The Replacement | Literary Criticism & Book Review

The Replacement Critical Overview

The literary scene in France did not at first accept the radically new form of Robbe-Grillet's works. However, with the reestablishment of the decades, or ten-day conferences (a French literary tradition), and a study of Robbe-Grillet's works by theorist Roland Barthes, Robbe-Grillet soon became a dominant literary figure. Two different critical approaches have been taken in analyses of Robbe-Grillet's works, including the sketches in Snapshots. The first, promoted by Barthes, focuses on the author as choisiste ("thingist") as he reproduces the surface reality of things in his texts. Barthes argues in his Essais critiques that Robbe-Grillet's novels and stories confound the reader because they illuminate the problems inherent in gaining absolute knowledge about the world because they refuse to present any specific point of view. Critic Bruce Morrissette, however, takes a different approach to the analysis of Robbe-Grillet's work. In his book Les Romans de Robbe-Grillet, Morrissette insists it is...
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