Fascinating. Girard writes almost nothing of fiction or drama after, say, The Fall (unless it’s all in the French press I haven’t read). Did he stop reading it as part of what you call this renunciation?
That's what it looks like to me. In the book of interviews with Nadine Dormoy that has just been translated he mentions V.S. Naipaul's Mimic Men, and he read Kundera's Unbearable Lightness, but I don't think he read any of Kundera's other novels (though I don't know for sure). On the other hand, late in his career he had at least some interest in cinema (in his article on Mel Gibson's Passion he suggests that if the great painters of the Renaissance had had access to movie cameras, they would have set aside their paintbrushes).
That's interesting. I mean, one can only read so much. I would think he'd be curious especially about novelists and playwrights of his generation - Roth, say, or Stoppard. Maybe that's all in a different box in the garage.
I haven't gotten to the Passion part of Haven's book yet, but I look forward to it. (Had he seen Clueless, I wonder if he would have said Austen could have set aside the quill if she'd had a camera.) Thanks for the great piece!
Thanks Jeff! I think for a long time he mostly just read the Bible and Shakespeare. But I hope that box you mention exists and that its contents come to light someday. I'll think about the Austen / film question (I like Clueless, but take your point).
I had no idea Coetzee was at Buffalo the same time as Girard. Amazing. And yes he seems to be inspired by Girard to this day. Have you read his novella The Pole? One way of reading it is that a woman intensely wants to scapegoat a Polish pianist (the Pole) who persists in trying to sleep with her -- and maybe even scapegoat the penis in general (the pole). To her surprise and even shock, she finds herself unable to do so -- leading her to take up writing...
I have not read The Pole, but would like to... (have only ever read Disgrace). Failure in real life provoking the desire to write sounds extremely plausible. You may have told me Girard is explicitly mentioned in Elizabeth Costello? It's interesting that Coetzee read everything Girard wrote, shared an office with a grad student who knew him well, was on the same campus with him for at least a time, contributed to festschrifts about him, etc etc, yet never met him. A form of external mediation, perhaps.
Fascinating. Girard writes almost nothing of fiction or drama after, say, The Fall (unless it’s all in the French press I haven’t read). Did he stop reading it as part of what you call this renunciation?
That's what it looks like to me. In the book of interviews with Nadine Dormoy that has just been translated he mentions V.S. Naipaul's Mimic Men, and he read Kundera's Unbearable Lightness, but I don't think he read any of Kundera's other novels (though I don't know for sure). On the other hand, late in his career he had at least some interest in cinema (in his article on Mel Gibson's Passion he suggests that if the great painters of the Renaissance had had access to movie cameras, they would have set aside their paintbrushes).
That's interesting. I mean, one can only read so much. I would think he'd be curious especially about novelists and playwrights of his generation - Roth, say, or Stoppard. Maybe that's all in a different box in the garage.
I haven't gotten to the Passion part of Haven's book yet, but I look forward to it. (Had he seen Clueless, I wonder if he would have said Austen could have set aside the quill if she'd had a camera.) Thanks for the great piece!
Thanks Jeff! I think for a long time he mostly just read the Bible and Shakespeare. But I hope that box you mention exists and that its contents come to light someday. I'll think about the Austen / film question (I like Clueless, but take your point).
I had no idea Coetzee was at Buffalo the same time as Girard. Amazing. And yes he seems to be inspired by Girard to this day. Have you read his novella The Pole? One way of reading it is that a woman intensely wants to scapegoat a Polish pianist (the Pole) who persists in trying to sleep with her -- and maybe even scapegoat the penis in general (the pole). To her surprise and even shock, she finds herself unable to do so -- leading her to take up writing...
I have not read The Pole, but would like to... (have only ever read Disgrace). Failure in real life provoking the desire to write sounds extremely plausible. You may have told me Girard is explicitly mentioned in Elizabeth Costello? It's interesting that Coetzee read everything Girard wrote, shared an office with a grad student who knew him well, was on the same campus with him for at least a time, contributed to festschrifts about him, etc etc, yet never met him. A form of external mediation, perhaps.
I remember Girard being mentioned in "Diary of a Bad Year" but it's possible he's mentioned elsewhere too!