It is a close study of four novels by Boris Vian. It aims to show how L'Écume des jours, L'Automne à Pékin, L'Herbe rouge and L'Arrache-coeur form a unified and coherent tetralogy. By establishing close links between these four texts, it becomes possible to achieve a more comprehensive understanding, not only of the significance of the tetralogy in exposing a complex and multi-layered novelistic strategy at the heart of the vianesque, but of the individual novels as autonomous creations. An examination of the novels reveals that they are not merely joined to one another via a superficial network of textual similarities (that which I refer to as intratextuality), but that this intertwining is emblematic of a common method of narrative construction. Each Vian novel is dependent, for a thorough understanding of the text to be possible, upon the multiple lines of external influence running through it. The sources of this influence (which I refer to as intertextuality) are located in various major texts of twentieth century literature, anglophone as well as francophone. Thus, in each instance the narrative is driven by a complicated interaction of intratextuality and intertextuality.
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Weitere Infos & Material
Foreword. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Introduction. Chapter One: L'Écume des jours: From 'Clins d'oeil' to Intertextuality. Chapter Two: L'Écume des jours: Mac Orlan, Queneau et un autre. Chapter Three: L'Automne à Pékin: Entry into the Text. Chapter Four: L'Automne à Pékin: And what they found there. Chapter Five: L'Herbe rouge: The Problem with Science Fiction. Chapter Six: L'Herbe rouge: Dreams or Memories. Chapter Seven: L'Arrache-Coeur: Revenge. Chapter Eight: L'Arrache-Coeur: Sacrifice and Return. Conclusion. Bibliography. Index.
