Robbe-Grillet is a filmmaker and [Topology of a Phantom City] addresses itself to the eye almost exclusively. There is not a line of dialogue in the book. But there is endless scene setting—the same scene presented over and over again. In the opening pages we are asked to gaze upon the nude body of a young girl who lies in a spreading pool of blood. With a technique that is hard to differentiate from standard stream-of-consciousness, Robbe-Grillet brings us back to this scene again and again…. Eras change. We move from the mythic past, to the now, to the hereafter. But the story is the same. We move round and round the event like a camera dollying circularly. We discover the book's real merit in this technique. We see things with an artist's eye. After a while, you may think you are Paul Signac ready to embark on a career of pointillism. Yet the imagery is, at times, as stark as Colette's, e.g., "When she got home next morning she was fit only to be thrown with the dirty rags, if that."
Robbe-Grillet's theatrical world is a narcissistic world, a world of mirrors endlessly casting back an image of itself, and of vampires ceaselessly seeking replenishment. As a film, Topology might stir our sense of wonder. As a novel, it is better calculated to induce vertigo. (pp. 373-74)
John J. McAleer, in Best Sellers (copyright © 1978 Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation), March, 1978.
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