands out in more ways than one & Wallas is drawn to it,all the roads lead him to it or to its pictorial/photographic version:
"Wallas and his mother had finally reached the dead end of a canal; in the sunlight, the low houses reflected their old façades in the green water. It was not an aunt they were looking for: it as a male relative, someone he had never really known. He did not see him that day either. It was his father. How could he have forgotten it?" P 203, chapter 5,part3
Wasn't it Dupont's house at the end of the canal?!
Confusion is what results when a writer messes up with chronological time!
Mod
Nope. But that doesn't mean the Oedipal angle isn't there.
Care to explain your theory,Jim?This is frustrating– I don't want to read the book all over again! :-(
And where is Mekki?!
Mod
This is frustrating– I don't want to read the book all over again! :-(
And where is Mekki?!"
Don't be frustrated. I read the descriptions as showing that Wallas' recollections of his childhood are triggered by his peregrinations throughout the city - especially when he walks along the canal. The city (and people) of the investigation is reminiscent of his childhood, but not the same city (and people). Mix this in with the anonymous, overzealous investigator who "created" the idea of DuPont's son - a son who was refuted by the bar manager saying that young men came into his bar, some of whom could have been the age of DuPont's son - and presto! You have reviewers making up Oedipal explanations for the novel. Not wrong, but not exactly right either.
FWIW, it might be a good exercise to reread the text and match it against the articles you've been reading.
And further, the layering of information that I mentioned in the first post tends to obscure anything like "the truth" of the murder. If we believe the very first account - that the assassination attempt failed - then every account after that is speculation built on guesswork and faulty testimony. The whole book is designed to obfuscate an otherwise simple story of a failed assassination. And further further further, it's this unnecessary complication that sets up the actual murder of DuPont at the end.
Mod
"The problem then remains of devising ways of implementing this rejection of tragedy or of myth in gen..."
I relocated all those citations to the Questions and resources thread.
Now tell us what YOU think The Erasers is about...
Jim wrote:"The whole book is designed to obfuscate an otherwise simple story of a failed assassination. And further further further, it's this unnecessary complication that sets up the actual murder of DuPont at the end."I agree with most of that minus the 'simple' part– having read some amount of critical literature on it, it seems amazing how much richness & layers of meaning this seemingly simple text contains.
This book is like one of those movies that ppl continue discussing for hours on end after having watched it,take for example,his own Last Year at Marienbad– wasn't that a total mindf***! Or Fellini's Amarcord– on the surface,such a simple movie yet always on the top five/ten lists of most highly respected directors.
Somehow,I'm more comfortable believing that Wallas was the son cause that lends poignancy to what so far had been a very dry read but I realize that this book is open to multiple interpretations so your take is just as valid as anybody else's.
In any case,there's that sense of things folding in upon themselves,most strikingly captured in that image of the aquarium in the end– the fishes ( like the characters in the book) condemned to repetitive movement,going round & round & round & arriving nowhere– just like its reading experience!
I'm missing my Borges' read buddies here– they would've enjoyed it.
Mod
Can you find textual support for your theory that Wallas is DuPont's son?
So i was trying to figure out what the eraser's meant in the story and then i saw jim's post about obfuscation of information or information overload that clouds the judgment.If you look back to chapter 5 section 3, you'll find the last time that wallas looks for an eraser.
Wallas is wandering seemingly randomly around the city. He walks into a shop and asked the shopkeeper for a eraser.. The shop keepers looks all around the store, opening drawer after drawer, looking high and low and does not find the eraser that wallas wants.
the shopkeeper makes an excuse and then says "There are so many things here that you can never find anything"
this happens after wallas's dream about his mother.
Also i noticed that wallas sometimes falls into a dream sequence that can confuse the reader about what actions are actually taken place. between wallas's dreams and imagination things can get very confusing
Now what's up with the drunk?
You guys did notice that 2 duponts die in this, right?
Mod
If you look back to ..."
It's true, the eraser is a quest that is never fulfilled. On the surface, it seems like a red herring, but for whatever reason, the eraser quest holds some sort of serious importance for Wallas.
