2002
This document is linked to :
Études littéraires ; vol. 34 no. 3 (2002)
Tous droits réservés © Université Laval, 2002
Alain Tassel, « Le sanglier ou le romanesque de l’insolite », Études littéraires, ID : 10.7202/007762ar
The “ unearthly ” is a relevant aesthetic category for comprehending the effect of strangeness peculiar to Henri Bosco’s narratives, among which figures the enigmatic Sanglier (1932). Bosquian unearthliness stands out primarily on account of its dual anchoring in the story (the fiction) and in the narration. To begin with, this article focuses on locating the indices of a phenomenology of the unearthly, including the manifestation of a host of unexplained phenomena, the feeling of some vague presence, and the experience of the extreme. These events give rise to a series of interpretations that are couched in the narrator’s words. An analysis of these interpretations shows that the integration of this discourse into the narrative contributes strongly to the impression of unearthliness, as it constantly throws into question the reader’s reference points. Furthermore, modulations of perspective and narrative voice combine to “ scramble ” the information thus conveyed. In this apparently classically crafted narrative, Bosco relies heavily on a riddle-like approach to writing that is based on the discontinuous and the indeterminate, thus meshing with the concerns of contemporary novelists.