Wednesday, June 2, 2004

A New Novel, No Verbs, in France, No Less By SCOTT MCLEMEE Printer friendly E-mail article Subscribe Order reprints HEADLINES   College groups protest some proposals in House bill to extend the Higher Education Act Frank Newman, influential figure in higher-education policy since the 1970s, is dead at 77 Robotic rescue for Hubble telescope is now more likely, to relief of space scientists General Accounting Office delivers a report on campus file sharing to Congress Gathering at U. of Paris celebrates new French novel sans verbs World roundup: Turkey shelves disputed education measure; Iran commutes professor's death sentence Updates on billion-dollar campaigns at 20 universities  On Michel Thaler's Le Train de Nulle Part (The Train From Nowhere). A Frenchman, a novel ... a French novel, 233 pages of it, without verbs. No action. Lyrical, descriptive, rhetorical. Epiphanies aplenty. As yet, no translator. (Perhaps also without plot?) Recently, at the Sorbonne, in Paris, a funeral for the verb -- that "invader, dictator, usurper of our literature" (per Thaler, a pseudonym). Hundreds of guests ... a hearse ... literati in mourning grays. In short, quite a performance. But not just a publicity stunt. Distant memories of another time, long ago, decades before. The era of literary manifestoes, of fervent proclamations by fierce experimentalists, of Cubist and Futurist and Surrealist affronts to the bourgeoisie. (Aesthetic indignation of bourgeoisie, circa 2004: a frozen image on the home-entertainment center. The DVD of poor quality. The remote control sadly powerless, inadequate unto the task.) Fiction minus verbs? Another memory ... a puzzling association ... the cartoon of Gary Larson: "Boneless chicken ranch." A barnyard of motionless poultry. Like the paintings of De Chirico. An absurdist landscape, melancholy. Except with chickens. Enigmatic. Disturbing. Strangely unappetizing. [A tip of the hat to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, the inspiration for this report.]