Lecture notes
Women's Writing Lecture 8 - Contemporary Women Novelists in French
- Institution
- University Of Oxford
Lecture notes on contemporary French women's novels, general overview and introduction of French women's writing.
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Women’s Writing Lecture 8 - Contemporary Women Novelists in French- marginalised pre end 20C, has had growth since. Idea form as inherently different
from men, not always the case even though treatment feminist themes > Quote 1.
- French Fiction Today > return self, récit, the real > writing the self, introspective
studies, autobiography. Commonality feminist themes : not role models. Not unity of
subjectivities, even with a single self. Question how to express > experimental writ-
ing.
- Women not get much mention statistically in literary press > most literary critics =
men, but most readers = women. But women get published less, get less prizes.
Most renowned prizes have 10-20% for women. Most selection panels are mostly
men (apart Elle + Femina). Goncourt only won by women 12 times in total, 3 times
this century.
- I. Innovation : diversity in women’s writing, diversity of experiences, new voices >
2 main contemporary figures Anne Garréta > inherit experimental writing, writes
sexual love story with no gender. Décomposition > ride through universe of evil
reading of Proust > 2 stories held side by side > serial killer. Critical analysis Proust
through the medium of murder. Word play etc Quote 2. = dominant strand contem-
porary French literature : fictions critiques (Villard) > social + political : but blurring
boundary critical/creative > intertextual writing in analytical fictional way.
- Christine Montabetti : specialises digression. All around topic of digression, di-
gresses around a narrative core > Western = around a shootout > Quote 3. Presen-
tation as a cliché, a familiar story at the heart, very minimalist, short time span, not
many events, not character development. So sweeping digressive excursions into
minutiae of tale. Minimalism = hallmark contemporary French writers (Echenoz +
Ernaux). Uses strange perspectives of everyday events > contrasting + mismatched
discourses, subverts expectations, deconstructed self analytical fiction > creates +
critiques.
- Bernheim : vendredi Soir mist famous > woman travel gridlock Paris during metro
strike, moving to boyfriend’s, picks up hitchhiker, they have sex, then separate
ways. Sparse prose, skeleton of events, much left to subtext. Hélène Lenoir = simi-
lar to Sarraute in nouveau roman > explores female subjectivity, moment to mo-
ment. Isolated women paralysed by crisis, caught difficult family situations > ex-
plores the ridicule directed at women who not know how to deal with crises.
- Nothomb more high concept drama, TV reality show as a concentration camp,
cuckoo teenager who tries displace friends, imaginary murderers > vivid ideas.
Short stories > work through one striking idea, + structure of anecdote/joke as they
work through narrative. More like contes/ nouvelles. Charts class descent/interview
of murderous author, structured like joke to get truth.
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