Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers Prologue and Chapter One, p. 1 – 69


A café without coffee. A botched assassination. A doctor willing to sign a phony death certificate. A police commissioner happy to wash his hands of the case. And finally, an investigator who might or might not be in on the conspiracy, assuming there is one. Welcome to the world of Les Gommes…

To avoid spoilers, please limit your comments to page 1 – 69.

The narrative has a typical noir/thriller opening– a seedy joint,an obscure bar whose manager doesn't really inspire trust. The stage is being set here,the murder is mentioned,two main characters are introduced,notice also the frequent reference to mirror,reflections & doubleness.
"He (the manager) glances with weary eyes around the room that calmly awaits the people who will come, the chairs where the murderers and their victims will sit, the tables where the communion will be served to them."

Prologue,part 2 & the scene shifts outside & we are taken out into the city & to the scene of the crime- Robbe-Grillet's writing is very visual,even in his first novel- cinema was only a natural progression for him.

Turns out Dupont is not dead & unaware of this development,the police has closed the case file. So much for the 'conventionel' opening! The writer now starts messing with our minds.
"No one has seen anything, heard anything. There is no victim. As for the murderer, he has fallen from the sky and must be far away by now, well on his way back to wherever he came from."

Chapter1 & special agent Wallas makes his appearance & Joyce's Ulysses-like, his exploration of the city begins- I found this part tiresome,the repetitions were yawn inducing- so much for experimentation!

Mala wrote: "As for the murderer, he has fallen from the sky and must be far away by now, well on his way back to wherever he came from.".."

Doesn't the murderer come to the café that morning to find Wallas?

Mala wrote: "Chapter1 & special agent Wallas makes his appearance & Joyce's Ulysses-like, his exploration of the city begins- I found this part tiresome,the repetitions were yawn inducing- so much for experimentation!."

What I found humorous about Wallas is that he can be very observant when he wants to be, but has a lot of difficulty navigating a small city in broad daylight.

Jim wrote: "Mala wrote: "As for the murderer, he has fallen from the sky and must be far away by now, well on his way back to wherever he came from.".."

Doesn't the murderer come to the café that morning to f..."

Any reply would be a spoiler ( you are still reading it right?). That's the problem reviewing & commenting on this genre- how to do so without revealing anything?!

Jim wrote: "Mala wrote: "Chapter1 & special agent Wallas makes his appearance & Joyce's Ulysses-like, his exploration of the city begins- I found this part tiresome,the repetitions were yawn inducing- so much ..."

Apparently that was done on purpose– the nod to Joyce & Borges. To use the cliched line,the city itself becomes a character– Wallas is searching for something,someone but what exactly? The details are deliberately kept fluid & vague. As I wrote earlier,it really got tiresome!

Joyce seems to be a background read on a lot the postmodern lit that i'm reading. I have to start read his work ASAP. :(

Jim wrote: "Mala wrote: "As for the murderer, he has fallen from the sky and must be far away by now, well on his way back to wherever he came from.".."

Doesn't the murderer come to the café that morning to f..."


I though it was the attempted murderer... flesh wound right

Mekki wrote: "I though it was the attempted murderer... flesh wound right.."

right... attempted murderer is correct (I think!)

Having finished the Prologue and Chapter 1, I would like to point out a few additional aspects of this novel I see so far:

With its winding streets and system of canals, I have seen reviewers and literary critics liken the novel’s city to Amsterdam. But any likeness to this beautiful, charming Dutch city ends there. The cold Northern European industrial city we encounter in The Erasers is ugly and creepy, lacking any charm or warmth. Wallas notes this lack of aesthetic attraction and beauty, for example twice in Chapter 1, #3. First in section 1, “ . . . a city completely barren of appeal for an art lover . . . “, and then again in section 2, “ . . . a huge stone building ornamented with scrolls and scallops, fortunately few in number – in short, of rather somber ugliness.” I have the sense this city’s stark ugliness is similar to Golconda, that cityscape raining men in black suits and bowlers painted by the surrealist Rene Magritte in 1953, the same year as the publication of Les Gommes.

The two men described in some detail are both fat and flabby and move in a stiff and mechanical way. First, in the Prologue, the manager of the café: “A fat man is standing here, the manager . . . greenish, his features blurred, liverish, and fleshy in his aquarium.” Second, in Chapter I, Laurent, the chief commissioner: “He is a short, plump man with a pink face and a bald skull.”, and, “ . . . his overfed body shakes from fits of laughter.” Curiously, Tom, one of the condemned prisioners, from Jean-Paul Sartre’s story The Wall is such a fat man. Also, Pablo, the main character in The Wall at one point sees his body as a giant vermin. Again, Antoine Roquentin, the main character in Sartre’s Nausea describes shaking hands with a man: “Then there was his hand like a fat white worm in my own hand. I dropped it almost immediately and the arm fell back flabbily.” Why am I highlighting this? Because I have the sense both Robbe-Grillet and Sartre (who had a great influence on Robbe-Grillet) see flab and fat as repulsive and disgusting, a counter to the possible freedom and spontaneity and fluidity we can experience in our human embodiment.

In contradistinction, Chapter 1 starts off by describing Wallas: “He is still a young man, tall, calm, with regular features.” Also, Wallas is described as walking with an elastic, confident gate. So, at least our main character/special agent has those things going for him. So far, the people he encounters in this ugly city are anything but calm, elastic and confident. I’ll post again after I finish Chapter 2 & 3.