SOURCE: “Alain Robbe-Grillet: Scientific Humanist,” in Bucknell Review, Vol. XV, No. 2, 1967, pp. 1-9.

In the following essay, Wylie discusses the combination of humanist concerns and scientific observation in Robbe-Grillet's fiction. Noting the influence of Surrealism and existential philosophy on his work, Wylie writes, “For Robbe-Grillet the cosmos is neither absurd nor tragic; it simply is.”

A return to stylistic experimentation sets Robbe-Grillet and the nouveau roman apart from their predecessors, the existentialists. Early criticism preoccupied itself with these technical innovations, with Robbe-Grillet's visual images and his striking use of language and vocabulary. This analysis seemingly considered subject matter of lesser importance or irrelevant. The truth is probably that early critics were unable to find a connecting link between Robbe-Grillet's themes and his literary technique. My description of the novelist as a “scientific humanist” is an attempt to provide this link.

By “humanist” I mean to describe any writer...