Postmodern Novel: French Writers Explore Intimacy and Form

A critical survey of contemporary French novelists examines how they engage with postmodern literary history. The article, published in artpress in November 2002, analyzes diverse approaches to narrative form and the exploration of private life. Thomas A. Ravier's 'Emma Jordan' (Julliard) remixes Flaubert's Emma Bovary with Proustian style and rap vernacular, creating a 'hard' landscape transfigured by language. Nicolas Jones-Gorlin's 'Rose Bonbon' (Gallimard) uses a grotesque fable to explore pedophilia. David Foenkinos's 'Entre les oreilles' (Gallimard) builds a novel like knitting, allowing unconscious obsessions to surface. Gwenaëlle Aubry's 'L'Isolée' (Stock) and Lorette Nobécourt's 'Nous' (Pauvert) delve into painful intimacy and dissolution of the self. Emmanuel Adely's 'Fanfare' (Stock) uses lyrical monologue to search for a missing father through Laclos's 'Les Liaisons dangereuses'. Jean-Christophe Valtat's 'Album' (Éd. Léo Scheer) collects metaphorical short stories about vinyl records. The article argues that contemporary French fiction oscillates between raw literature and self-reflexive writing, with the writer's aesthetic morality revealing a concentrated universe.