Posted by joffre on 16/2/2009, 21:57:51, in reply to "Re: Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jealousy - This post contains SPOLIERS"
70.152.116.194
Spoilers here too.
This was my third time reading this, and I probably wasn't halfway through before I thought, I'm gonna have to read this again. I doubt I'll be anymore sure of anything after another reading though.
What the hell does happen in this novel? What happens during the time of narration? What is the narrator remembering at the time of narration? What is he only imagining? What happened when? Is it possible to establish a timeline?
I think I do anticipate violence from fairly early on. The way the narrator obsessively watches A, not only when she would be aware of his presence, but through her windows when she seems not to be aware, seems ominous to me. Is there any violence? I don't know. I think some people have interpretted the dark, later red, liquid on A's windowsill as an indication of violence against her. I wonder if she's not dead in the description of her lying on the bed on p. 92. She is up and doing things in the next paragraph, but you never know when the narrators mind has reverted to the past. There's also the crash in which Franck's car bursts into flames. This seems to happen only in the narrator's imagination, but it indicates some thought of violence if not exactly a plan. I do find Ms. Minor's talk of Franck's 'sadistic' 'gesture of murder' of the centipede pretty silly.
What's with the guy looking into the stream? I think it may be some kind of indication of time. But maybe not. How can I take it as an indication of time when time seems to shift from paragraph to paragraph? Does it serve no purpose? What about the wild animal cries? What are they for?
Franck doesn't take his meals at home because A is not at his home, haha. And yes, I think he's there less than the narration makes it seem.
It would be hard for A to have an affair with Franck if he did stay home with his wife and kid.
Since the conversations come to us through the consciousness of the jealous narrator, it's possible that they seem inane because they are caricatured.
I assume the narrator sleeps in the other bedroom. I have been told that this is relatively common among French couples, the women, supposedly being very independent. I don't know if there's any truth at all in that, but the person who told me was not some MS redneck who went on to tell me about how they never shower. It was not a French person, but a well educated, well travelled person. It does seem reasonable to assume this couple is French.
