BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH • Nathalie Sarraute
Calder & Boyars / hardcover / 1970Nathalie Sarraute is the doyenne of post-war French literature, who since 1938 has pursued her individual research into the human condition in a series of novels of acute observation of the ‘tropisms’ by which once can perceive the important mental events of her characters. Madame Sarraute allows the contents of her novels to emerge impressionistically from an observation of the conversations, descriptions and thoughts that pass before the scanning eye of the reader, so that a pattern gradually emerges that is significant. The book is intended to show some phases of the uncertain struggle between the complementary domains of life and death, merging into each other, that field where a literary work develops impetus and grows or dies. It is a complex bringing together of the world of literature and the world of life, an exploration of the creative process itself, and like all Madame Sarraute’s other works, a work of art that extends the possibilities of literature and our approach to it.
︎ Condition note: A used book in good condition. Tanning and fading / shelfwear / sturdy binding / text free of markings