Alain Robbe-Grillet

blacbird

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French writer and filmmaker, died in 2008, probably best known for the novel and film Last Year in Marienbad. I had occasion last week to read his first novel, English title The Erasers. It's a strangely hypnotic and impressionistic detective story, with a great plot, and elements of classic French existentialism. But still highly readable. I'd bet he was influenced by the work of James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce), who is revered in France but still not enough read in the U.S.

It irritated me at points with its obliqueness, but was still engaging enough to impel me to finish it. Glad I did, and I think I'll read something else of his. Anybody else read his work?

caw
 
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Maxx

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French writer and filmmaker, died in 2008, probably best known for the novel and film Last Year in Marienbad. I had occasion last week to read his first novel, English title The Erasers. It's a strangely hypnotic and impressionistic detective story, with a great plot, and elements of classic French existentialism. But still highly readable. I'd bet he was influenced by the work of James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce), who is revered in France but still not enough read in the U.S.

It irritated me at points with its obliqueness, but was still engaging enough to impel me to finish it. Glad I did, and I think I'll read something else of his. Anybody else read his work?

caw

I must have back in the 1970s, but I don't remember much about it. By the late 1970s I was more interested in Alain Renais (thanks to Providence, an amazing movie).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Resnais
 

Dave Hardy

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I tried, but Robbe-Grillet's method just did not work for me. At the time I still had plenty of Cain, Chandler, Hammett & Woolrich to read so I put the Erasers down. I have sort of the same problem with William S. Burroughs, but his bizarro images hold my interest more firmly.

I like a good policier, but in a more conventional form. I recommend The Lady in the Car with the Glasses and the Gun by Japrisot very highly.