DO YOU HEAR THEM?

by Nathalie Sarraute ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1972

Another of the French not-so-new wave author's novels about the unarticulated, rather shameful flow of petty thoughts and evanescent states of mind that humans dignify with names of such imprecise emotions as ""love,"" ""friendship,"" or ""anger."" As in The Golden Fruits, the ostensible rational discussion concerns the reaction to a work of art -- in this case a primitive sculpture the owner's daughter blithely states resembles statues from Crete. Discussions about apparently objective phenomena or transactions in the social world are always more than that to Sarraute; they are battlegrounds (albeit subtle) for the power struggle and capitulations by which humans manage to communicate with each other, attracted as much by need as by desire. The style is the author's usual melange of thoughts, feelings, and hyperbolic, ironically heroic, metaphors, differing from her other works mainly by an even more hermetic atmosphere, so rarefied in its French quest after precision and distinction that truly only the most dedicated will be attracted.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1972

ISBN: 1564783294

Page Count: -

Publisher: Braziller

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1972

Categories: FICTION