THE “BROKEN DISCOURSE” OF SERGE DOUBROVSKY: NOVELS AS INSTALLATIONS?

Abstract

One can associate Serge Doubrovsky’s novel to the idea of installation due to the author’s general intent (as he explains in many of his essays) of elaborating his “autofiction”: he wishes to invoke the reader’s sensitivity through means that bypass the mere cultivated reading. He intends, through his “consonantic writing”, to make direct contact with other arts, especially music and visual arts, since he bases it on phonetic properties, which, according to him, generate creativity and productivity in the semantic field. The author also intends to communicate directly with the reader’s affectivity and affective impulses, through his “existential psychoanalysis” and his writing “to the unconscious”. The “broken discourse” is his main instrument to achieve this goal. This proposition, apparently innovative, may be traced back to one of this favorite themes of study: Marcel Proust’s work.