I don't know when, but I'll be rereading this in the future. I'm going to look through the links Mala posted and see if there's anything substantive there or if it's a lot of French theorizing (which is sometimes more about the theorizer being impressed by their own obfuscatious cleverness than the work they're supposedly critiquing - I looking at you, Derrida!).
Mod
Not exactly. Can you point us towards the "evidence".
The two duponts:Albert Dupont:
Prologue - a bar patrend reads they paper and says that albert dupont is dead. the bar manager corrects him and says Daniel is his name. they disagree on if a daniel or albert is dead
Chapter 1 - section 4:
Wallas and Laurent read in the newspaper that albert dupont is dead. They notice that the paper has switched the names daniel with albert. They both have a laugh and stated that Albert the wood exporter is going to have quite a surprise in the morning to know that he's now dead.
Epilogue: The next day the paper states that albert Dupont is dead by being hit by a truck.
Daniel Dupont:
We know how he dies.
From the end of the book:
"you're not telling us" antoine says, "that someone named dupont gets killed every night."
"there's more than one donkey a the fair..." the drunk being's sententiously
Mod
Albert Dupont:
Prologue - a bar patrend reads they paper and says that albert dupont is dead. the bar manager corrects him and says Daniel is his name. they disagree on if a dan..."
Right! I was just remembering this morning when I got up. Then there's another assassination implied as being done by the more competent assassin killing a businessman, but I don't think we get his name. Will have to look that up.
Jim wrote: "Mala wrote: "Jim wrote:"The whole book is designed to obfuscate an otherwise simple story of a failed assassination. And further further further, it's this unnecessary complication that sets up the..."Jim,you know very well that this is not a conventional novel that a writer will lay it all out neatly for us but hints are dropped throughout,mainly Wallas' suppressed memories & his dreams where he keeps thinking of his earlier visit to the same/similar town. We know of the Oedipal framework of this novel & to quote "The problem then remains of devising ways of implementing this rejection of tragedy or of myth in general –in one’s fictional works. Robbe-Grillet’s preferred method is to allow traces of myth into his work but to treat them ironically in such a way as to trivialize them."Unquote. That's why the climax falls flat cause the tragic undertone is drowned by irony & that is also why you question the son theory & I choose to believe it.
Like a Cubist painting ( You know more abt it ),multiple approaches to this book are possible so I'm not claiming mine to be the definitive one,ok?
Here are some quotes from the notes that I had taken,sharing them for whatever it's worth:
Wallas' memories of his childhood- p 113,"What kind of spell is it that is forcing him to give explanations wherever he goes today? Is it a particular arrangement of the streets in this city that obliges him to be always asking his way, so that at each reply he finds himself led into new detours? Once before he has wandered among these unexpected bifurcations and blind alleys, where you got lost even more certainly when you happened to walk straight ahead. Only his mother was worried about it. Finally they had reached that dead end of a canal; the low houses, in the sun, reflected their old façades in the green water. That must have been in summer, during the school vacation; they had stopped (on their way to the seashore, farther south, where they went every year) to visit some relative."
And again:
"The dead end of the canal he had seen himself, and the houses reflected in the still water, and the low bridge that closed off the end…and the abandoned hull of the old boat…. But it is possible that this happened on another day, in another place—or even in a dream."
"Wallas and his mother had finally reached the dead end of a canal; in the sunlight, the low houses reflected their old façades in the green water. It was not an aunt they were looking for: it as a male relative, someone he had never really known. He did not see him that day either. It was his father. How could he have forgotten it?" P 203, chapter 5,part3
"The Rue des Arpenteurs is a long straight street,(...)At the corner of the parkway stands a big stone apartment building, well kept up, and opposite, at number 2, a small two-story private house with a narrow strip of garden around it. The structure does not have much style but gives an impression of comfort, even of a certain luxury; a fence and behind it a spindle-tree hedge clipped to a man’s height complete its isolation.(...)To the west, on the other side of the parkway and its canal, stretches the city proper..." Prologue,2,P11-12
Doesn't that place Dupont's house at the end/corner of the canal?
