French Literature Reviews - 2026
Alexandre Vialatte, through the Mirror of the Imaginary
Novel and Narrative Prose
ALEXANDRE VIALATTE, THROUGH THE MIRROR OF THE IMAGINARY
Texts compiled and introduced by Dany HADJADJ and Christian MONCELET
Why look to distant fictions to unfold before our eyes that Oriental carpet which reality spreads right at our feet? It is enough to look out the window; it opens onto Wonderland. Not everyone is capable of seeing this *sui generis* marvel at first glance! Fortunately for humanity, artists allow us to adopt their gaze and make their amused and/or anxious wonder our own. The same holds true for discerning readers who renew our appreciation of books—in this case, those of Vialatte: novelist, short story writer, translator, and columnist writing about everything and even nothing.
The imaginary serves here as a unifying theme to approach various aspects of Vialatte's work. The author is studied in his own right and, where appropriate, in relation to other creators (Hugo, Laforgue, Mac Orlan, Dhôtel, Giraudoux). The collection offers the rich diversity of a great cabinet of curiosities, combined with the rigor of scholarly pursuit. How else could the humor and pathos of a Pierrot in Harlequin's clothing be rendered fully legible, or ensure that airy depth loses nothing of its existential and aesthetic dimension?
In the words *marvels*, *miracles*, and *mirror*, the root *mir* shines through. What could be more marvelous than Auvergne, the 13th arrondissement of Paris, gardens, China, or the bat that resembles Madame de Pompadour? What could be more wondrous than the scoubidou, images that are less innocent than they appear, Dubuffet's cows, or Brancusi's seal? What could be more subtly astonishing than the effects of narrative specularity? What could be more wonderful than all of this? You can guess it in a thousand ways—or rather, through a thousand and one occasions to laugh and be moved: words themselves, those of Vialatte certainly and, hopefully, those of his commentators, whether seasoned veterans or newcomers.
Littératures Series
SEPTEMBER 2003
474 pages
ISBN 2-84516-220-0
35
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Christian MONCELET Foreword
Spaces and Species
Pierre JOURDE Absolute Auvergne, or the Folklore of Nowhere
Marie-Hélène RAYNAUD The Gardens of Alexandria
Georges THERRE Alexandre Vialatte, 20th-Century Marco Polo
Xavier dALMEIDA The Setting of the Chronicles
Alain MONTANDON The Bestiary of a Buffoonish Buffon
Michel RENAUD Scoubidous, Vistemboirs, and Trinkets: The Unusual Object in Vialatte's Imaginary
Jean-Claude BRUN Living on Images
Pascal SIGODA Images, Advertisements, and Commerce in Vialatte's Work
François BÉAL An Essay in Vialattian Ophthalmology
The Imaginary and the Novel
Robert PICKERING The Occupied Imaginary of Le Fidèle Berger (1942)
Dany HADJADJ Women's Dreams: The Elaboration of Female "Mythologies" in Alexandre Vialatte's Novelistic Universe
Angélique ROUSSEAU "Poetry" in Les Fruits du Congo
Denise LAXENAIRE Illusion in Les Fruits du Congo
Anne CLANCIER La Dame du Job, Secrets and Mirages
Dreams / Encounters
André DESTHOMAS Vialatte's Perspective on the Artists of His Time
Delphine HAUTOIS Jean Dubuffet's Plastic Art through the Mirror of Alexandre Vialatte's Imaginary
Philippe ZARD Vialatte as a Reader of Kafka
Catherine DESBOIS The Vocabulary of the Imaginary in Vialatte's Translations of Kafka
Agnès SPIQUEL Did You Say "Old Hag"? Vialatte's Hugo
Alain SCHAFFNER Vialatte, Laforgue, and the Aesthetics of the Lament
Martine BOYER-WEINMANN From the "Mac Orlan Taste" to the "Vialatte Taste": Mirror Aesthetics
Sylviane COYAULT Vialatte the Pathetic
Pierre dALMEIDA The Tenebrous and the Pathetic
Philippe BLONDEAU Vialatte and Dhôtel: Two Versions of the Social Marvelous
Denis WETTERVALD Alexandre Vialatte, the Incisive Critic
Poetics: Forms and Words
Stéphanie SMADJA The Doors of the Imaginary in Alexandre Vialatte's Three Completed Novels
Pierre HYPPOLITE Alexandre Vialatte: Hyper-Realistic Writing?
Bruno CURATOLO Towards a Poetics of Vialattian Chronicle
Benoît AUCLERC Imaginary and Grammar: Vialatte's Problematic Modernity
Christian MONCELET On Certain Words That Inspire Dreams and a Few Others
This collection of critical studies examines the diverse output of Alexandre Vialatte, encompassing his work as a novelist, short story writer, translator, and columnist. The volume is organized around the unifying theme of the imaginary, bringing together scholarly perspectives that analyze Vialatte's literary creations alongside those of other significant writers and artists. Contributors explore various dimensions of his writing, from specific novels such as Le Fidèle Berger and Les Fruits du Congo to broader aesthetic patterns, narrative techniques, and his engagement with visual culture, translation, and contemporary artistic figures of his time.
Arranged across multiple thematic sections, the essays address specific elements of his vocabulary, bestiary, and geographical settings ranging from Auvergne to global spaces. Readers interested in twentieth-century French literature, narrative prose, and the interplay between reality and the marvelous may find this collection relevant to their study of Vialatte's distinctive place in modern letters.