Martereau (French Literature Series)

Details: Product Description
Martereau is narrated by a tubercular young man driven by a compulsion to discover what lies behind faades, especially in relation to the adults around him. He's particularly interested in Martereau, his uncle's devoted friend and business associate. All in all, Martereau seems like a trustworthy, benign, self-sufficient man, but under the narrator's intense scrutiny--and Martereau's suspect behavior concerning a shady real-estate deal--his motives seem much more complex and seedy. In a subtle, skillful way, Nathalie Sarraute explores the difference between those who are wealthy and those who pretend to be so, and the manipulative way in which some people get ahead in the world.
Review
"Mme. Sarraute is fascinating because, while she seems to be entirely concerned with little truths about small personalities, she has a firm grip on a very large truth--the accepted description of man as a 'social animal' means not that he loves his fellows but only that he can't do without them. The thoroughness with which Mme. Sarraute pursues this single theme, delineating the constant fluctuations of feeling in a small group in close emotional quarters, is compelling."
About the Author
Nathalie Sarraute (1900-99) was born in Russia, grew up in France, and was one of the prime movers behind the so-called New Novel, along with Alain Robbe-Grillet, Robert Pinget, and Claude Simon. During her lifetime, she wrote eleven novels, a book of criticism, a collection of plays, and an autobiography.