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Littérature américaine

«The Brooklyn Follies»: extracts

publié le 08/10/2009

« I was looking for a quiet place to die. Someone recommended Brooklyn, and so the next morning I traveled down there from Westchester to scope out the terrain. »

A reading of «The Brooklyn Follies» through the lens of autofiction

Marie Thévenon - publié le 02/10/2009

From his very first novel, ((The Invention of Solitude)), to his very last, ((Man in the Dark)), Paul Auster has always played with the mixture between autobiography and fiction. ((The Brooklyn Follies)) pertains to this tradition and it is through the lens of autofiction that this article proposes to explore this novel. The author starts by observing the similarities between Paul Auster and his characters and pays close attention to the intertextual dimension. She then analyses the (...)

Paul Auster: A General Introduction

Jocelyn Dupont - publié le 13/02/2009

This document provides a short general overview of Paul Auster’s work. After a brief discussion of Auster’s texts positioning in the literary heritage, it tackles the place and role of the writer in an often alienating environment. It then deals with the representation of the city in Auster’s work, notably Brooklyn, before concluding on the gift for storytelling that so characterizes Paul Auster’s production.

Paul Auster - Bibliographical resources

publié le 13/02/2009

A critical bibliography, list of online resources, and Paul Auster's prose and fiction.

The "mechanics of reality": Paul Auster speaks about his work and inspiration

Paul Auster, Jocelyn Dupont - publié le 15/01/2009

A l'occasion du passage de Paul Auster à Lyon, la Villa Gillet a organisé une rencontre entre l'auteur des ((Brooklyn Follies)) et plusieurs centaines de lycéens étudiant cette oeuvre pour leur bac d'anglais. La première partie de l'entretien a été menée par Jocelyn Dupont, puis, dans la seconde partie, les lycéens ont pu poser eux-mêmes leurs questions à Paul Auster.

Littérature et société aux Etats-Unis : 1917-1968

Alice Béja - publié le 27/11/2008

Cet article propose un regard sur la littérature américaine du 20e siècle dans son rapport à l'idée d'Amérique. Les guerres et crises que traversent les Etats-Unis au cours de la période 1917-1968 contribuent à une dégradation de l'"American Dream" en "American way of life" à laquelle les écrivains américains réagissent en recherchant de nouvelles origines pour construire, en fin de compte, leur propre idée d'Amérique. Cet article est tiré d'une conférence donnée le 10 janvier (...)

Fiche de lecture : «The Brooklyn Follies», Paul Auster

Juliette Tran - publié le 05/07/2008

A review of Paul Auster's ((The Brooklyn Follies)).

Fiche de lecture : «The Bear Boy», Cynthia Ozick

Anne Musset - publié le 07/05/2008

The story is set in the outskirts of the Bronx in 1935. Rose Meadows, orphaned at the age of 18, becomes an assistant to Professor Mitwisser, a specialist of a 9th-century heretic Jewish sect. Professor Mitwisser, his wife (a renowned physicist but now a near-madwoman) and their five children are German refugees who survive thanks to their young benefactor James A’Bair. James is heir to the fortune amassed by his father, who took him as a model for a very popular series of children’s books (...)

Fiche de lecture : «The Good Life», Jay McInerney

Armelle Calonne - publié le 07/05/2008

((The Good Life)) is a story about many things: it deals with love and loss, with life and death, with contradictory feelings that, in the end, are all but one.

Fiche de lecture : «Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close», Jonathan Safran Foer

Alice Bonzom - publié le 07/05/2008

The novel narrates the story of Oskar Schell, a precocious nine-year-old inventor, pacifist, percussionist, and Francophile, whose father died during the attacks of 9/11. A couple of years after his father’s death, he finds a mysterious key in an envelope with the name “Black” on it, in a vase in a closet. Sure that the key belonged to his father, he decides to visit everyone named “Black” in the five boroughs of New York to discover what it opens. Intertwined with Oskar’s quest are (...)

Fiche de lecture : «The Discomfort Zone», Jonathan Franzen

Auréliane Narvaez - publié le 03/05/2008

Thirty years after the colorful 1970’s, hurricane Katrina, the Bush Administration’s failure, social inequalities are proof that America is sinking into the Discomfort Zone, along with the narrator who gives way to his discrete feeling of helplessness and invites us to live with it the way he does in a disenchanted but yet humourous way.

Fiche de lecture : «Book of Longing», Leonard Cohen

Mélanie Roche - publié le 03/05/2008

Cohen's poetry – the title of the book makes no mystery of it – deals essentially with longing: longing for women, for God, or simply truth. What emerges from the whole book is the idea of an irretrievable loss. From the beginning, we learn that in spite of the author's retreat on Mount Baldy, enlightenment has hardly touched him: he has found neither God nor any essential truth.

Quatrième de couverture de l'ouvrage "Ceci n'est pas une tragédie - L'écriture de David Markson" de Françoise Palleau-Papin

L'écriture de David Markson

Françoise Palleau-Papin - publié le 12/02/2008

Première monographie consacrée à cet écrivain américain particulièrement novateur, dans ((Ceci n'est pas une tragédie)) Françoise Palleau-Papin nous présente l'ensemble de l'œuvre de David Markson, de 1956 à 2007.