Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: During a nightmarishly sleepless night, neither the first nor last endured by the protagonist of Georges Perec’s Un homme qui dort, there appears a passage which seems to summon a self-reflexive reading: ‘Il devrait y avoir des textes à ce sujet, des textes sûrs, qui permettraient de faire face à ces situations, beaucoup plus fréquentes qu’on ne le croit généralement.’1 The protagonist, a student in post-war Paris, is in the midst of a crisis that — as this article explores — might be termed depression. The self-reflexive reading would ask if Un homme qui dort fills the gap it here signals, if it is itself a ‘texte sûr’, an unequivocal text, sufficiently self-assured that it might reliably guide those facing similar situations. This is the sort of reading I will be undertaking here. Un homme qui dort is a text charged with the question of literature’s therapeutic potential, one which has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. The World Health Organization has published a review of the role of the arts (including literature) in improving health and well-being,2 while ‘bibliotherapists’ including Régine Detambel in France and Ella Berthould and Susan Elderkin in the UK have been prescribing books to clients, and literary scholars have been exploring questions about literature’s therapeutic potential and ambitions.3 The present study intends to contribute to this ongoing discussion through its reading of Perec’s unsure text, a text that problematizes the language and categories through which mental distress is apprehended, but also the notion that it, as a literary text, might aid its reader in confronting such an experience. This it does in dialogue with the literary theorist Kenneth Burke. For Burke, ‘the poet is […] a “medicine man”’ in that he offers strategies or attitudes for confronting recurrent dilemmas.4 In ‘Literature as Equipment for Living’, Burke posits that ‘In so far as situations are typical and recurrent in a given social structure, people develop names for them and strategies for handling them. Another name for strategies might be attitudes’.5 Literary works, he suggests, participate in this naming of situations and steering of attitudes: A work like Madame Bovary […] singles out a pattern of experience that is sufficiently representative of our social structure, that recurs sufficiently often mutatis mutandis, for people to ‘need a word for it’ and to adopt an attitude towards it.6 What attitude or strategy Gustave Flaubert’s novel might propose is left unstated, though Burke elsewhere casts a wide net, pointing to the sorts of things he is getting at as ‘strategies for selecting enemies and allies, for socializing losses, for warding off evil eye, for purification, propitiation, and desanctification, consolation and vengeance, admonition and exhortation, implicit commands of one sort or another’.7 Moreover, he suggests, the very naming of things might already prove consolatory: ‘I recognize that people like to label, that labeling comforts them by getting things placed.’8 Perec’s text unsettles both aspects of what makes literature, for Burke, ‘equipment for living’. This article considers Un homme qui dort’s unsure attempts to find a word for a common pattern of experience — to ‘diagnose’ it — and to propose a strategy for confronting it. It begins by observing how recent readers and critics have regularly described the novella’s protagonist as ‘depressed’, yet typically with some reticence. If their diagnoses speak to the contemporary preponderance of psychiatric frameworks for interpreting distress, their reticence serves as evidence for my claim that the text troubles such categorial efforts. This textual equivocation is then illustrated through close reading and a discussion of two of the novella’s more remarkable features: second-person narration and pervasive intertextual allusion. The article then turns to the text’s ending, asking whether it might be read as proposing an attitude towards (what we might equivocally label) depression. Previous interpretations of the novella’s final chapter fall roughly into two camps: those which insist on its inconclusiveness; and those which instead perceive it as presenting the protagonist’s recovery. In my view, the text affords both readings, and thus manifests a special type of ambiguity tangled up with the question of literature’s therapeutic potential. Finally, a word on vocabulary: I appeal here to medical terminology, using, for example, the verb ‘diagnose’ alongside and interchangeably with ‘name’, ‘categorize’, or ‘label’. The use of such vocabulary is not meant to buttress the authority of psychiatric frameworks for interpreting experiences of distress; on the contrary, it seeks to unsettle them, thereby mirroring the categorial trouble at play in Perec’s text. Similarly, I sometimes refer to contemporary psychiatric diagnostic frameworks. These are not without controversy, having been subject to criticism on account of, for example, the influence of profit-driven pharmaceutical and insurance companies in their formulation, and how their ‘diagnostic criteria may lead to unnecessary pharmacological interventions or no treatment, and to diagnoses and classifications that normalize, stigmatize, and exclude’.9 Again, I refer to these frameworks not to defer to them, but to confront them with the messy multiplicity, ambivalence, and unsureness of Perec’s work. Given the text does not itself use the term as a label for the protagonist’s experience, ‘depression’ and its lexical inflections recur with arresting frequency in commentaries by readers lay and professional — albeit in often equivocal or qualified formulations. While some reviewers on online platforms present their diagnoses baldly — Goodreads user ‘Tentatively, Convenience’, for instance, states the book is ‘about a person whose depression practically reduces them to a zombie’ (11 December 2009) —, others couch it with hesitation: ‘Is the student dealing with a form of what we now recognize as clinical depression?’ (Glen Russell, 29 May 2020); ‘It basically is the “story” of a young man going through depression (or that is my take on the book, anyway)’ (Diane, 15 January 2017); ‘Grâce à des séries d’accumulations, Pérec [sic] nous fait toucher du doigt le mal être qui s’apparente probablement à la dépression’ (torpedo, 9 April 2018).10 Uncertainty is here variously tagged, through rhetorical questioning (Glen Russell); through an appeal to the subjectivity of interpretation (Diane); through language of semblance and probability (torpedo). Yet in each case depression has occurred to the reader as a salient notion for thinking about the book and its protagonist. Depression is evoked too in readings by professional literary critics. Stella Béhar, for instance, writes that ‘son personnage […] semble vivre un comportement déviant à mi-chemin entre la dépression apathique et la folie lucide’; Claude Burgelin, that Perec ‘nous fait pénétrer dans l’intimité des états entre désespoir et folie, entre dépression et rage froide’; Julia Dobson, that ‘the central protagonist’s quest […] can be read as a depressive state’; and Russell Williams, that the ‘young Parisian student [is] suffering what like a of Again, these diagnoses are not without by of interpretation be semblance and mi-chemin entre […] et The protagonist out in the of the and and the of the World Health of to such a or in — Un homme qui dort begins with a chapter the at by a protagonist often to by critics as ‘the man and this is the text. Moreover, for or of or or the the of the de de la à et et et un de de de the — or given the text’s use of the person — for the first that the pattern of experience the protagonist (or is that it is a that is not with a thus signals, for a lexical a or to It also a by the of things not the sometimes for the experience are in with the the as a of depressive also serves to the as it is by and of The first seems though both are in not The — — is in the of a a are of the in the The de is and not of and It is an of in a itself but a in a of The of a also that the is is not that it in be a common of Finally, is a for the one this the of the might the it to the — this of — as now on account of this experience, a for a work of very more as a as to a of literary of will be intertextual as the book recent readers and critics have the man as — with but — is It to the of the of depression in the contemporary and to ‘the and of the language of mental has that is the very experience of as its and diagnoses the we and to our if this is its and diagnoses in how we and to literary has the of what a of as a that and of contemporary commentaries on Un homme qui dort that this of Moreover, therapeutic depression is an it is the mental depressive have been in the of health for depression is also now in the vocabulary of that et la à la le mal du dépression de This is not to the that there is to whether the is too experiences with and of depressive […] or too with and whether it is too a of a or be The of depression thus has in medical and it Un homme qui dort published in and therapeutic has more the we perceive and others — to the of ‘depression’ to if readers read Perec’s Yet it is not a to dépression et social à la des already with a le de la à de de des article la dépression an article that depression à and that le this with Un homme qui de de Perec is Un homme qui dort as the of depression is at the of a which will lead to its ‘depression’ would not have to Perec as a for distress as it is for contemporary there is to he with the term then in with the and of and by the he Un homme qui dort, he with first then de and been as a in a for medical It is on the one of the word in the though it is not to name the protagonist’s the word does a In the the is on the of the he a qui et the in a a a — on the of a — the and a This depression et It is a but an by turns and a reader in this might have evoked it might there are to of depression as and that people depression is about but about so that itself here and not but so it the […] un […] dans dans un de et qui un dans un un un un de These first two a of though already one a reticence in the of This is as an itself an is sometimes by — and yet as though their the which the are so as to to in one in if the subject here is a it is not an but one of out and and this passage a up of as it into in the of It begins with as and the that does to what it is like to be the of the are others some and are both and the the The like the more is with and to the experience. In a given at the of the Perec that might be as a sort of that he […] […] de un In so he seeks to ce le […] Un homme qui dort, de ce à de Un homme qui dort is thus as a work exploring language and what Perec here it begins with a de de and to a of and for that one can about is to too to into equivocal rhetorical frameworks for that The text is to the of with and to of a of attempts to The or experience is variously not described as a or or or an […] suffering or there are the and — homme qui of but also this is far des un