2020 | By Ralph Sarkonak
This work, which represents the fruits of forty years of research on Claude Simon, alternates thematic studies and essays devoted to individual novels; particular attention is paid to the “almost unspoken” novels. The three main themes studied here are anglicity, androgyny and anti-Semitism; they are among the most important of the work both because of their ethical dimension and their multiple formal and intertextual resonances. The targeted novels, which correspond to the four periods of the work, are The Rite of Spring, History, Triptyque and L’Acacia, but Simon’s other books are discussed in the book’s seven essays. “The choice to close the book on a study of the Jewish theme […] is particularly justified in that it converges with the interest now proven for the relationship of Simonian novels with History and for their integration of social discourses and of ethical and political questions ”, we commented.