BOO KS
131
gothic mystery.
La Maison de R endez-vous
is first of all a structural
elaboration of the
fa ctice,
the artificial.
This artificiality is linked to a mentality of eroticism which dominates
the book. "Women's flesh has always played, no doubt, a great part in
my dreams," the narrator begins, and the starting point of the novel's
architecture is a revery over the banal accoutrements of eroticism, cele–
brated for their stimulating artificiality. The world elaborated is one of
silks and silky skin, and its central image is the repeated photographic
shot of a tall, supple Eurasian girl in a silk sheath slit to the thigh,
accompanied by a large, sleek black dog straining at his leash. The
narrative (and this is the most narrative, most kinetic of Robbe-Grillet's
novels) progresses as a series of reels, each of which unwinds for an
indeterminate length of time, until it is interrupted, corrected or con–
tradicted by another. The principle of disappointment built into most of
Robbe-Grillet's novels through a structure of false mystery,
faux policier,
is here (as in
L'Immortelle)
an element of striptease, the natural (and
frustrating) counterpart to narrative voyeurism. Toward the end of the
novel, the narrative "I" becomes more insistent- though remaining un–
identified-as it attempts a "logical" reconstruction of a "plot" involving
prostitution, opium and murder. There is an attempt to arrange sequ–
ences and stills in patterns of cause and effect with a beginning and an
end. But where this finally leads is to the empty eyes of an expensive
call girl whose unfixed gaze may have initiated this whole elaboration,
as well
as
providing its terminus.
Robbe-Grillet's collage of images has a certain shiny beauty, and his
narrative is rapid and supple-qualities, one should mention, perfectly
preserved in Richard Howard's admirable translation. And in its play
of excitements and disappointments,
La Maison de Rendez-vous
is
enter–
taining
(as most of Robbe-Grillet's novels indeed are). But it never
really gets beyond collage: it remains too captive to the artificiality and
banality of its materials. It does not possess the strong necessity felt in
The Voyeur
and
Jealousy,
where the rigorous exclusions and insistences
of the chosen glance forced a radical renewal of vision.
Peter Brooks