As Mekki rightly quoted:"There are so many things here that you can never find anything."P.204
Mekki wrote: "You guys did notice that 2 duponts die in this, right?"Of course I did! I mentioned it in my comment number 5. Here's the quote:
Or is Andre a different killer?–on page 220 we read "Bona had preferred not to mention to him (Garinati)the execution of Albert Dupont, the wood exporter that “Monsieur Andre” had performed last night. A good job, apparently."
Yes,Andre is indeed a different person ( the resemblance to Wallas was emphasised in keeping with the mirror image/doubleness motif throughout the book), cause we read that "This sleepless night has exhausted him. He has accompanied the chief commissioner everywhere, for Laurent had at once taken charge of the case again and resumed all his duties. Several times, during their nocturnal rides, Wallas fell asleep in the car." P.221
"Now what's up with the drunk?"
Mekki,check the resource section for The Erasers where I shared its Greek tragedy context. The drunk & his puzzles bothered me as well but not having read Oedipus Rex,I couldn't get the reference. ( Note to Jim,pls include some classical texts in our reading schedule.)
Apparently,he serves as a chorus/commentator here.
Jim wrote:"I'm going to look through the links Mala posted and see if there's anything substantive there or if it's a lot of French theorizing (which is sometimes more about the theorizer being impressed by their own obfuscatious cleverness than the work they're supposedly critiquing - I looking at you, Derrida!). "Jim,pls do. They are each just 4-6 pages of content & they do make sense.
And don't you run the French down!!!– considering you've relocated to France,enjoying the wines & fine food & basically living it up,you!
Mod
Okay, it seems really important to you to make Dupont Wallas' father, so, presto! Dupont is Wallas' father.
Wallas' investigation stirs up all of his personal merde and it is completely reasonable to layer an Oedipal structure onto the story - why not? However, there is nothing conclusive in the text that makes Dupont his biological father. Symbolic father? Sure, why not... Plus he does want to sleep with Dupont's ex-wife (symbolic mother)... Now we just need one more chapter where Wallas goes blind and we're done, LOL!!!
Jim,be grateful I didn't turn you into Wallas' daddy– I could do that!Did I ever tell you,I dig your sense of humour– now I wonder if yours is American in origin or French in influence... I'll go with the latter :p
Mod
Did I ever tell you,I dig your sense of humour– now I wonder if yours is American in origin or French in influence... I'll g..."
Uh-oh! You don't have the same powers as Parvati-the-witch*, do you?!?
I suspect my humor is east coast New York megalopolis-based, where everyone is a wise-guy.
BTW, Even though I'm challenging your assertion about Wallas and DuPont, I think the critical ideas about an oedipal theme are reasonable, given the fluidity of fact and theory that Robbe-Grillet presents to us in his book. There are so many layers and reflections and echoes, it's easy to apply multiple interpretations.
In another group discussing Melville and Moby Dick, our friend Zadignose wrote:
In reading Borges, and an interesting article that Calvino wrote addressing Borges's view of Dante, I've had to meditate on the idea (quite appealing to me personally) that a work can court multiple perspectives and potential interpretations which individually are incomplete, and none of which can be taken for absolute to the exclusion of others.
I think this applies quite well to The Erasers in the sense that not only can individual readers come up with multiple interpretations of the book, but within the book itself, the characters arrive at different interpretations of the supposed murder. None of them are correct by themselves, but in toto, they essentially cover the whole story.
(*a character from Midnight's Children)
Mod
“From this, one can make a deduction which is certainly the ultimate truth of jigsaw puzzles: despite appearances, puzzling is not a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzle-maker has made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks up again, and studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and described by the other.”
Jim wrote:"In another group discussing Melville and Moby Dick, our friend Zadignose wrote..."Sir Zadignose saves the day! Even without being part of this discussion,he has managed to save my skin,how gallant!
Jim wrote: "I read this in the preamble to Georges Perec's Life, A User's Manual. I think it applies to the discussion we're having about The Erasers. Of course, R-G the puzzle-maker still only contributes one..."That's cause we are all connected– we are all part of the puzzle!
