J.M.G. Le Clézio

[Stewart]

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Cl?zio, or J.M.G. Le Cl?zio (born 13 April 1940 in Nice) is a French novelist and Prix Renaudot winner and the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature Laureate.

A great traveler, J.M.G. Le Cl?zio has been writing since age seven or eight. After majoring in French literature, he became famous at 23 with his first novel, Le Proc?s-Verbal (The Deposition), which was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt and for which he was awarded the Prix Renaudot in 1963.

Since then he has published about thirty books, including short stories, novels, essays, two translations on the subject of Indian mythology, countless prefaces and reviews as well as a few contributions to collective publications.
His writing career may be divided into two main periods:


From 1963 to 1975, Le Cl?zio explored themes like insanity, language, writing, devoting himself to formal experimentation in the wake of such contemporaries as Georges Perec or Michel Butor. Le Cl?zio's public image was that of an innovator and a rebel, drawing praise from Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze.



In the late 1970s, Le Cl?zio's style underwent a drastic change; he abandoned experimentation and the mood of his novels became less tormented as he broached themes like childhood, adolescence or traveling, attracting a broader, more popular audience. In 1980, Le Cl?zio was the first winner of the newly created Prix Paul Morand, awarded to D?sert by the Acad?mie fran?aise.

In 1994 a survey conducted by the French literary magazine Lire showed that 13% of the readers considered him to be the greatest living French language writer.

RELATED THREADS


Fever (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/10881-j-m-g-le-clezio-fever.html)
Terra Amata (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/5691-jmg-le-clezio-terra-amata.html)
The Giants (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/10882-j-m-g-le-clezio-giants.html)
Desert (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/10571-j-m-g-le-clezio-desert.html)
Onitsha (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/5953-j-m-g-le-clezio-onitsha.html)

RELATED LINKS


Jean-Marie Gustave Le Cl?zio on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Gustave_Le_Cl%C3%A9zio)

[Mirabell]

"author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization"

[Mirabell]

this, from wiki, doesn't sound bad tho


From 1963 to 1975, Le Cl?zio explored themes like insanity, language, writing, devoting himself to formal experimentation in the wake of such contemporaries as Georges Perec (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Perec) or Michel Butor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Butor). Le Cl?zio's public image was that of an innovator and a rebel, drawing praise from Michel Foucault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault) and Gilles Deleuze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze).

[Stewart]

From the Swedish Academy site, there's a link to a biography and bibliography (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2008/bio-bibl.html). Here's the works translated to English:

Works in English

The Interrogation / translated from the French by Daphne Woodward. ? New York : Atheneum, 1964. ? Translation of Le proc?s-verbal
Fever / translated from the French by Daphne Woodward. ? New York : Atheneum, 1966. ? Translation of La fi?vre The Flood / translated from the French by Peter Green. ? London : H. Hamilton, 1967. ? Translation of Le d?luge
Terra Amata / translated from the French by Barbara Bray. ? London : Hamilton, 1969 ; New York : Atheneum, 1969. ? Translation of Terra amata
The Book of Flights : an Adventure Story / translated from the French by Simon Watson Taylor. ? London : Cape, 1971 ; New York : Atheneum, 1972. ? Translation of Le livre des fuites
War / translated from the French by Simon Watson Taylor. ? London : Cape, 1973 ; New York : Atheneum, 1973. ? Translation of La guerre
The Giants / translated from the French by Simon Watson Taylor. ? London : Cape, 1975 ; New York : Atheneum, 1975. ? Translation of Les g?ants
The Mexican Dream, or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations / translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. ? Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1993. ? Translation of Le r?ve mexicain ou la pens?e interrompue
The Prospector / translated from the French by Carol Marks. ? Boston : David R. Godine, 1993. ? Translation of Le chercheur d'or Onitsha / translated by Alison Anderson. ? Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 1997. ? Translation of Onitsha
The Round & Other Cold Hard Facts = La ronde et autres faits divers/ translated by C. Dickson. ? Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2002. ? Translation of La ronde et autres faits divers
Wandering Star : a Novel / translated by C. Dickson. ? Willimantic, CT : Curbstone Press, 2004. ? Translation of ?toile errante

There's a list of works translated to Swedish and German too.

