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COPYRIGHT 2002 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
It has been calculated that a record number of novels--in record quantities--were issued between late August and early October, in time for the season of literary prizes which takes place in France in late October and early November. Things were simpler in the old days. Stendhal's publisher issued a print-run of a mere 750 copies of Le Rouge et le Noir in 1831; in 1857 Madame Bovary benefited from a print-run of 1,000 copies, admittedly after serialisation.
This year reading represented less a pleasure than a task, and writers seemed to fall foul of the procedure, eager to attach themselves to simpler examples and a more comprehensible past. For example Olivier Rolin (Tigre en Papier, Fiction et Cie) composed his novel around the excitements of 1968, Marc Dugain (Heureux comme Dieu en France, Gallimard) harked back to the second world war, Jean-Pierre Milovanoff (La Melancolie des Innocents, Grasset) to the Pagnolesque days of life in the French provinces, Quentin Debray (L'Impatiente de Freud, Albin Michel) to the time of Freud's apprenticeship with Charcot ... Many more examples could be given.
If there was an air of...
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