Chaîne et Chaîne: Representation as Corrosion in François Bon's Daewoo

Abstract

Despite early efforts to fold it into various conceptions of a Nouveau Roman, Francois Bon's work has come to occupy a distinct territory within contemporary French literature.1 In retrospect, even the first novels he published at Les Editions de Minuit seem difficult to assimilate with those of his colleagues. During the 1980s, Minuit writers began attracting attention for their investigations into the nature of storytelling (Jean Echenoz's Cherokee), the passing of time (Jean-Philippe Toussaint's La salle de bain) and the mechanics of narrative development (Marie Redonnet's Splendid H6tel). While Bon explored these issues in books such as Sortie d'usine and Decor ciment, he complicated the recursive investigations of works like Cherokee with an increasingly deep investment in a second concern: referentiality. In his writing, the question how does the novel work? was closely shadowed by another: how does the text relate to the world?