[Eric]

I note Stewart's list of works available in English. Before I saw it, I wrote on the Nobel thread:


I first heard his name decades ago, but I've never read anything by him, nor have I got any real idea about what kind of novels he writes. He's a blank to me.

The Wikipedia article in English has a great number of stub entries for his works for which no one has, in effect, written a description. (Those are the entries in red.)

I think he's well enough known in French circles, but it would be interesting to know how many of his works have been translated into English already - and widely read - before the Nobel hype kicks in. So far, I've spotted the names of translators Carol Marks, Barbara Bray, Teresa Lavender, and Alison Anderson. Which means that at least four books must have appeared in English. Probably a lot more.

One article on translating him at:

Translating J. M. G. Le Cl?zio (http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LtnDvdbzsB2qPP3QjjW6C SDvLN21rDfnBv7hmW7n5TRZxyNJh74r!100651226?docId=81 015260)

He has had a remarkable number of different translators. Seven, unless some of the women have changed their names by marriage or otherwise.

http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/images/misc/progress.gif

[saliotthomas]

I read Desert a long time ago.It left me with the memorie of a beautiful prose but this is very vague.I shall get a few of his this afternoon.He is a favorite of my father,who will be delighted by the news.

Edit:On a more personnal note the man is very nice,it a real pleasure for him.His discretion and modesty will be put to the test now.

here is what he look like
http://www.pileface.com/sollers/IMG/jpg/Le_Clezio_300x383.jpg

[Stewart]

Once again the Literary Saloon does all the hard work so we don't have to. This time, it's

To try to help you get a better idea of what kind of a writer Jean-Marie Gustave Le Cl?zio is, we've rounded up quotes from the (English) reviews of a few of his books. Far from comprehensive -- he was widely reviewed in the 1960s and 70s -- but it's worth noting that the recently translated texts have hardly gotten any review-coverage in US or UK newspapers and non-trade magazines.You can read them here (http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/200810a.htm#hi6).

[Mirabell]

Got me Mondo et autres histoires. We'll see what he's all about.

[Bjorn]

I got a hold of Terra Amata at the library and pretty much finished it in one sitting. I've got about 30 pages to go, but unless something very bad happens, I'm quite impressed. My initial reaction is Perec meets Lispector.

[saliotthomas]

I got Mondo,le proc?s verbal and and le chercheur d'or.I manage few pages of Mondo at lunch and loved it.

[Stewart]

This is certainly encouraging, to hear good things about him.

[Patrick Murtha]

From the Swedish Academy site, there's a link to a biography and bibliography (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2008/bio-bibl.html). Here's the works translated to English:



Works in English

The Interrogation / translated from the French by Daphne Woodward. – New York : Atheneum, 1964. – Translation of Le proc?s-verbal
Fever / translated from the French by Daphne Woodward. – New York : Atheneum, 1966. – Translation of La fi?vre The Flood / translated from the French by Peter Green. – London : H. Hamilton, 1967. – Translation of Le d?luge
Terra Amata / translated from the French by Barbara Bray. – London : Hamilton, 1969 ; New York : Atheneum, 1969. – Translation of Terra amata
The Book of Flights : an Adventure Story / translated from the French by Simon Watson Taylor. – London : Cape, 1971 ; New York : Atheneum, 1972. – Translation of Le livre des fuites
War / translated from the French by Simon Watson Taylor. – London : Cape, 1973 ; New York : Atheneum, 1973. – Translation of La guerre
The Giants / translated from the French by Simon Watson Taylor. – London : Cape, 1975 ; New York : Atheneum, 1975. – Translation of Les g?ants
The Mexican Dream, or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations / translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. – Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1993. – Translation of Le r?ve mexicain ou la pens?e interrompue
The Prospector / translated from the French by Carol Marks. – Boston : David R. Godine, 1993. – Translation of Le chercheur d'or Onitsha / translated by Alison Anderson. – Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 1997. – Translation of Onitsha
The Round & Other Cold Hard Facts = La ronde et autres faits divers/ translated by C. Dickson. – Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2002. – Translation of La ronde et autres faits divers
Wandering Star : a Novel / translated by C. Dickson. – Willimantic, CT : Curbstone Press, 2004. – Translation of ?toile errante
There's a list of works translated to Swedish and German too.

