Michel Butor Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Seda A. Chavadarian

Critical Essay by Seda A. Chavadarian

SOURCE: Chavadarian, Seda A. “Images of Chaos in Butor's Mobile, 6810000 Litres d'eau par seconde, and Ou.” Perspectives on Contemporary Literature 10 (1984): 49–55.

In the following essay, Chavadarian argues that Butor's Mobile, 6810000 Litres d'eau par seconde, and Ou begin with a sense of order, but progressively degenerate into narrative chaos.

Butor's work contains great agitation and restlessness that invade every sentence. This power is at times either a positive, energetic force or a negative, uncomfortable tension. His books abound in images of birth, fecundity, energetic whirling that are always juxtaposed to those of death, disintegration, and chaos; yet these forces do not necessarily contradict but complement each other. Rage is usually manifested through violence, cruelty, and chaos. Order is necessitated by this violence and brought about through cult and ritual.

Butor's books share a basic pattern that is characteristically consistent throughout his work. They all begin with a...
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