The title… Planetarium… The overall central image… The world as a planetarium… living as though in a Planetarium (protegidos por un cielo falsamente tranquilizador de la turbulencia de la realidad)…
...a miniature solar system,
...a system of planets,
...a rarefied model of the universe
in which the cohesive force is the commonplace (whose phrases order the dialogue, whose attitudes form the motivation)…
in which is revealed the disparity between the way characters see themselves and the way others see them
Narrators…
...no single narrator in Le Planétarium…
...no character possesses the first-person singular pronoun…
...instead… there is a continuous travel from one mind to another (with few ad-hoc, foreign comments outside the characters themselves and only as a fragmentary reading guide)…
...an objective narrator has been erased from the narrative.
The characters… all the characters bear names… Aunt Berthe, Alain Guimiez (her nephew), Gisèle Guimiez (Alain’s wife), Germaine Lemaire (a renowned writer), Pierre (Alain’s father),…
The plot of the novel… Aunt Berthe lives in an apartment that the newly married Alain -a young writer working on a PhD thesis- and his wife desire… Some conflicts, tensions, anxieties arise between the young couple and their surrounding context (Alain’s aunt and father, Gisèle’s parents, the tasteful embodied in Lemaire’s select circle) in order to establish themselves… his elderly aunt's apartment is merely the first (but necessary) step in their ascension…
Structure… based on 19 scenes…
Scene one (filtered through a Aunt Berthe’s particular consciousness): beginning... banal interior monologue about some curtains… she goes up the stairs… she arrives to her flat… the workers (outside for a while) have already placed the curtains but (“horror”) a small crisis rises when contemplating the door knocker and the hubcap of one of the doors... "brutes, animal, nor bit of initiative, of interest for what they do"… when going back these... "only survivor of a world brought down, alone among strange, enemies, is crossed of arms, she looked at them"… she confronted them... {Inicio… monólogo interior banal acerca de unas cortinas (mientras sube las escaleras que dan a su piso)… llega a su apartamento… los operarios (fuera momentáneamente) ya las han colocado pero surge una pequeña crisis al contemplar el picaporte y el embellecedor de una de las puertas… “brutos, animales, ni pizca de iniciativa, de interés por lo que hacen”… al regresar estos… “única superviviente de un mundo derrumbado, sola entre extraños, enemigos, se cruza de brazos, los mira”… les hace frente…}
...a miniature solar system,
...a system of planets,
...a rarefied model of the universe
in which the cohesive force is the commonplace (whose phrases order the dialogue, whose attitudes form the motivation)…
in which is revealed the disparity between the way characters see themselves and the way others see them
Narrators…
...no single narrator in Le Planétarium…
...no character possesses the first-person singular pronoun…
...instead… there is a continuous travel from one mind to another (with few ad-hoc, foreign comments outside the characters themselves and only as a fragmentary reading guide)…
...an objective narrator has been erased from the narrative.
The characters… all the characters bear names… Aunt Berthe, Alain Guimiez (her nephew), Gisèle Guimiez (Alain’s wife), Germaine Lemaire (a renowned writer), Pierre (Alain’s father),…
The plot of the novel… Aunt Berthe lives in an apartment that the newly married Alain -a young writer working on a PhD thesis- and his wife desire… Some conflicts, tensions, anxieties arise between the young couple and their surrounding context (Alain’s aunt and father, Gisèle’s parents, the tasteful embodied in Lemaire’s select circle) in order to establish themselves… his elderly aunt's apartment is merely the first (but necessary) step in their ascension…
Structure… based on 19 scenes…
Scene one (filtered through a Aunt Berthe’s particular consciousness): beginning... banal interior monologue about some curtains… she goes up the stairs… she arrives to her flat… the workers (outside for a while) have already placed the curtains but (“horror”) a small crisis rises when contemplating the door knocker and the hubcap of one of the doors... "brutes, animal, nor bit of initiative, of interest for what they do"… when going back these... "only survivor of a world brought down, alone among strange, enemies, is crossed of arms, she looked at them"… she confronted them... {Inicio… monólogo interior banal acerca de unas cortinas (mientras sube las escaleras que dan a su piso)… llega a su apartamento… los operarios (fuera momentáneamente) ya las han colocado pero surge una pequeña crisis al contemplar el picaporte y el embellecedor de una de las puertas… “brutos, animales, ni pizca de iniciativa, de interés por lo que hacen”… al regresar estos… “única superviviente de un mundo derrumbado, sola entre extraños, enemigos, se cruza de brazos, los mira”… les hace frente…}
Scene two: a gathering at the home of Gisèle Guimiez' parents… consecutive narrators… Alain’s conversation point outs the ridicule of his aunt… Gisèle mother's thoughts reveal that the young couple rejected the gift of a pair of leather simple chairs since they want a Louis XV bergère…
Scenes 16 and 17: A crucial dialogue Aunt Berthe and her brother Pierre, Alain’s father, is repeated twice … (subject: Pierre is forced by his son to talk about the cession of her sister’s flat)… Scene 16: Aunt Berthe’s viewpoint… Scene 17: her brother’s… details given in both scenes are complementary since viewpoints are not just the same…
Objects… come into direct conflict with the characters. [e.g. Aunt Berthe’s interior monologue… (al inicio de la novela) sobre el “horroroso picaporte de níquel” y “el horrible embellecedor de metal blanco”]
Objects…
…are part of the action itself
…are the very substance of many obsessions, e.g. Aunt Berthe’s obsession about curtains starts the novel: “No, la verdad, por mucho que se mire, no se puede encontrar nada criticable, queda estupendo… una verdadera sorpresa, una suerte… una armonía exquisita, esta cortina de terciopelo, un terciopelo de mucho cuerpo, terciopelo de lana de primera calidad, de un verde profundo, sobrio y discreto"...
…act directly upon the characters
…are the pretext for one
What matters… "No hay forma de cambiar la auténtica manera de ser de las personas, lo que de verdad hay en el fondo acaba por salir..."
(To be completed…)
Sarraute, Le planétarium [The planetarium, El planetario]
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