Reading this quoted text,I'm kind of dismayed now– why do these French writers have to be so DIFFICULT!?
Mod
très drôle...
Actually, Perec is much more straightforward than the French philosopher-critics, probably because he is a writer (artist) instead of a theoretician (wannabe artist).
One question about the book. It wasn't much of a shock when Wallas shot DuPont. R-G made it easy to see it coming. Why, given how ambiguous most of the book is, do you think he gave us this predictable ending?
Hmmm, I think he gave us an anti-climax because in keeping with the rest of the book,perhaps we were looking forward to a mindbender of an ending– he subverted our hopes,the clever devil!As he said in the Paris Review interview:"In our novels what is missing is “sense.” There is a constant appeal to sense, but it remains unfulfilled, because the pieces keep moving and shifting and when “sense” appears it is transitory. Therefore, what is important is not to discover the truth at the end of the investigation, but the process itself."
Mod
..."
That makes sense...
Jim wrote: "Mala wrote: "Reading this quoted text,I'm kind of dismayed now– why do these French writers have to be so DIFFICULT!? ..."très drôle...
Actually, Perec is much more straightforward than the Fren..."
I don't think it was a surprise that wallas shot D. Dupont but i think alot of people thought that he was the intended assassin. Right now i don't think he was.
It more like one of those time travel movies where the protagonist tries to change the future by changing the past but end result still occurs but by a different way.
Was it dupont's fate to die? Something he could not avoid.
The fate aspect might be another nod to the greek and Oedipus
Similar to this: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
Also i don't think wallas was dupont's son. mainly because of the argument with the manager at the end of the book. The manager denied mentioning that dupont had a son and insisted that it was a misunderstanding.
Hi Brian and all,Glenn Russell here. I am starting my study of The Erasers. I am struck by many things in this fine novel, including all of the direct references to astrology, for example the painting of The Tower on the 16th step -- The Tower is the 16th card in the Tarot deck. Anyway, I'd like to join the discussion if it is not too late. If anybody would like to see the 76 book reviews I posted on amazon, (Robbe-Grillet's Ghosts in the Mirror being the most recent) here is the link:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile...
I look forward to hearing from you'all.
---Glenn
Mod
Glenn Russell here. I am starting my study of The Erasers. I am struck by many things in this fine novel, including all of the direct references to astrology, for example the pa..."
Hi Glenn, can you let us know what page or chapter The Tower section is on? Would help us re-enter the discussion with you.
Prologue, #2, section 5 that starts: "Things take their immutable course." Also, in this section we read, " . . . a brass column with complicated decorations and, in the finial, a jester's head wearing a cap with three bells." If you take a look at a Tarot deck (easily located with a goggle search), you will see this is an exact description of the fool. Astrology and Tarot is not one of my prime interests but this appears to be a fascinating aspect of the novel (perhaps an ironic comment about fate and freedom?).
Glenn wrote: "Prologue, #2, section 5 that starts: "Things take their immutable course." Also, in this section we read, " . . . a brass column with complicated decorations and, in the finial, a jester's head we..."Hi Glenn,
Good catch.
In the reference book Understanding Alain Robbe-Grillet its stated Grillet has references to the tarot in the novel. I don't know much about tarot so i didn't notice it at first. I wonder what other references we might find.
Do you have a good link on tarot?
Thanks Mekki,I myself am not that familiar with tarot but I will post again on the novel as read through, including references to tarot. Of course, the Oedipus myth is strong in this novel and the oracle at Delphi acting as a fortune teller: "You will kill your father and marry your mother", thus a kind of connection with tarot and astrology.
Anyway, here is a link that gives the pictures of the tarot cards along with a listing of archetypes:
http://merlynsmagick.blogspot.com/201...
