The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Reading between the Lines: Claude Simon and the Visual Arts by Jean H. Duffy
George O'Brien

Jean H. Duffy. Reading between the Lines: Claude Simon and the Visual Arts. Liverpool Univ. Press, 1998. 400 pp. Paper: £15.95.

Just about every painting and painter not only mentioned in Simon’s fiction but known to him personally seems to be mentioned in this study. But while laundry lists occur from time to time throughout, the academic claustrophobia risked by Professor Duffy’s thoroughness is to a great extent offset by other aspects of her sophisticated and illuminating work.
Among the most noteworthy and valuable of those aspects is the use of nouveau roman aesthetics to sponsor a dialogue between paint and print. Thus, the “automatisation” and “defamiliarisation” of Chklovski [sic] focuses the discussion of the relationship between Simon and the painter with who he has felt the closest affinity, Jean Dubuffet. Similarly, the theories of Jean Ricardou are used to show how paintings act as “generators” in Simon’s fiction. Moving further afield, Lévi-Strauss’s bricolage—“one of the few technical terms which [Simon] uses with any regularity and confidence”—is anatomized in connection with Simon and the work of Louise Nevelson and Robert Rauschenberg. Other chapters deal with Simon and Baroque art and the novelist’s interest in Cézanne and Poussin.
The discussion of Cézanne is particularly useful as it deals with those novels of Simon—Histoire, La Route des Flandres, La Palace—which perhaps are better known in translation (because of the Faulknerian features?) than those on which Professor Duffy concentrates: Femmes, La Bataille de Pharsale, Orion aveugle, Les Corps conducteurs and Triptyques. Some of the paintings discussed are reproduced in black-and-white. An index of visual works cited is thoughtfully included, and there is a comprehensive bibliography. Quotations from the French are not translated. Mainly for specialists, but a must for Simon fans, too. (It’s reassuring to imagine that there are some out there.) [George O’Brien]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Reading between the Lines: Claude Simon and the Visual Arts by Jean H. Duffy George O'Brien Jean H. Duffy. Reading between the Lines: Claude Simon and the Visual Arts. Liverpool Univ. Press, 1998. 400 pp. Paper: £15.95. Just about every painting and painter not only mentioned in Simon’s fiction but known to him personally seems to be mentioned in this study. But while laundry lists occur from time to time throughout, the academic claustrophobia risked by Professor Duffy’s thoroughness is to a great extent offset by other aspects of her sophisticated and illuminating work. Among the most noteworthy and valuable of those aspects is the use of nouveau roman aesthetics to sponsor a dialogue between paint and print. Thus, the “automatisation” and “defamiliarisation” of Chklovski [sic] focuses the discussion of the relationship between Simon and the painter with who he has felt the closest affinity, Jean Dubuffet. Similarly, the theories of Jean Ricardou are used to show how paintings act as “generators” in Simon’s fiction. Moving further afield, Lévi-Strauss’s bricolage—“one of the few technical terms which [Simon] uses with any regularity and confidence”—is anatomized in connection with Simon and the work of Louise Nevelson and Robert Rauschenberg. Other chapters deal with Simon and Baroque art and the novelist’s interest in Cézanne and Poussin. The discussion of Cézanne is particularly useful as it deals with those novels of Simon—Histoire, La Route des Flandres, La Palace—which perhaps are better known in translation (because of the Faulknerian features?) than those on which Professor Duffy concentrates: Femmes, La Bataille de Pharsale, Orion aveugle, Les Corps conducteurs and Triptyques. Some of the paintings discussed are reproduced in black-and-white. An index of visual works cited is thoughtfully included, and there is a comprehensive bibliography. Quotations from the French are not translated. Mainly for specialists, but a must for Simon fans, too. (It’s reassuring to imagine that there are some out there.) [George O’Brien]

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