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FORM AND FUNCTION IN THE DIARY NOVEL

Form and Function in the Diary Novel Trevor Field Lecturer in French, University of Aberdeen

M

MACMILLAN

PRESS

© Trevor Field 1989 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Ucensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1989 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Field, Trevor Form and function in the diary novel. 1. Fiction. Forms: Diaries, to 1987 Critical studies I. Title 809.3

ISBN 978-1-349-10211-2 ISBN 978-1-349-10209-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-10209-9

For Rosie

Contents Preface

ix

Acknowledgements

xii

1 Definitions

1 1 8 20

Basic Qualities Border-line Cases Formal Objections

2 History and Evolution

30

3 Mimetics

54

63 69

Editorial Functions External Form Dates and Days

77

93

4 Verisimilitude

93 102

Start to Finish Likely Stories Narra-tease?

117

5 Parody

129

6 The Character of the Diarist

144 144 153 158

Life Sentences Daily Mirrors Now and Then

Appendix A: Titles of diary novels studied in translation vii

172

viii

Contents

Appendix B: English titles of French diary novels mentioned in the text

173

Notes

175

Bibliography

187

Index

192

Preface Although the diary novel has been the vehicle for some outstanding works of literature in the last two centuries, it has only recently come to be recognised as a form in its own right. Given that a basic definition would describe it quite simply as a novel written in the form of a diary, further analysis brings out inevitable complications. Such problems are discussed in Chapter 1, where I attempt to formulate a critical grid which could be placed over any given work to determine whether or not it may be classified as a diary novel. In other chapters, description and evaluation are added to the initial definition in order to illustrate the artistic merits and demerits of this particular kind of first-person fiction, as well as the types of subject most frequently portrayed. In adopting a thematic approach I have dispersed comments on individual novels throughout the text, trying to avoid both the chronological survey and the strategy of devoting whole sections or chapters to individual works. These, as it happens, are the main approaches used by Lorna Martens in The Diary Novel, though I should immediately make it clear that, if I have hardly referred in my text to this major work, the omission reflects not disapproval, but merely the fact that my typescript was already complete when The Diary Novel appeared in 1986. The even more recent publication of William Golding's Close Quarters similarly made it very difficult to add any meaningful comment without upsetting the balance of my own book. However, if I have achieved my purpose readers will be able to appreciate Close Quarters, and the eventual third volume of Golding's trilogy, on the basis of what I have said about Rites of Passage, as well as applying various other comments to any diary novel they ever come across. This potential range of tone and quality is a significant factor in my choice of texts- from Nausea to written versions of Upstairs, Downstairs. As a teacher I have often found that students respond better to works with observable faults than to great classics which ix

X

Preface

elicit only admiration. The inclusion of some very poor novels as well as masterpieces is, therefore, quite deliberate, because this is essentially a guide to the whole sub-genre of the diary novel. If my book were about the Labrador retriever it would certainly stress the excellent qualities of the dog, and even mention some famous show champions; but it would also warn about stomach upsets and hip dysplasia, not to mention torn clothes and ransacked waste-bins. Rather than writing at length about a limited number of great works I have essentially set about discussing the novels under review in terms of their status as purported diaries. One could say a great deal about structures and symbols of transgression in Rites of Passage, for instance, but it seems preferable to keep the journal of Edmund Talbot more or less firmly in view. Although I do stress mimetic aspects and questions like the suspension of disbelief, any linked criticisms should not be seen as the pedantic objections of someone complaining about opera characters who are able to sing even as they die; indeed, I hope that my discussion of such features will help readers put the minutiae of diary form into proper perspective. While I obviously hope that my book could be read by anyone, from full-time academics to interested amateurs who have never been inside a university, I should stress that I am seeking to enlarge the literary awareness of ordinary students. Many of the novels to which I refer are academic set texts, and I have deliberately set them in a large context so as to show the permanence and generality of devices like dated entries or fictional diarists' awareness of their own style: it should help someone studying a novel like Dangling Man to see what has been achieved in similar vein by writers like Lessing or Sartre. Given the range of languages involved I have necessarily been reliant on translated versions of some novels. With one exception, however, all works in French were read in the original and the translations are my own, although I have generally used the commercial English title for diary novels quoted in the text. The titles of works which are not diary novels are generally given in the original language. French editions may be specified in reference notes but, with the aid of the parallel listing in Appendix B, readers should be able to find their way to a convenient version. Certain reference notes contain the date of a diary entry, since this may help readers locate quotations in works with more than one edition.

Preface

xi

Finally I should like to thank not only those friends and relatives who have had to listen to so many theories and examples during the preparation of this book, but also the British Academy, whose financial grant allowed me to do much of the travelling necessary in tracking down many of these texts.

Acknowledgements Specific thanks are due to the following for permission to use material from the works quoted: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd and John Hawkins & Associates for quotations from A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term; and the University of Toronto Press, for the reproduction of a table from The French Fictional Journal. Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright-holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity. More informally I should thank all those novelists whose work is quoted or summarised: it is obvious that without their creative talent this book would not have been possible. The same remark applies, albeit in a slightly different way, to the translators identified in Appendix A, as well as to the translators of any French texts which my readers may wish to consult in an English version.

xii