Mekki wrote: "Glenn wrote: "Prologue, #2, section 5 that starts: "Things take their immutable course." Also, in this section we read, " . . . a brass column with complicated decorations and, in the finial, a je..."The next clear reference to the tarot cards I could find is in Chapter One, #3, 2nd section: “In the middle of the spare . . . stands a bronze group representing a Greek chariot drawn by two horses. . . . “. Not only is this a description of The Chariot, the seventh trump card in the tarot deck, but, Oedipus’s father Laius drove a chariot over Oedipus’s leg before Oedipus killed Laius at the crossroads. Also,, in the very next section, Wallas reads a paper’s headlines, which includes: “The medium deceives her clients.” All this to note how the author injects his novel with examples of how we humans ascribe our fate to the patterns and energies of the cosmos: the oracle at Delphi, tarot, astrology. Of course, freedom is a prime concern for Robbe-Grillet, as it is for two authors he acknowledges as major influences: Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, most particularly in two novels: Nausea and The Stranger.
Great insight glenn.I had similar thoughts about the fate aspect of this novel in my previous post.
This was definitely one of the best Brain pain books for me this year. ARG packed alot of meaning in this small novel (200 Pages). Thanks Jim
This novel made me at more mythology to my reading list and i just moved Sartre and Camus up the list. I'll probably read read this one after.
Mod
With its winding streets and system of canals, I have seen reviewers and ..."
Not a requirement, but you might consider cutting and pasting these comments to the Week One discussion.
Jim wrote: "Glenn wrote: "Having finished the Prologue and Chapter 1, I would like to point out a few additional aspects of this novel I see so far:With its winding streets and system of canals, I have seen ..."
Thanks, Jim. I did. I tried a couple of days ago to post on Preface and Chapter 1 page but I saw the discussion was labeled as 'closed'. However, I was able to post now.
Hi Jim and all,I would like to ask for your reflections here. I read The Erasers and found the ugliness of the city to be pronounced. Here is my review I was planning to post, but before I do, I would like some feedback. Am I being too harsh?
-------------
The Erasers is one of the most convoluted, complex, knotty novels a reader could possibly encounter, a novel that can be approached from multiple perspectives and on multiple levels, everything from an intricate detective mystery to a meditation on the circularity of time to the phenomenology of perception to the story of Oedipus, to name several. For the purpose of this review, I will focus on one aspect of The Erasers I have not seen from either literary critics or reviewers – the prevalence of ugliness in the city where the novel is set.
With its winding streets and system of canals, the novel’s city has been likened to the city of Amsterdam, but any likeness to this beautiful, charming Dutch city ends there. The cold Northern European industrial city we encounter in The Erasers is ugly and creepy, lacking any trace of charm or warmth. The main character, special agent Wallas, who travels to the city to solve a murder, repeatedly reflects on this lack of aesthetic attraction and beauty. For example, we read, “ . . . a city completely barren of appeal for an art lover . . . “, and then again, “ . . . a huge stone building ornamented with scrolls and scallops, fortunately few in number – in short, of rather somber ugliness.” From Wallas’s multiple observations, this unnamed city’s stark ugliness brings to mind Golconda, a cityscape raining men in black suits and bowlers painted by the surrealist Rene Magritte in 1953, the same year as the publication of Les Gommes.
This unattractiveness also extends to the people inhabiting the city. Two men described in some detail are both fat and flabby and move in a stiff and mechanical way: first, the manager of the café, portrayed as follows: “A fat man is standing here, the manager . . . greenish, his features blurred, liverish, and fleshy in his aquarium.”, and second, Laurent, the chief commissioner: “He is a short, plump man with a pink face and a bald skull . . . his overfed body shakes from fits of laughter.”
Tom, one of the condemned prisoners, from Jean-Paul Sartre’s story The Wall is such a flabby, fat man. Also, Antoine Roquentin, the main character in Sartre’s novel Nausea, describes shaking hands with a man: “Then there was his hand like a fat white worm in my own hand. I dropped it almost immediately and the arm fell back flabbily.” So why highlight this? Because I have the sense both Robbe-Grillet and Sartre (who had a great influence on Robbe-Grillet) see flab and fat as repulsive and ugly, a counter to the possibility of freedom and spontaneity and fluidity we can experience in our human embodiment.
