Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-2002

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

French

Major Professor

Karen D. Levy

Committee Members

Patrick Brady, Les Essif

Abstract

Contemporary French novelist Jean- Marie Gustave Le Clezio has been publishing novels, short stories, essays, and translations for nearly four decades and has been writing since the age of seven. In 1963, he received the prestigious Prix Renaudot for his first published novel, Le Proces- verbal, and in 1980, the Academie française awarded him the Grand Prix Paul Morand for the novel Desert. However, in that vast oeuvre, until the mid- eighties, the author had never written about those most personal subjects: his life and his family. In 1985, 1986, 1991, and 1995, the author published a series of personally ground- breaking novels in which his own life and those of his family members provided the inspiration for the stories. They are, in order of publication dates, Le chercheur d 'or, Voyages a Rodrigues, Onitsha, and La quarantaine. The autobiographical quality of these novels allows the reader access not only to fiction as an end product, but also to the creative process behind it. In the cases of the two novels inspired by the lives of the author's grandparents, Le chercheur d'or and La quarantaine, we can read not only the stories from the past, but also the accounts of the author's own journeys of reconstructing another time and writing the story of another. In La quarantaine, that process is part of the novel itself; for Le chercheur d 'or, the author's search for the past is chronicled in the journal Voyages a Rodrigues. Onitsha is based upon the author's own experiences. By reading of the processes by which stories are discovered, continued, and transformed, the texts provide a model for the creative process and a model for renewal. Through language, structure, and theme, these four works emphasize the desperate need of modern societies for renewal, to live in a way that is more fully human. Creating and telling stories is one important source of renewal found in the texts, as is the willingness to meet others' practical needs, not with regard to who they are, but rather only to what they need. This way of living, which includes an attitude of generosity with resources and a recognition of the brevity of human life, is central to the call for renewal that may be found in these texts. Our participation is encouraged through their structure; the characters, narrators, and author expose both the sad results of stagnation and the life-affirming possibilities of transformation. In each of them, we find a call to renewal.

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