SOURCE: “Corinthian Casual,” in Times Literary Supplement, October 7, 1994, p. 12.

In the following review, Sheringham offers tempered criticism of Les Derniers Jours de Corinthe. “If not for the pinch of irony which still enlivens Robbe-Grillet's writing, and his authentic merit as a stylist (often self-consciously paraded),” writes Sheringham, “few readers … would be likely to stay the course.”

Not as quick off the mark in the autobiography stakes as some of his fellow nouveaux romanciers, Alain Robbe-Grillet has compensated for this by a higher rate of productivity. Les Derniers Jours de Corinthe is the third and apparently final instalment of a series called “Romanesques”, a label designed, presumably, to make it clear that straight autobiography is not the name of the game. The eponymous figure of Henri de Corinthe is once again used to make the same point. In Le Miroir qui revient (1985), Corinthe featured in a number of patently...