Julien Gracq and the Tria Fata

Abstract

Julien Gracq se tient si loin de la production moyenne du jour, que l'on ne peut ouvrir un de ses livres, ni meme lire le moindre de ses articles, sans eprouver aussitot le sentiment d'entrer dans un monde etrange, de reminiscences et de decouvertes, tres austere et tres voluptueux, fleuri et depouille, lapidaire et profus, off l'on deviendrait aussitot somnambule, ou hypnotise. Et le plus souvent enchante de l'etre, Eric Deschodt, Le Monde, February 1989. ********** In Les Jeux de l'allusion litteraire dans Un Beau Tenebreux de Julien Gracq, Ruth Amossy claims that in order to seize the specificity of the Gracquian text, a reader must both follow the author's system of literary allusions, and situate the movement in which Gracq can be placed in History. (2) In Un Beau Tenebreux, Gracq makes reference to the Tria Fata, female figures of destiny that have permeated literary texts since ancient Greece. By examining this allusion to the Tria Fata that so far has not received critical attention, I adhere to Amossy's orientation and ask what the significance of this mythological reference is in Gracq's approach to his aesthetics, and where, in the literary evolution of the motif, his allusion can be placed. This interrogation should shed light on a stratum of Gracq's multi-layered use of anachronism. Finally, taking this particular allusion as a backdrop, I draw a few general conclusions regarding the Gracquian excipit. In the Threads of Destiny's Judges Un Beau Tenebreux's plot consists of a group's fascination with Allan, a broodingly handsome man who toys with the idea of suicide, and who later signs a suicide pact with Dolores, the novel's femme fatale. The action takes place in a summer-side resort, l'Hotel des vagues, located in Brittany. Structurally, Un Beau Tenebreux is divided into three non-linear parts that vary in length: a prologue (written oil the morning of 8 October), the journal kept by Gerard (including entries from 29 June to 24 August), and a switch in narrator to an unrevealed individual who continues the narration of events from September 1st to the night of 8 to 9 October. The characters can be classified in relation to Allan by virtue of indifference (Jacques, Irene, Henri) or attraction towards him (Christel, Dolores, Gregory, Gerard), a classification that highlights Allah's polarizing personality. The group's visit to the ruins of the castle of Roscaer on 22 July sets the stage for the novel's action. When towards the end of his journal, Gerard notes with premonition that [q]uelque chose, ici, allait se defaire, (3) referring to Allan and Dolores's suicide, it seems clear that the picnic scene is where the weaving is initiated before that anticipated moment of unraveling. The characters make plans to visit the hilltop ruins at midnight, when the moonlight will offer the most splendid setting. This hour of predilection has for intertext the Romantic appreciation for midnight vagary in ruins, particularly those of Chateaubriand's Memoires d'outre-tombe. As the group climbs the mountain leading to the ruins, Gerard has a spontaneous vision: [ ... ] tout a coup s'improvisait sous nos yeux une bizarre gravure romantique, un de ces couples hagards qui, dans Gustave Dore, a la lumiere de la lune, cheminent inexplicablement comme des somnambules vers un burg aussi vertigineux, aussi inaccessible qu'une montagne (4) magique. (5) The countryside evokes the artistic engravings of Dore The group invades the ruin, a site of decomposition taken over by nature, now in the hands of the Tria Fata who ravel the intrigue. The characters seem to enter into a Dore engraving, most possibly his 1877 Ruines de Kenilworth. The group mimics the ruin's break-down process, expressed in the verb se decomposer: ce vague emmelement humain se decompose comme un bain electrise. (6) Gracq's surrealistic representation of decomposition as an electrified bath highlights that, in this novel, decomposition can be sparked by a violent one-time action such as suicide. …