Intersexual Rivalry: A ‘Reading in Pairs’ of Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet

Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet are two of the most prominent and influential writers of mid- to late-twentieth-century France. Not only has their constant questioning of the conventions of traditional, realist literature reflected the major preoccupations of recent avant-garde literary history, but their ground-breaking works have also been central to the creation and development of some of the most powerful critical theories of the period. Critics have tended to study Duras and Robbe-Grillet within the largely mutually exclusive theoretical discourses of psychoanalytic feminism and structuralism, so overlooking the extensive and fruitful areas of common ground between them. This book uncovers evidence of a career-long intersexual literary rivalry between the two writers, which reached a peak following the phenomenal success of Duras’s L’Amant in 1984. By reading together chronological pairs of novels by Duras and Robbe-Grillet from throughout their parallel careers, the author sheds new light on both writers’ works, rethinks certain received critical assumptions, and offers a new model, ‘reading in pairs’ for the study of male and female writers. Contents: Novels of Marguerite Duras and Alain Robbe-Grillet – Literary history of mid- to late-twentieth-century France – Literary theory – Psychoanalysis (Lacan), feminism, structuralism – Nouveau Roman – Rise of feminism and gender debate – Eroticism and pornography – Autobiography – Mass media – Gender studies