Études romanes de Brno (Jul 2013)
"Frankenstein romancier" : Littell, Haenel, Binet
Abstract
French contemporary novels continue to be haunted by the memory of the Second World War, Nazism, Collaboration and the Holocaust. But what kind of memory is transmitted? Focusing on three recent novels – Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes (2006), Yannick Haenel's Jan Karski (2008) en HHhH by Laurent Binet (2011) – I suggest that the end of the war does not entail the end of the war of memories. Littell and Haenel both recur to a formal device – giving the narrative voice to a fictional or historical witness – which allows him to express a view on the Second World War that does not correspond to a traditional black-and-white perception, without downplaying however the criminality of Nazi politics. Laurent Binet, on the contrary, favors a metanarrative approach of the novel, questioning its claim to historical truthfulness, in order to express his nostalgia of an epic conception of history.