In contradistinction, Wallas is a tall, calm, young man, with regular features and who walks with an elastic, confident gate. But at every turn Wallas encounters ugliness, even in an automat where there is a sign reading: ‘Please Hurry. Thank you’, And this sign is repeated many times on the white walls of the automat! How nauseating. Not surprisingly, Wallas eats too fast resulting in an upset stomach and shortly thereafter returns to a familiar dirty café and feels ill.
Here are few more direct quotes on what Wallas sees in this city:
• “Mouth open, the man is staring into space, one elbow on the table propping up his bloated head.”
• “Once again, Wallas is walking toward the bridge. Ahead of him, under a snowy sky, extends the Rue de Brabant – and its grim housefronts.”
• “From another angle, the man assumes an almost coarse expression that has something vulgar, self-satisfied, rather repugnant about it.”
• “It was hard to believe she was not making fun of him (Wallas)”.
True, Wallas sees one sales woman who is gay and slightly provocative, but the other people he encounters, to the extent these men and woman are described, are drab and shabby and decidedly unattractive. An entire city of unsightly sights and repellent people. Is it too much of a stretch to interpret the pistol Wallas shots at the end of the novel as, in part, a reaction to overbearing ugliness? Perhaps in the same way the pistol shots in Albert Camus’s The Stranger (a work Alain Robbe-Grillet counts as one of his prime influences) are a reaction to the searing heat and glare from the sun and the young Arab’s knife blade?
Rather than providing a definitive answer, this question raises another question: Are we as readers so coarse and dull and deadened by the modern mechanized world that we accept the ugly as the norm? Does this account for the fact that commentaries and critical analysis and reviews of Erasers do not draw attention to all the ugliness Wallas confronts in The Erasers?
Mod
I would like to ask for your reflections here. I read The Erasers and found the ugliness of the city to be pronounced. Here is my review I was planning to post, but before I do, I..."
Doesn't seem too harsh. The city is ugly throughout...
Jim wrote: "Glenn wrote: "Hi Jim and all,I would like to ask for your reflections here. I read The Erasers and found the ugliness of the city to be pronounced. Here is my review I was planning to post, but ..."
Thanks, Jim. Most appreciated.
Glenn wrote: "Rather than providing a definitive answer, this question raises another question: Are we as readers so coarse and dull and deadened by the modern mechanized world that we accept the ugly as the norm? Does this account for the fact that commentaries and critical analysis and reviews of Erasers do not draw attention to all the ugliness Wallas confronts in The Erasers? Great point! Personally,I'm more drawn to beauty than ugliness so in a text my eyes pick up on that & the ugliness is left well alone!
I just went ahead & 'liked' your review- a new approach,insight is always welcome in adding new layers of meaning to the text but have you read up on all the criticism of this book to really claim that no one has pointed it out before? Maybe this focus on ugliness is part of his broader fiction so critics have taken it as part & parcel of his literary bag of tricks?
I wouldn't know- this was my first Robbe-Grillet & I read it during holidays,drifting in & out of this book so my reading was kind of surreal like the book itself but you clearly got much,much more out of it- I envy you!
Wish you were there when I was reading it,I could've got so much more out of this book! But Anyway,Glenn,I've enjoyed reading your posts here :-)
Ps.
Not meaning to be snarky but looking at Alain R-B & Sartre's pics- these men,they were no Adonis either...
Mala wrote: "Glenn wrote: "Rather than providing a definitive answer, this question raises another question: Are we as readers so coarse and dull and deadened by the modern mechanized world that we accept the u..."Thanks for your comments here, Mala. I certainly did not real all the commentaries and reviews and that's why I tried to be careful with noting that 'I have not seen . . . " Anyway, citing the ugliness of the city is not such a bold claim, since, as Jim writes, the city is ugly throughout. What could be seen as a bold claim is my likening Wallas, with pistol in hand, reacting to all the ugliness of the city to Meursault, with pistol in hand, reacting to all the heat and light in The Stranger by Camus.
And you are right about the looks of J-P Sartre, who writes directly about his own ugliness.
