Jealousy

'Post modern' novels can fall into a couple of different categories: self-indulgent claptrap or winning and interesting experiments. Alain Robbe-Grillet's brief novel Jealousy falls squarely into the latter for me.

This brief novel is an experiment in first person narrative that is fantastically interesting, and to me, successful. The novel's brevity is essential- the conceit would be unsustainable for a longer, more involved work.

The action centers around an unnamed narrator who lives on a banana plantation with his wife, A. The story is told from the first person, but Robbe-Grillet never uses the first person pronoun 'I'. The narrator clearly has deep concerns about his wife and the owner of a neighboring plantation, Franck. Although we are never privy to his internal monologue or his interpretations or thoughts about the situation, the narrator obsessively and in great detail describes not only his physical surroundings but a series of encounters between his wife and Franck that can be seen as evidence of an affair, or.....as nothing at all. Incidents are described several times in increasing details, cleverly mimicking the way an obsessed and jealous person will replay trivial events over and over in his or her mind.

The real trick of this novel is that in using flat, unemotional detailed descriptions, one of the most turbulent and passionate emotions is ultimately described. Jealousy is passion; obsession is detailed analysis, and the author neatly shows the two to be one and the same.

This is another book that is probably best read in one sitting. Not to everyone's tastes, but a great change of pace for me.