Le Berlin de François Bon et Jean-Philippe Toussaint: une ville habitée d'Histoire
| Title in English | Berlin in the Novels by Francois Bon and Jean-Philippe Toussaint: a City inhabited by History |
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Citation | |
| Description | Some cities attract the attention of more contemporary writers and tourists. The city of Berlin, heavily loaded in the history of the twentieth century and its two major extreme ideologies, seems to embody a suitable space for a literary reflection on the symbolic significance of some emblematic places of the city. Representation of anthropological space and simultaneously diachronic structure crammed different historical strata, the city as a spatio-temporal aspect lends itself to a literary investigation that among contemporary writers who invite interesting confrontations. In this paper, we return to two texts that highlight socio-political and historical aspects of the city: Television by Jean-Philippe Toussaint and Calvary of dogs by François Bon. The choice of these two contemporary novelists suggests there are as many points of convergence between the two worlds they build in their texts than differences that lend themselves to a study of confrontation. If one overlooks the workplace and factory, the other gives to see a relaxation, recreation and flight. Still, the common denominator of the two fictional worlds and a detailed description of the urban space with its buildings dehumanized iron, concrete and glass that allows you to update on the role of the architecture (post- and / or ultra-) in modern literature. |
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