Esquisses d'une topologie des transgressions spatio-temporelles dans quelques romans contemporains

Abstract

This intervention is about some temporal (even spatial) transgressions which can be encountered in the modern novel. Some examples will help to draft a topology of such transgressions. Thus, in Salman Rushdie's work, the characters appear to be tied up to time and to the story. Time flows as if accelerated. On the other hand, Haruki Murakami and Michel Houellebecq put in place devices where speech comes from two different spatio-temporal universes. As for Olivier Rolin, his temporal dominant takes the shape of a cycle. Finally, Antoine Volodine puts in place a paradoxical poetry of time, inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead, where the instant is eternity. This questioning of time which is recurring in the modern novel, it appears, in the end, like a questioning of the history of the elapsed century, of its dreams and of its failures.

Keywords

• literature
• modern
• fantasy novel
• history
• finiteness
• memory