Parody and palimpsest : intertextuality, language, and the ludic in the novels of Jean-Philippe Toussaint / Sarah L. Glasco.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Glasco, Sarah L., 1971- author.

Contributor:

Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Series:

Currents in comparative Romance languages and literatures ; v. 218.

Currents in comparative Romance languages and literatures ; Vol. 218

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Toussaint, Jean-Philippe--Criticism and interpretation.

Toussaint, Jean-Philippe.

French fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

French fiction.

Intertextuality.

Parody in literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

vi, 259 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Peter Lang, [2015]

Summary:

Parody and Palimpsest: Intertextuality, Language, and the Ludic in the Novels of Jean-Philippe Toussaint adds to the emerging body of work on intertextuality through expansion of critical examinations of the novels of this award-winning author, presenting him as the ultimate magister ludi. Sarah L. Glasco links Jean-Philippe Toussaint's novels to cross-disciplinary texts that include not only Russian, American, and Japanese literatures, but also film and visual art. Toussaint alludes to the works of numerous French canonical authors, such as Pascal, Flaubert, Gide, Proust, and Apollinaire, with a multicultural mix of Faulkner, Beckett, Nabokov, and Kawabata, for instance, and the works of filmmakers, painters, and ancient philosophers like Wong Kar-wai, Mark Rothko, and Aristotle. Ultimately, intertextuality in Toussaint's novels is linked to global cultures and new media via his contemporary literary landscapes. This in-depth study reveals, presents, and analyzes a multiplicity of intertexts, depicting the inner workings of their playful relationships to the texts as a whole, how they are intricately interwoven into Toussaint's narratives, and also how they relate to one another. Through a process of rereading and reinterpreting Toussaint's texts, Parody and Palimpsest illuminates both linguistic and narrative subversions, parodies, and pastiches, and, subsequently, Toussaint's ludic landscapes emerge. Readers are then able to unmask other identities his texts can embody in order to rediscover them through the language, literature, art, products, and thus culture of others. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Bathrooms, the Banal, and the Critical Consensus: Toussaint as Magister Ludi and the Novels of the 1980's 1

Chapter 2 La Salle de bain: (Re)cycling Through Time 19

Semantics and the Saugrenu 19

Syntax and Structure 24

Pascalian Allusions: A Reticent Narrative of Retreat 33

Pascal Meets Proust and Nabakov 41

Chapter 3 The Evasive Maneuvers of Monsieur 49

Contextual Evasion 49

Narrative and Textual Evasion 57

Beckettian Allusions: Musings on Molloy 60

The Flaubertian Allusion: Parodying Monsieur's Sentimental Education 66

Chapter 4 Persuing Pascal(e): Ludic Incongruities via Text, Context, and Intertext in L'appareil-photo 69

Ludic Incongruities in Text and Context 69

Playing on Pascal; Toussaint's Ludic Lexicon 79

Pastiching Proust and Other Intertexts 87

Chapter 5 (Re)presenting Reality: The Reticent (Meta)narratives of the 1990's 95

Deciphering Common Threads in Two Seemingly Different Stories 95

First Read of La réticence: Confusion, Conclusions, and Comic Catharsis 99

Subsequent Readings: Revelations, Allusions, and Ludic Discoveries 103

Semantic Fields and Representations of Reality 108

To Watch or Not To Watch? 118

Proust, Gide, and the Plight of the Writer 124

Chapter 6 The Misadventures of Marie: A 21st Century Tetralogy 135

The Sexual Evolution of Toussaint's Literary Lovers 135

Staging the Novel: The Filmic Facets of Fuir 147

Eroticism or Pornography? 152

Poetics and Phonetics 161

The Intertextual Dialogs of Apollinaire, Kawabata and Beckett 169

Re-imagining Toussaint's Novels 189

Demystifying Marie 196

Chapter 7 Past, Present, Future: What's Next for Jean-Philippe Toussaint? 211.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

1433123096

9781433123092

OCLC:

890377272

Publisher Number:

99963212306