Books 3: Nouveau Roman

A little pretentious perhaps, and somewhat misleading as some of the writers hailed from England and America, yet the French have a penchant for their labels. It's worth noting that even the English authors were initially published in France. Although I was never a fervent reader of the French 'New Writing,' the works of Robbe-Grillet and Marguerite Duras captured my interest towards the end of the fifties, primarily due to their influence on cinema. Even before I became a serious collector, I was drawn to the movement because of the distinctive publishing houses that made these literary works and their associated authors accessible to British readers, with the earliest publications originating in France.  

While the authentic French nouveaux romans were initially released in French for a domestic audience, the exciting wave of new English and American writers found their way into the French literary scene through the renowned Obelisk and Odyssey Press. In an era before the internet and amidst stifling censorship laws, the only reliable method to access these books was to journey to Paris and discreetly transport them back home past customs. I made my pilgrimage in 1963 and acquired a handful of titles, but by that time, it was becoming somewhat redundant, primarily a rite of passage, as American and UK publishers began making these works available despite government opposition.  

In America, it was the Grove Press that boldly challenged the censors, though not always with success, while in the UK, the remarkable Calder Publications opened up a whole new literary world. The impressive Calder catalogue not only provided the original nouveau roman titles in translation but also introduced previously suppressed or overlooked British and American writers emerging from that exhilarating post-war period.  

As I have noted elsewhere on this site, we had our own distinct movements in literature, theatre, and cinema. However, the more esoteric French-led movement in these domains was equally dynamic, and by the sixties, there was even some crossover in cinema with directors like Peter Brook and Tony Richardson participating, with the iconic Jeanne Moreau seemingly omnipresent. The classic new wave French cinema of the late fifties and sixties was not directly inspired by the new writing but ran in parallel with it, with directors like Godard merging elements from both, although he clearly differentiated Nouvelle Vague from other movements.  

As another instance of labelling shorthand, the leading new wave directors—Chabrol, Truffaut, and Godard—were often categorized as the 'Right Bank' group, while filmmakers inspired by new writing were dubbed the 'Left Bank'; this latter group was not in opposition but rather reflected an older generation rooted more in literature than in cinema. In contrast, the nouvelle vague auteurs were inspired by cinema itself and were nurtured in the 'Cahiers Du Cinema' school of critical theory from the mid-fifties.  

Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, and Resnais played pivotal roles in the cinematic expression of new writing, but ironically, it was in Italy that this artistic movement found its perfect form. The great Antonioni transitioned from a flirtation with neo-realism to create a series of five masterpieces of 'Alienation' cinema that solidified the fifties new writing and new cinema, defining the first half of the sixties.