Please, let's keep up the correspondence. I will be posting my take over the weekend on The Invention of Morel, a 100 page novella by Adolfo Bioy Casares as part of another group discussion. Here is the link:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Mod
I don't want us to get too off-topic here. Coincidentally, we'll also be discussing The Invention of Morel during the week of December 2nd here in the BP group.
Jim wrote: "Glenn wrote: "Mala wrote: "Glenn wrote: "Rather than providing a definitive answer, this question raises another question: Are we as readers so coarse and dull and deadened by the modern mechanized..."Thanks, Jim. I didn't see 'The Invention of Morel' on the BP list but now that you have alerted me, I look forward to participating in the discussion/comments in December.
hey Glennwhat did you think of the duality aspects of the novel?
2 Duponts, 2 or 3 Wallas, etc.
and the tragic irony of Walla's job depends on him solving the murder of Dupont but he winds up committing the killing he was sent to solve. thus keeping his status.
Mekki wrote: "hey Glennwhat did you think of the duality aspects of the novel?
2 Duponts, 2 or 3 Wallas, etc.
and the tragic irony of Walla's job depends on him solving the murder of Dupont but he winds up c..."
Thanks for the post, Mekki. As a first step in considering your question, I went back and reviewed all the messages in this Week 3 thread. Lots of keen insights from you, Mala and Jim, particularly when Mala notes how A R-G says there never should be any fixed rules (message 3) and Jim writes: “The whole book is designed to obfuscate an otherwise simple story of a failed assassination.” (message 6) and “ . . . not only can individual readers come up with multiple interpretations of the book, but within the book itself, the characters arrive at different interpretations of the supposed murder. None of them are correct by themselves, but in toto, they essentially cover the whole story.”(message 25). Also, Jim adding that quote about puzzles from Georges Perec (message 26).
So, with all these dynamics at play in The Erasers, having possible or probable doubles or even multiples of Wallas and Dupont (and perhaps others in the novel’s city) adds piquancy (ah, the French!). It is well to keep in mind Alain Robbe-Grillet creative juices flow in innovative ways; he revolts against what is old and fixed and thrives on what is new and fresh. His literary work reminds me of the music of John Cage and the art of Marcel Duchamp. Here are a few quotes from his essay, ‘On Several Obsolete Notions’ where he specifically addresses the topic of ‘Character’:
“How much we’ve heard about the ‘character”! . . . It is a mummy now, but one still enthroned with the same – phony – majesty, among the values revered by traditional criticism. In fact, that is how this criticism recognizes the “true” novelist: “he creates characters” . . . “
“ . . . the creators of characters, in the traditional sense, no longer manage to offer us anything more than puppets in which they themselves have ceased to believe. The novel of characters belongs entirely to the past, it describes a period: that which marked the apogee of the individual.”
“The exclusive cult of the “human” has given way to a larger consciousness, one that is less anthropocentric. The novel seems to stagger, having lost what was once its best prop, the hero.”
Of course, one way to counter the traditional presentation of character (the hale, hearty, one-of-a-kind hero) in a novel is portray the ambiguity of individual identity (how many guys going by the name of Wallas or Dupont do we have here?!).
Another Robbe-Grillet quote I enjoy very much comes from ‘Ghosts in the Mirror’, his Romanesque/autobiography: "Characters in novels or films are also kinds of phantoms: you see them or hear them, you can never grasp them, if you try you pass right through them. Their existence is suspect, insistent, like that of the unquiet dead forced by some evil spell or divine vengeance to live the same scenes from their tragic destiny over and over again. . . . as if they were desperately trying to gain access to a fleshly existence that is denied them . . . attempting to drag the other, all the others, including the innocent reader, into their impossible quest." What a way to view the men and women we encounter in the pages of novels! - as victims of a spell, forced to live their flesh-less lives over and over again.
I write this post not to suggest any crystal-clear answer to your question but as random midnight reflections (it is 1:30 am EST) for further investigation.
Layer after layer of information accumulates in front of Wallas, pushing the truth farther and farther away, until at least, he meets his man.