Leggere Chevillard

The subject of this work is an elaborate analysis of sixteen novels published between 1987 and 2010, by Minuit publishing house, written by Eric Chevillard, one of the most unique voices in the current panorama of French literature. Chevillard is considered the heir to authors like Beckett and Michaux, due to his progressive elaboration of incongrous aesthetics, woven to involve the reader in the construction of an inner sense that continously escapes every attempt to categorize it, lying between a playful dimension, linguistic invention and the dissembling of plausible fiction. During the introduction, the analysis begins with a presentation of the entire collection of novels written by Chevillard. Indicative of the challenges found while reading the novels, the difficulty faced in the description of the texts makes it necessary to resort to a semiotic criteria for interpretation. Directly from the analysis of the isotopies described, one can observe the evolution of chevillardian writing from a diachronic point of view as well as the existence of a negative principle from which all of the texts emanate. A similar preliminary consideration is confirmed by the disagreement in the judgments expressed by critics that offen seem to contradict each other. It is no coincidence that a selection of labels in antonymic pairs is presented: by proceeding in this way, while expressing the mille facettes of the text, the analysis reveals itself as completely inefficient in defining Chevillard poetic writing style. Therefore the aporetical aspect of the chevillardian fiction is sanctioned in the highest aspiration of being unclassifiable. In order to leave the paradoxes already clearly described by generations of literary critics behind, the analysis proceeds with the elementary principles of the textual configuration and attempts to supply the key points necessary to guarantee the visibility of the impalpable object of the narration and continuity to the reading. In this case, the text is placed in comparison and contrast with the three different textual dimensions respectively considered dominant during each phase of evolution of writing technique formerly determined: the context of the reader in the inaugural creations, the self-referential side of the novel, when the writing becomes increasingly radicalized, and the linguistic sphere in the texts which are described as extreme. The overall fleeting nature of the narrative never understands how to manifest, if not by means of an author just as uncertain, a fugitive figure. In this light, the extremely subtle warped paths, Chevillard winds into his texts, work to undermine the authorithy of the authorship. Thus, the analysis examines the devices proposed by Chevillard to multiply the textual representations of the author, the same multiplication that finally leads him to hiding almost completely, and specifically in his autobiographical novel, his own presence. Even attempting to create a sufficiently articulated account of the complexity of these works, this thesis can not be concluded without accepting the challenge offered by the texts themselves, not without searching to capture their essence. A label is proposed that expresses both the nuances and mobility, able to communicate the infinite facades of this ambiguous poetry and, at the same time, able to collocate it in the steps of a precise literary tradition: the loufoque. From a methodical point of view, this work proposes a semiotic approach, applying the tools of narratology, the aesthetics of reception and the hermeneutics, with particular attention to the textual representation of the author and the reader. Embracing the entire romanesque production of Chevillard implies the examination of its intertextual dimension, often underlined by critics, who continuetly search for a collocation for such intriguing, unnerving fiction.