Novel
Jealousy
La Jalousie
Alain Robbe-Grillet · 1957
Synopsis
In a banana plantation in the tropics, a husband who is never named and never says I watches his wife, designated by an initial, A..., and their neighbour, Franck. He describes endlessly the house, the terrace, the rows of banana trees, the mark of a crushed centipede on a wall, the same meals eaten as a threesome. The scenes return, barely altered, until the reader no longer knows what is seen and what is merely suspected.
Context
The novel appeared from Éditions de Minuit in 1957. Its title plays on two meanings: the feeling, and the slatted blind through which one looks without being seen. The narrator, a jealous husband, never refers to himself; his presence can only be guessed from details, an extra place setting or an extra chair. The reception was at first a commercial failure, fewer than five hundred copies sold in the first year; the book later became a classic of the Nouveau Roman, translated into some thirty languages.
Who it is for
A narrative made of descriptions repeated with slight variations; the reader reconstructs the situation for himself.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English by Richard Howard, it appeared in 1959 from Grove Press under the title Jealousy.
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