The abject object : avatars of the phallus in contemporary French theory, literature and film

226 Pages·2006·1.102 MB·English

by  Reader, Keith

The Abject Object:
Avatars of the Phallus
in Contemporary French
Theory, Literature and Film
Chiasma 17
General Editor
Michael Bishop
Editorial Committee
Adelaide Russo, Michael Sheringham,
Steven Winspur, Sonya Stephens,
Michael Brophy, Anja Pearre
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006
The Abject Object:
Avatars of the Phallus
in Contemporary French
Theory, Literature and Film
Keith Reader
Cover design: Pier Post
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of
‘ISO 9706: 1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence’.
Le papier sur lequel le présent ouvrage est imprimé remplit les prescriptions
de "ISO 9706:1994, Information et documentation - Papier pour documents -
Prescriptions pour la permanence".
ISBN: 90-420-1729-5
©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006
Printed in The Netherlands
CHIASMA
Chiasma seeks to foster urgent critical assessments focussing upon
joinings and criss-crossings, single, triangular, multiple, in the realm of
modern French literature. Studies may be of an interdisciplinary nature,
developing connections with art, philosophy, linguistics and beyond, or
display intertextual or other plurivocal concerns of varying order.
*
If the phallus remains to the fore of our understanding of gender
difference, it is far from the indisputable bedrock of masculinity some
might suppose it to be. Indeed, as the present study amply demonstrates,
portrayal of the phallus in our (post)modernist age frequently entails a
disquieting plurality of tensions and ambiguities wherein the corporeal
ceaselessly vies with, and undercuts, the symbolic. As much cultural
construct as biological given, the phallus operates not only as signifier,
it also designates the lowly and not always dependable organ on
which all signifying power ostensibly hinges. Mindful of this ever-
precarious interrelatedness, Keith Reader grounds on key theoretical
texts an insightful and provocative exploration of a number of literary
and cinematic works that allow the immemorially revered emblem
of manhood to be recast quite ruinously as an abject object. Deftly
pursuing models and mechanisms of abjection that take him from
Lacan and Kristeva to writers as different as Bataille, Houellebecq and
Angot, and on to such masters of film as Godard and Eustache, the
author maps out in an era of arid consumerist hedonism an anguished
and at times vengeful casting down that may yet prove to be an essential
opening — from the point of view of both the complacency it unerringly
shatters and the subversive energy it injects into the impoverished or
harried proceedings of stymied desire.
Michael Brophy
Dublin
October 2005
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Contents

Introduction 11

Chapter One The Lacanian phallus 17

Chapter Two Abjection 39

Chapter Three The abject phallus in fiction:
Bataille and Adamov 55

Chapter Four Abject phalluses, abject penises:
Serge Doubrovsky and Michel
Houellebecq 87

Chapter Five Phallic narrative transvestism:
Christiane Rochefort and Christine
Angot 135

Chapter Six The abject phallus in cinema: Godard,
Ferreri, Eustache, Noé, Bonello 165

Conclusion 205

Bibliography 208

Index 220
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Author’s note and acknowledgements
Quotations from the French are referenced and translated into
English, except where their sense is self-evident, on their first
appearance. The English translation will be repeated on subsequent
occasions when it seems useful to do so. All translations from the
French, except when otherwise indicated, are my own. I have not
repeated the author and (where necessary) date when the context
makes this obvious.
My thanks go in the first place to the School of Modern
Languages and Cultures at Glasgow University and to the Arts and
Humanities Research Board, who between them funded an extended
period of study-leave in which the book was written. The Maison
Suger in Paris provided accommodation for a month during which
much of the necessary research was carried out. Philippe and
Laurence Binet and Delphine Minchella subsequently offered
hospitable accommodation on return visits to Paris. Michael Bishop
and Christa Stevens at Rodopi dealt patiently with my continual
questions; Mike Black and Louise Pollock were most helpful in
solving IT problems; and Catherine Vost and Judith Harriman were
responsible for getting the text into its final camera-ready form.
Lucille Cairns, Ruth Cruickshank, Lisa Downing, Paul Hegarty, Alex
Hughes and Gill Rye read parts of the manuscript and made numerous
constructive suggestions. Malcolm Bowie, Naomi Segal, Judith Still,
Katharine Swarbrick and Michael Witt answered a number of queries
most helpfully. Inaccuracies and worse are, of course, solely
imputable to myself.
K.R.