B. S. Johnson and Post-War Literature pp 35-53 | Cite as
Johnson and the nouveau roman: Trawl and other Butorian Projects
Abstract
Bringing You’re Human Like the Rest of Them to the Tours Short Film Festival, Johnson summarised his film for an interviewer: ‘Ce n’est pas du Godard. C’est la voie anglaise de Godard.’ ‘It’s not Godard. It’s the English path for Godard.’ Asked which literary movement he belonged to, Johnson echoes his other comment: ‘Aucun. Ou, à la rigueur, disons que ce n’est pas le nouveau roman, mais la voie anglaise du nouveau roman.’ ‘None. Or at a push, let’s say, it’s not the nouveau roman, but the English path for the nouveau roman’ (quoted in Coe 2004: 252; this and subsequent translations from the French are the present author’s). Johnson’s rationale here seems simple, giving his French interlocutor two native shorthands for novelty and experiment in film and literature to convey a comparative sense of his aesthetic worldview.
Keywords
Literary Movement Train Journey Relay Race Time Literary Supplement Telling StoryPreview
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