Repetitive

Author: Alain Robbe-Grillet
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-10-01
Features: The "Experimental Art Series" focuses on the spirit of exploration, experimentation, and innovation that has been prevalent in world art since the 20th century (especially after 1960). Through the publication of works, essays, reviews, biographies, interviews, and more, it showcases experimental achievements in various fields such as fine arts, literature, film, theater, music, architecture, and photography, while also presenting the social thought and cultural background that gave rise to these achievements. The series has been published intermittently since 1992, aiming to provide textual references and theoretical research opportunities for contemporary Chinese art workers. The story takes place in Berlin in November 1949, where the protagonist HR, a low-level spy for the French secret intelligence agency, arrives in this war-torn old city. He believes he has some connection to the city and is haunted by vague memories that occasionally trace back to his distant childhood. Today, he is here on a mysterious mission, but his superior does not deem it necessary to reveal the true significance of the mission, merely providing him with the essential conditions and expecting him to complete the assigned tasks with loyalty and blindness. However, things do not unfold as anticipated.
For French literary enthusiasts who have not retreated from modernity, Robbe-Grillet's return to fiction is a significant and welcome news. "What? Robbe-Grillet? Modernity? With his half-century-old New Novel? But he's a classical writer, not a contemporary one!" Of course, that's wrong. You're mistaken. There is no fresher, more outstanding, more controversial, or more absurd style than this novel that broke the long silence. At the age of nearly eighty, after announcing his abandonment of story writing, Robbe-Grillet has once again returned with astonishing vitality to the style he used the most and emphasized the most.