de à un du are sorts of at play while and the of a or a an is to du a while the is might In book on in mal du de et […] a de et un ce […] de qui dans la la la et dans to depression — as a or — might then be a of depression the of the attempts to their experience might be their for Burke, comforts […] by getting things then one of might be this this not or how to including the of there is a more the or of the man experience. This a of the it or is it not a to if it to what can that be a These are on which critics have been a the text’s for example, on the of le à de the as le de la while for a depression is by a to to be into a social of and are and in the novella’s The first is a whose subject is not without to these ne […] ce ce ce la et […] de de The first the does not is and in that on — one we might also name and with to and A social is thus evoked in a case of the text up the of of states like the by that he is not to them. can read here in the text in readers it will to it with is it pointing its readers towards those very its ne a a […] de […] de et de […] the too in the notion that what the is is — that might also some What is a for which and are for the distress; an the text seems to is for a is qualified with an a towards the of and it might might to read the and as already for and as towards a The chapter thus questions about and by to them. 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Un homme qui dort has been read as readers adopt an attitude of to the Goodreads reader for example, that ‘the I we our and and as we and are in no to we January readers this on Goodreads the as as but that last chapter it [sic] my December A is more or implicit in the of professional for instance, claim that homme qui dort the to with or à et qui dort vivre This about is not to the about for if one the then one might be more to the as at the contrary, if one the final chapter one might be to the text as or its for example, that ‘the very the reader to take the by of a or an is an at in the to in the novella’s final This is in textual The first might be termed intertextual the the to literary including the of The and the writes of these The the of by the novel the the may be read as by Perec as as he with to the literary which first one of reading this the is with the is to be attitude and the influence of the of (or by literary The text is also here by to the to the novella’s as a literary text by it A textual in this final chapter is what we might a of This on the which and for dans de de le un here the of an an which is by experience in the might have but one to have is thus it the but not the of a in are in the final the by the the de de de de […] […] ne de un homme qui des et des le des […] des de de la is at in the first of the which the to literary that and — as de and both but instead or also The passage the de to be at the of de la as as the chapter of the the the to with the also in the If the reader with these and might of an on the of the man if perceive what is as might also the the as with potential for some on their there are here For if the reader is already in the of reading the might not so the might be with the Moreover, there is a to the and la et et This might be not so a of as a similar to what to the to as of and he the and also speak of of as of we might find in the protagonist’s interpretation of experience as a case of and The novella’s final for both plus le du plus le le as la de be the of the might to to with the and with but it might also be a of in distress, now without the of special that it The a of but not in of a he and we are left with are the is and is but the final two are to can to read them the has to a crisis that he — a crisis in the of — and now for it to to an a of a more towards the This reading is but others are For example, what if the is more not the and for its but and the very — the of the that the of Moreover, the has not in what if he is to that it will Finally, we might our in which case we are left with a man in the and no of what are thus readings here. the one one might the man to be to be to be the crisis whose and the has been equivocally if one to this one might be to read the text as the attitude by its In such a the man for as the the in the so too does in the form of this which now to to its readers — the not to the but the reader and an to the of and such an account of mental distress — one which with the protagonist out of like depression — might be for such a reading of the is close to a of mental distress that a and is thus to the of some Yet such are not to depressive the depressive person might commands of this or a reader the novella’s instead as the might like and more like the of This ambiguity — a and about what is in the and what the text is — offers a special of — a by — to the that of literature’s therapeutic For therapeutic of literature’s or to be a In Perec’s we have a text that is unsure whether it to be a or This is to Perec’s text is an unsure or a text that it is unsure if it unsure it is a text to guide its unsure it the name for the pattern of experience it or by what strategy or attitude one to confront it. its readers in this Un homme qui dort them to with equivocation the and and to experiences like those we might no so depression. I would like to as as the readers for for their on of this The for and of this article to by a
Source: French Studies
DOI: 10.1093/fs/knae036
Author: Matt Phillips
Institution: University of Oxford
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,122
OpenAlex ID: W4392112940