Romances e não-romances

Abstract

Resumo: Desde as anotacoes de Barthes, feitas para seu curso sobre a Preparacao do Romance, ate diccoes mais veementes como as do ensaio-manifesto “Literatura pos-autonomas” de Josefina Ludmer, e possivel ler uma drastica operacao de esvaziamento sofrida pela literatura na contemporaneidade, afetando o romance como forma de ficcao pura. Nesse sentido, sem negligenciar a extensa bibliografia teorica sobre o romance que nao se cansa de realcar a instabilidade de sua forma como traco caracteristico do genero, gostaria de aproveitar esse mote e arriscar a hipotese de que alguns exemplos contemporâneos sugerem novas maneiras de fabricar e consumir literatura hoje, que apontam para a remodelacao das fronteiras do genero romanesco. Flertando com o ensaio, com a pratica da anotacao ou com a autoficcao, os romances parecem exceder a forma do proprio romance, expondo ao leitor a manufatura do processo de composicao, descartando a propria literatura como fonte da producao literaria. Palavras-chave : romance, genero literario, nao-romance. Abstract: To someone who studies the novel form, it is striking the number of critical references commenting further transformations experienced by the genre at the beginning of the 21st century. Since the annotations made by Barthes, published as The Preparation of Novel, to more vehement pronouncements, such as the Post-autonomous Literatures Manifesto, by Josefina Ludmer, one can see a drastic emptying operation suffered by literature in contemporary times, affecting the novel as a form of pure fiction. Thus – and without neglecting the extensive theoretical literature on the novel that never tires of emphasizing the instability of its form as a characteristic trait of the genre – I would like to take this opportunity and try out the hypothesis that some contemporary examples suggest new ways to produce and consume literature today, pointing to the remodelling of the novelistic genre's borders. Flirting with the essay, with the practice of annotation or with self-fiction, some novels seem to go beyond the form of the novel itself, exposing the reader to the manufacturing of the writing process, and discarding literature itself as a source of literary production. Without yielding to the apocalyptic rhetoric and suggesting another round of the death of novel or the end of literature, the hypothesis acknowledges the novel's imprecise generic status and believes that its changing plasticity is able to reshape literary values, incorporating what still does not seem novel or fiction to the territory of literature. Keywords: novel, literary genre, essay.