Twelve books; that's quite a few, even though he seems to have flown under a lot of people's radar. I wonder how many contemporary French novelists have had more books translated into English? -- not many, surely.

There is also a foreword by Le Clezio to a pictorial book published in English called In the Eye of the Sun: Mexican Fiestas, and there is a short story by him in a 1969 collection edited by John Simon called Fourteen for Now. Maybe because I discovered the Simon collection as a teen, and my local public library had most of the Le Clezio novels issued in English in the 1960s and early 1970s, he has always seemed pretty famous to me.

[Eric]

I think that Saliothomas (#6) is kidding himself as to what Le Cl?zio looks like. That's what he looked like about 30 years ago. Now he looks more like this:

http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/stories/thumb250x00/mediastore/VDN/France_Monde/A2008/M10/jmg-le-clezio.jpg

We all get a bit older every day, especially when born in 1940.

He appears to be a citizen of the world, a nomad of sorts. From what I read in the paper this morning, he was born in Nice and lived in Thailand, Panama, and Mexico. Taught at Albuquerque (USA) university after studying at Bristol and UCL (UK). Many trips to Africa. Admires Conrad, Verne, Keats, Stevenson, Hemingway, Joyce, Salinger and Borges. Father British; has Breton and Mauritian ancestry on his mother's side.

He is against Western materialism. So I wonder who he's going to give the prize money to. He's the fourteenth French winner of the Nobel for literature.

Anyhow, it's good to see that quite a few of his books are available in English, so that we really do have access to a significant number, should we want to see whether he is our cup of tea. Also a list in Swedish is welcome for me personally.

Bj?rn: Perec meets Lispector! I cannot imagine. But it sounds interesting, if put like that.

[Eric]

I read several articles in Le Figaro and De Standaard about him on Friday afernoon, and he looks like one of the most appropriate authors that the Nobel people have chosen for several years: balanced, humane and thoughtful.

Looking forward to reading something by him.

[Eric]

More on Le Cl?zio from the BBC website:

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | And the winner is... who? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7677013.stm)

Quote from the above:



His name is largely unknown in Britain and the United States, but the recipient of the most feted prize in literature has much he could tell them about their lives today, says Lisa Jardine.

The announcement last week that JMG Le Cl?zio is this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature was greeted with a predictable chorus of indignation by the Anglophone media. "Le Cl?zio: Who's he?" shouted the headline in the Los Angeles Times. "I've never read his books.

So if he's unknown in the UK and USA, he doesn't count?

[Jayaprakash]

I am reading his novel, Onitsha at present (in translation, of course). If he normally writes at this level, the prize is well deserved, whether or not he's well known in the Anglophone world.

[Heteronym]

In the London Evening Standard, David Sexton was outraged at the thought that the Nobel Prize had gone to an author who is largely out of print in English. Le Clezio's work, Sexton had discovered, is barely available to non-French speakers: "Why can't I read books by a Nobel Frenchman?"


I don't know, Mr. Sexton; maybe good writers just have a difficulty selling in the country that turned J.K. Rawlings rich, so publishers give up on them.

[Bjorn]

Finished Raga. Nice little book, if not indispensible; the older Le Cl?zio is certainly a lot more... sober than his younger self, which has both its up- and downsides. Review to come.

[Stewart]

There's a Le Cl?zio short story in the New Yorker, but it's only available in the print edition.

In other news, got to love this stupid mistake by Sarah Brealey in the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3235232/Nobel-Literature-Prize-codenames-revealed.html), writing about the childish names used by Swedish Academy:

The judges avoid naming the writers during their deliberations, instead choosing bizarre titles including "Little Dorrit" for the author Doris Lessing, and "Harry Potter" for the playwright Harold Pinter.



