Sumários
Hiroshima Mon Amour
6 Maio 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
We dedicated today's session to Resnais' movie Hiroshima Mon Amour. We analyzed the style of the dialogue (récitatif) and underlined how the poeticality of language, enhanced by the use of repetitions and circularity, is a way to formally introduce the topic of memory, central to the elaboration of trauma at stake in the movie. We discussed the meaning of the love affair existing between the two protagonist in relation to the topic of atomic bombing (exceptionality; reflection on the ways in which the past still has repercussions on the present, both on an individual and collective level).
Sarraute / Hiroshima Mon Amour
29 Abril 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Today, we commented especially on the second part of Portrait d'un inconnu. During the discussion, we discussed the ways in which Sarraute manages to slowly construct her characters by revealing only bit by bit aspects of their individuality that counters what they show through their social persona (e.g., the scene of seduction between the old man and the young girls; the recollection of the episode of the daughter's childhood, when the father refuses to buy her a toy; the final confrontation between the two of them). These revelations build a climax that finds its peak in the passage where the narrator finally names what seems to be the rule that has regulated their life - a horror for "offhandedness" (and, thus, a horror for spontaneity, for giving in to pleasures, for any kind of attitude that shows carelessness). The rule that has regulated their life explains the doubleness of these characters, who are constantly torn between authenticity and restraint. Finally, characters' construction responds to Sarraute's idea of the novel as a privileged means to deconstruct and expose social conventions.
Nathalie Sarraute
24 Abril 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Today we analyzed some of the aspects that make Portrait d'un inconnu an "anti-novel" (definition by Sartre) and a model of novel writing for the nouveau roman. In particular, we talked about the critique of traditional round characters that Sarraute makes throughout the novel: the example of Prince Bolkonski in War and Peace vs. the "larvae" or "ghosts"that the narrator wishes to portray; round characters described as consistent but inauthentic; the idea (and recurring image) of the unmasking of characters seen as a new objective for novel writing, even if it compromises consistency and readability; the revelation of the portrait seen in a northern city, a liberation from the constraints of traditional portrayals. Discussion of the neurosis that the narrator goes through in his attempts to unmask his characters.
Nathalie Sarraute
22 Abril 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Introduction to Nathalie Sarraute and her role within the group of the nouveau roman (Tropismes and L'Ère du soupçon). We discussed the difficulties caused by the reading of Portrait d'un inconnu, namely: distinguishing one character from the other; understanding the perspective through which reality is narrated; the management of time and space; the absence of a real plot for us to follow. All these elements are part of Sarraute's attempt to get rid of conventions associated with the novel (analysis of the title: the "inconnu" suggests that we are not going to have access to a round character nor a round subjectivity).
Alain Robbe-Grillet and the "nouveau roman"
10 Abril 2025, 14:00 • Chiara Nifosi
Today I introduced some of the main aspects of the nouveau roman as they were established by Alain Robbe-Grillet in his essays from 1957 to 1963. The main points are: attack to psychology, ethics and metaphysics as cultural products orienting our interpretation of reality; the restoration of reality as the main objective of the nouveau roman; position against the conventions of common novel writing; redefinition of formalism as the inane repetition of preexisting literary forms (Barthes and the awareness that also esthetic forms and writing are cultural products; see quote from Nathalie Sarraute on slides).