Régis Jauffret's 'Promenade': A Novel of Anxiety and the Conditional Tense

Régis Jauffret's novel 'Promenade' (published by Verticales) explores a woman's existential anguish through the exclusive use of the conditional tense, a stylistic hallmark of the author. The protagonist, unnamed, wanders through urban and natural landscapes, but her physical movement only intensifies her inner suffering. Jauffret's prose dismantles both subjective and objective reality, trapping the character in a state of waiting and sensory overload. The novel draws comparisons to Francis Bacon's paintings and Cesare Pavese's reflections on pain. The woman's life is governed by insomnia and mundane routines, yet she remains voiceless, uttering only trivial phrases. The conditional tense embeds the reader in the narrator's consciousness, creating a disorienting temporal loop. As the narrative progresses, the protagonist's body becomes a site of disintegration, leading to a fatal conclusion: on the morning of her death, she leaves her door ajar and places a chair by the window. Jauffret's radical style, combining lyricism and violence, positions 'Promenade' as a contemporary literary model for exploring anxiety, akin to Kierkegaard's 'The Concept of Anxiety'.