This year's winner of the literature prize, French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, was praised for his "new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization". But his codename was Chateaubriand - a gourmet dish of fillet steak cut from the tenderloin.

A gourmet dish of fillet steak cut from the tenderloing, you say? Not the French writer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateaubriand) who gave his name to that steak?

[Stewart]

Looks like Le Cl?zio is coming to UK book stores near (or not, as the case may be) you. Six titles, divvied up between Penguin and Random House. Three straight into Penguin's Modern Classics range, the other three into Random House's Vintage range. These are:

Penguin Modern Classics


Fever
Terra Amata
The Flood

Vintage


War
The Giants
The Book Of Flights

There may possibly be a fourth from Penguin (The Interrogators) but the cover shown looks like the 1960s Penguin look, even if the release date (and for the rest of the titles above) is 27th November 2008, according their details on Amazon.

[Funhouse]

I've been reading War and I just finished his non-fiction work The Mexican Dream, and I can't say that I'm super impressed. War, from about 1970, hasn't aged very well, and has a slightly hysterical tone to it. I'm not sure how much to attribute to the translator (Simon Watson Taylor), but JMG does seem to have a nice turn of phrase - it just gets old quickly when there are no real characters as such, just two ciphers: Bea B. and Monsieur X. There's a somewhat misanthropic feel to the work, or perhaps anti-modern civilisation, that is in tune with his later The Mexican Dream in which he somewhat over-valourises the Aztecs and Mayans while rightly recognising their amazing achievements. His apparent message in War, that consumerism has become a new religion just strikes me as a little trite.

[Banoo]

I'm almost finished with The Giants and it has turned out to be one of the most engaging books I've read in the past few years. Will write more about it next week. The language is magical. There's little plot to speak of and the 3 or so characters are sketchy. But his voice, his style, grabs and will not let go. When a book creeps into my dreams and refuses to leave my daily thoughts, it has to be special. That is The Giants. I'll be eagerly looking for more of his books probably preferring to stick to his earlier works for now.

[Eric]

Well, we've got some pretty contrastifying reports on various books by Le Cl?zio. Is he a misanthropist, or a philanthropist?

I feel I should get round to his works one day, when the Nobel hue and cry has died down.

[Banoo]

Just read 3 of Le Cl?zio's earlier works. I did not read them one after the other. I threw in a bit of T.S Eliot, Roland Topor, and Cees Nooteboom in between, but what is probably evident from the tone of my reviews is that Le Cl?zio's words started to get a bit irratating. He is a master with words, no doubt about that; but I would recommend taking in those words in small doses. Yesterday I was in a book store and found 2 more of his books. I picked them up and was about to check out but changed my mind and put them back on the shelf. I'm taking a Le Cl?zio break... back to Kawabata and peace.

http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/10882-j-m-g-le-clezio-giants.html
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/5691-j-m-g-le-clezio-terra-amata.html
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/10881-j-m-g-le-clezio-fever.html

[nnyhav]

Matt McGregor considers The Book of the Flights (http://therumpus.net/2009/06/jmg-le-clezios-the-book-of-the-flights/):

If it has a plot, then The Book of Flights is about Young Man Hogan and his flights across the landscape, through cities and towns. One night, he sleeps with a prostitute. In another scene, he watches a small boy play the flute. He wanders through the desert, towards a receding set of mountains. He notices, in a generic city, the excess of cars and electric signs: “The whole lot talked at once, emitted mute cries, underlined, exhibited, spat. There was no peace. One was inside an erupting volcano, caught up in the gouts of magma, or in the centre of an electric storm.”
But to pretend to sum up The Book of Flights with these small, barely connected scenes—these insincere fragments of plot—is obviously misleading. The better part of the novel is made up of the narrator’s intermittent rants, his novelistic licks of fury and disgust which interrupt Young Man Hogan’s flights. For example, nearly a hundred pages in the reader is given three pages of insults: “Slob! Cocksucker! Chiseller! Fourflusher! … Chippy! Sow! Whoremonger! Liar! Liar! Liar! Etc.!” You might reasonably think, yeah, well, y tu mam? tambi?n J.M.G.; but The Book of Flights, despite all the evidence to the contrary, is not just an extended exercise in reader-hatred and alienation.

