SOURCE: “Absurdist Estrangement and the Subversion of Narrativity in ‘La Plage,’” in Modern Language Review, Vol. 89, No. 1, January, 1994, pp. 50-60.

In the following essay, Milman provides analysis of Robbe-Grillet's metaphysical concerns and narrative presentation in the short story “La Plage.” Milman notes strong similarities between Robbe-Grillet's “absurd view of man” and the philosophical tenets of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre.

In the ‘snapshots’ he wrote at the beginning of his career as a writer Robbe-Grillet established a new subgenre of the short story, a kind of 'story-picture’ in which he radically actualized the poetic approach of ‘Chosisme’. These story-pictures, including ‘La Plage’ which is the subject of this study, are thus not some immature experiment heralding Robbe-Grillet's innovative writing as it has been regularly scrutinized and publicized by critics (basing themselves on his novels). The time perspective allows one to see these apparent ‘études’ as the fullest realization...