The Girard Reader (10 page)

It is this same illusion which the great novel does not succeed in shattering although it never

ceased to denounce it. Unlike the romantics and neo-romantics, a Cervantes, a Flaubert, and a

Stendhal reveal the truth of desire in their great novels, but this truth remains hidden even at

the heart of its revelation. The reader, who is usually convinced of his own spontaneity,

applies to the work the meanings he already applies to the world. The nineteenth century,

which failed completely to understand Cervantes, continually praised the "originality" of his hero. The romantic reader, by a marvelous misinterpretation which fundamentally is only a

superior truth, identifies himself with Don Quixote, the supreme imitator, and makes of him

the
model individual
.

Thus is should not surprise us that the term "romanesque"
 2. s
till re-____________________

2. In the French original, constant association and opposition of
romantique
and
ro-

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flects, in its ambiguity, our unawareness of all mediation. The term denotes the chivalric

romances and it denotes
Don Quixote
; it can be synonymous with "romantic" and it can indicate the destruction of romantic pretensions. In the future we shall use the term

"romantic" for the works which reflect the presence of a mediator without ever revealing it

and the term "novelistic" for the works which reveal this presence. It is to the latter that this book is primarily devoted.

____________________

manesque
, with their same radical and different endings, tried to convey something of an

essential, yet elusive, difference between the works which passively reflect and those

which actively reveal "mediated" desire. The two words are not interchangeable, to be

sure, but their opposition alone is fully significant. The essay must not be read as the

indictment of a narrowly, or even broadly defined literary
school
. Neither is it an effort to

circumscribe the
genre
of the novel. The author is aware that
Jean Santeuil
is a novel and should be classified as such if classifications were the order of the day.
Jean Santeuil
can

nevertheless be viewed as "romantic" within the context of the essay, in other words by

contrast with the "romanesque" -- novelistic --
Remembrance of Things Past
. Similarly, Chateaubriand
Mémoires d'outre-Tombe
is not a novel but it partakes somewhat of the

"romanesque" by contrast with the romantic
René
. Unlike the categories of literary

historians, which are mechanistic and positivistic, the present categories, even though they

are not Hegelian, are still dialectical. They are not independent labels stuck once and for

all on a fixed amount of static and objective literary material. Neither are they literature-

proof receptacles in which that same material would be contained. They have no value in

themselves; no single category can be appraised separately. Oppositions are essential; their

terms should not be dissociated. The whole
system
alone is truly significant and self-

sufficient, in accordance with a
structural
hypothesis.

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Chapter 4 Desire and the Unity of Novelistic Conclusions

This selection is the concluding chapter of
Deceit, Desire, and the Novel
. Here Girard

summarizes his argument that in the best work of the great novelists such as Cervantes,

Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, and Dostoyevsky, the novelistic (nonromantic) conclusions

represent conversions from the death to which rivalrous desire leads. In the great novels the

authors attain a profound communion of Self and Other, intuit in their protagonists their own

similarity to the Other who is a model-rival (see under Model/Mediator)* or even a model-

obstacle (see under Model/Mediator),* and find liberation from the pride of romantic

individualism. The climax of this conversionary discovery occurs above all in Dostoyevsky,

whose
Notes from the Underground
"is the turning point between romanticism and the

novel," and whose conclusion to
The Brothers Karamazov
affirms the reality of the death and resurrection to which the agnostic Proust gives literary expression in
The Past Recaptured

and
Remembrance of Things Past
.

The ultimate meaning of desire is death but death is not the novel's ultimate meaning. The

demons like raving madmen throw themselves into the sea and perish. But the patient is

cured. Stepan Trofimovitch on his deathbed recalls the miracle: "But the sick man will be

healed and 'will sit at the feet of Jesus,' and all will look upon him with astonishment."

These words are applicable not only to Russia but to the dying man himself. Stepan

Trofimovitch is this sick man who is healed in death and whom death heals. Stepan let

himself be carried away by the wave of scandal, murder, and crime which engulfed the town.

His flight has its roots in the universal madness but as soon as it is undertaken its significance

changes -- it is transformed into a return to the mother earth and to the light of day. His

roaming finally leads the old man to a wretched

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bed in an inn where a Gospel woman reads him the words of St. Luke. The dying man sees

the truth in the parable of the swine of Gerasa. Out of supreme disorder is born supernatural

order.

The closer Stepan comes to death, the more he withdraws from lying: "I've been telling lies

all my life. Even when I told the truth I never spoke for the sake of the truth, but always for

my own sake. I knew it before, but I only see it now." In these words Stepan
clearly

contradicts his former ideas
.

The apocalypse would not be complete without a positive side. There are two antithetical

deaths in the conclusion of
The Possessed
: one death which is an extinction of the spirit and

one death which is spirit; Stavrogin's death is only death, Stepan's death is life. This double

ending is not unusual in Dostoyevsky. We find it in The
Brothers Karamazov
where the

madness of Ivan Karamazov is contrasted with the redeeming conversion of Dmitri. We find

it in
Crime and Punishment
where Svidrigailov's suicide is contrasted with the redeeming

conversion of Raskolnikov. The Gospel woman who watches at Stepan's bedside plays a

similar role to Sonia's though less pronounced. She is the mediator between the sinner and the

Scriptures.

Raskolnikov and Dmitri Karamazov do not die a physical death but they are nonetheless

restored to life. All Dostoyevsky's conclusions are fresh beginnings; a new life commences,

either among men or in eternity.