[Stiffelio]

He seems to have had a nomadic life and has written books associated with his life experience in all the places he lived in. I read a couple of his African-experience books. "Onitsha" is a fictional evocation of a young French child's trip with his mother to the Nigerian post where his unknown father was posted during the war. Beautifully evocative, lyrical prose, almost transparent. "L'Africain" is a non-fictional companion book to Onitsha. It tells the real story of Le Cl?zio's father in Cameroun and Nigerian. I'm not sure is Le Cl?zio is a Nobel caliber writer but he's certainly very entertaining to read. I am now looking forward to read "Le Chercheur d'Or", a story based in Mauritius.

[Daniel del Real]

Has anyone read Quarantine? I have it in my shelf but I'm not sure to start reading it now. Although a good comment could encourage me to take it...:rolleyes:

[liehtzu]

Matt McGregor considers The Book of the Flights (http://therumpus.net/2009/06/jmg-le-clezios-the-book-of-the-flights/):

I, too, liked this Book of Flights. I think McGregor hits the nail on the head, thanks for the link.

[LRiley]

I have reviewed Le Clezio four different times over the course of the last 2-3 years at library thing. Not that they're great reviews but hopefully some might find them helpful.

The Giants:

Edit: The Giants by J. M. G. Le Clezio | LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/work/1437743/edit/4095094)

The round and other cold hard facts:

Edit: The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts by J. M. G. Le Clezio | LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/work/1030689/edit/4166468)

The Interrogation:

Edit: The Interrogation by J. M. G. Le Clezio | LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/work/999186/edit/4260102)

Desert:

Edit: Desert by Jean-Marie Gustave Le Cl?zio | LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/work/407768/edit/48220003)

[Daniel del Real]

I'm a little bit stuck with The Quarantine, good book indeed, but it hasn't finished capturing my attention totally.
This is my third Le Clezio?s book, and I?m still looking which one is his masterpiece. Many people say it?s Desert. Would you agree with them?

[Stiffelio]

I'm a little bit stuck with The Quarantine, good book indeed, but it hasn't finished capturing my attention totally.
This is my third Le Clezio?s book, and I?m still looking which one is his masterpiece. Many people say it?s Desert. Would you agree with them?

Try "Onitsha". It's beautifully written....and it's much shorter than "D?sert" :-)

[LRiley]

I'm a huge fan of his but I'm not sure I would categorize any single one of his books as a masterpiece.

My favorite is The Giants--but I would think that would chase a lot of readers away from reading him again.

Onitsha is excellent. I'd also recommend the short story collection--The round and other cold hard facts--the novels--The prospector and Wandering Star.

[Jayaprakash]

I've since read WANDERING STAR and agree that it is another good one. Weirdly I'm inclined to agree to LRiley's first statement in the post above, although it's early to declare myself a huge fan yet.

[saliotthomas]

I would agree with Stiffelio on his advice to Daniel and i have a feeling he would prefer Onitsha(for the setting of the story maybe).I like the Desert and much more since a while as pass after my reading,few thing bothered me while reading than have less importance now.
The short stories i read were Mondo and other stories,and it was very good.
His onirique style was easier for meto grasp when on a short span.

[LRiley]

I've since read WANDERING STAR and agree that it is another good one. Weirdly I'm inclined to agree to LRiley's first statement in the post above, although it's early to declare myself a huge fan yet.

It seems weird as well to me--at the same time I think he was very deserving of the Nobel.

[Daniel del Real]

Thanks a lot for your recommendations. Onitsha will be my next stop in to Le Clezio's station. It may take a few months, but I'll be back. He's an author that although I'm not loving him yet, I'm still curious about his works.