Henri Godard's Summa on the 20th-Century French Novel

Henri Godard, the foremost Céline scholar and editor of Giono, Malraux, and Queneau in the Pléiade, has published a comprehensive study of the 20th-century French novel. The 500-page volume, 'Henri Godard, le roman modes d'emploi' (Gallimard, Folio Essai), examines the sustained challenge to mimetic (Balzacian, realist) fiction from Gide to Perec. Godard combines close readings with broad syntheses, covering Proust, Aragon, Beckett, Claude Simon, and others. He revisits key issues: narrative voice, reader's role, fiction vs. testimony, autobiography and imagination, narrative and memory, playfulness and metaphysics. The book follows a roughly chronological order, linking concrete examples to theoretical debates. Godard unearths neglected texts (Emmanuel Berl's 1929 'Mort de la pensée bourgeoise', a 1936 lecture by Georges Heinein) and revises critical clichés (mise en abyme in Gide's 'The Counterfeiters', Flaubert's subject-style opposition). He repositions authors like Bernanos and Bataille, and offers new readings of Proust's 'Recherche' incipit. Excursions into Joyce, Woolf, and Sei Shônagon are brief. A striking comparison links Genet's 'Our Lady of the Flowers' and Giono's 'Noé'. The final chapter on Perec confirms his posthumous importance. Two indexes (names/works and concepts) aid navigation. Godard emerges as a leading contemporary essayist, providing a vital reference for teachers, students, and readers, suggesting the novel's adventure is far from over.