But perhaps it would be better not to push this analysis any further. Many critics refuse to

accept Dostoyevsky's religious conclusions. They find them artificial, ill-considered, and

superficially imposed on the novel. The novelist is supposed to have written them when he

ran out of novelistic inspiration, in order to give his work an appearance of religious

orthodoxy.

So let us leave Dostoyevsky and turn to the conclusions of other novels, such as
Don Quixote
.

The hero's death is very like that of Stepan Trofimovitch. His passion for chivalry is

portrayed as an actual possession of which the dying man sees himself fortunately, though

somewhat belatedly, delivered. The clarity of vision that he regains enables
Don Quixote
, like Stepan Trofimovitch, to reject his former existence.

At this time my judgment is free and clear and no longer covered with a thick blanket of

ignorance woven by my sad and constant reading of detestable books of chivalry. I recognize

their extravagance and trickery. My only regret is that my disillusionment has come too late

and that I do not have time to make up for my mistake by reading other books which would

help to enlighten my soul.

The Spanish
desengaño
has the same meaning as Dostoyevsky's conversion. But again there

are many writers who advise us not to dwell on

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this conversion in death. The conclusion of
Don Quixote
is almost as unappreciated as

Dostoyevsky's conclusions, and strangely enough the same faults are found in it. It is

considered artificial, conventional, and superimposed on the novel. Why should two such

great novelists both consider it proper to disfigure the final pages of their masterpieces? As

we have seen, Dostoyevsky is considered the victim of self-imposed censure. The Inquisition

was hostile to books of chivalry. The critics remain convinced that
Don Quixote
is a book of

chivalry. Cervantes therefore was obliged to write a "conformist" conclusion which would

allay ecclesiastical suspicions.

Let us then leave Cervantes, if we must, and turn to a third novelist. Stendhal was not a

Slavophile and had no reason to fear the church, at least during the period when he wrote
The

Red and the Black
. But the conclusion of that novel is nevertheless a third
conversion in

death
. Julien also utters words which
clearly contradict
his former ideas. He repudiates his will to power, he makes a break with the world which fascinated him; his passion for

Mathilde disappears; he flies to Mme. de Rênal and refuses to defend himself.

All these analogies are remarkable. But again we are asked not to attach any importance to

this conversion in death. Even the author, who seems ashamed of his own lyricism, conspires

with the critics to discredit his own text. He tells us we should not take Julien's meditations

seriously for "the lack of exercise was beginning to affect his health and give him the exalted

and weak character of a young German student."

Let Stendhal say what he likes. We can no longer be put off the scent. If we are still blind to the unity displayed in novelistic conclusions, the unanimous hostility of romantic critics

should be enough to open our eyes.

It is the hypotheses of the critics that are insignificant and artificial, not the conclusions. One

would have to have little esteem for Cervantes to think him capable of betraying his own

thought. The hypothesis of self-censure is not even worth discussing, for the beauty of the

text alone is enough to demolish it. The solemn adjuration of the dying
Don Quixote
is

addressed to us, the readers, just as much as to his friends and relatives gathered about him:

"In the extremity which I have reached I must not make light of my soul."

It is easy to understand the hostility of the romantic critics. All the heroes, in the conclusion,

utter words which
clearly contradict their former ideas
, and those ideas are always shared by

the romantic critics. Don Quixote renounces his knights, Julien Sorel his revolt, and

Raskolnikov his superhumanity. Each time the hero denies the fantasy inspired by his pride.

And it is that fantasy which the romantic interpretation always exalts. The critics do not want

to admit that they have been mis-

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taken; thus they have to maintain that the conclusion is unworthy of the work it crowns.

The analogies between the conclusions of the great novels destroy
ipso facto
all

interpretations that minimize their importance. There is a single phenomenon and it must be

accounted for by one principle.

The unity of novelistic conclusions consists in the renunciation of metaphysical desire. The

dying hero repudiates his mediator: "I am the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and of all the infinite

battalions of his kind. . . . Today, through God's mercy, having been made wise at my own

expense, I loathe them."

Repudiation of the mediator implies renunciation of divinity, and this means renouncing

pride. The physical diminution of the hero both expresses and conceals the defeat of pride.

One sentence with a double meaning in
The Red and the Black
expresses beautifully the link

between death and liberation, between the guillotine and the break with the mediator: "What

do
Others
matter to me," exclaims Julien Sorel, "my relations with others are going to be abruptly cut off."

In renouncing divinity the hero renounces slavery. Every level of his existence is inverted, all

the effects of metaphysical desire are replaced by contrary effects. Deception gives way to

truth, anguish to remembrance, agitation to repose, hatred to love, humiliation to humility,

mediated desire to autonomy, deviated transcendency to vertical transcendency.

This time it is not a false but a genuine conversion. The hero triumphs in defeat; he triumphs

because he is at the end of his resources; for the first time he has to look his despair and his

nothingness in the face. But this look which he has dreaded, which is the death of pride, is his

salvation. The conclusions of all the novels are reminiscent of an oriental tale in which the

hero is clinging by his finger-tips to the edge of a cliff; exhausted, the hero finally lets

himself fall into the abyss. He expects to smash against the rocks below but instead he is

supported by the air: the law of gravity is annulled.

All novelistic conclusions are conversions; it is impossible to doubt this. But can one go further? Can one maintain that all these conversions have the same meaning? Two