Robert Pinget (1919–1997)
Auteur de L'inquisitoire
A propos de l'auteur
Before deciding to write professionally, Pinget practiced law in his native city of Geneva and studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He is one of the less accessible of the so-called new novelists and has seemed little interested in attracting a large following. Nevertheless, The afficher plus Inquisitory, awarded the 1962 Prix des Critiques, became a bestseller in France. It is essentially a monologue, a deaf old servant's meandering, half-truthful responses to the terse questions of an interrogator seeking information on a man who has vanished. As the old man speaks, he brings to light all of the vice and corruption of what appears to be a placid provincial town. In 1965 Pinget's Quelqu'un (Someone), about a man's search for a scrap of paper, won the Prix Femina. In addition to his work as a novelist, Pinget has also written a number of plays. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Crédit image: Publiek domein
Œuvres de Robert Pinget
Monsieur Mortin 3 exemplaires
A Bizarre Will -- a play collection containing-- A Bizarre Will, Mortin Not Dead, Dictation, Sophism and Sadism, The… (1989) 3 exemplaires
La manivelle, pièce radiophonique 1 exemplaire
Kalóz grál 1 exemplaire
Beckett: Tous ceux qui tombent 1 exemplaire
L'inquisitoire (roman 1 exemplaire
Augenblicke der Wahrheit Roman 1 exemplaire
inkvizitorij 1 exemplaire
Taches d'encre 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Evergreen Review. Vol.5 No 17. Mar-April 1961 by Rosset, Barney (1961) — Contributeur — 7 exemplaires
New World Writing: Third Mentor Selection - Poetry, Fiction, Drama, Criticism (1953) — Contributeur — 6 exemplaires
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Date de naissance
- 1919-07-19
- Date de décès
- 1997-08-25
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- France
Switzerland - Lieu de naissance
- Geneva, Switzerland
- Lieu du décès
- Tours, France
- Lieux de résidence
- Geneva, Switzerland (birth)
Tours, France (death) - Professions
- writer
lawyer - Prix et distinctions
- Prix des Critiques (1963)
Membres
Critiques
Listes
Prix et récompenses
Vous aimerez peut-être aussi
Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 57
- Aussi par
- 3
- Membres
- 705
- Popularité
- #35,924
- Évaluation
- 3.6
- Critiques
- 6
- ISBN
- 100
- Langues
- 7
- Favoris
- 6
To all would-be authors of first-person or stream-of-conscious narrative, I say simply: This is how it's done. No need for an elaborate framing device, a diary or a confessional or a parasite living in the character's brain. Just let them talk.
Pinget demonstrates an understanding of memory that exceeds Proust. The servant remembers things as they would be remembered: by association and by moving on to another subject so a forgotten memory will surface at its leisure. He comes close to lecturing his interregator(s) on this, even telling them that they haven't asked the right questions to get him to remember what they want to find out from him.
The novel-of-nobility authors could learn a trick or two as well. Where Thomas Mann will describe a party by detailing the geneology of every notable who walks through the door, thereby boring the pants off any non-geneologists in the audience, Pinget doles out the information as it suits the situation. "Oh the guy she went off with at the party, she had slept with his friend originally, but always had her eye on him, see he is from the Whatever Dynasty of Chateau Somewhere, his parents spent most of the money they got from their lands but he invested the remainder in soybeans, a real talent like his grandfather, the Duc de Somewhere...".
So sure, it's boring at times, and one never learns what the investigators are after, nor even whether they have found it. The interview does not necessarily begin at the start of the book, nor finish at the end; it may continue for days or weeks as the interrogators carefully trip up the servant, or get him to let slip a detail that shows he knows more than he's letting on. It is all incredibly well done, the sort of attention to detail and consistency of character that the majority of 20th century "literary" authors seem to aspire to, but never reach.… (plus d'informations)