The book Claude Simon chronophotographe ou les onomatopées du
temps by Aymeric Glacet reaffirms, but from a new perspective, the role played by photography in the representation of Simonian time. It was not by coincidence that the preface to Photographies 1937 - 1970
(Photographs 1937 - 1970) was written by Denis Roche (Roche 1992; see also Roche 1978, 1982, 1985, 1988, 1991, 2007, Allemand and
Mora, 2001). For not only did Simon take a very keen interest in this art before and even after devoting himself to writing, but he was also prone to declare, as a novelist: "Thanks to [photography], we capture the instantaneous, this slice in time. I do not so much see things in movement, but rather a succession of fixed images. Add to that a particularity… of my vision: images remain for a long time on my retina" (Simon, 1967). Glacet's interest in chronophotography is thus completely justified, the "production… of images taken at precisely measured intervals, and which permits, from a single snapshot, the analysis of movement by successive photographs," providing to the writer "the technique indispensable to his writing, to the development of his work as well as to the organization of his themes." Pleasantly intrigued, although not surprised, by these initial remarks, the reader is duly informed of the effects that ripple outward from this technique even into "the heart of the novelistic project," which touch on
"questions as varied as those concerning the concept of the origin, autobiography, and the representation of the world." Up to this point, there is nothing earth-shaking or even remarkably new in these implications, but then it comes time to conscientiously open the book, leaf through it a bit, peruse the bibliography, scan the introduction, the preface, consult the summary. Suddenly, the reader is struck by the elliptical and iconoclastic chapter headings; his attention is fixed.
This is serious business.
The forward, "Click-Clack," immediately sets the tone, evoking the novelist's hobby, his collection of onomatopoeic words, and the musical echos generated by Glacet's uncovering of Simon's language.
The critic gets things rolling with a delightful provocation: "Certainly, the question of time, in the work of Claude Simon, has been the subject of much study, but which has relied largely on such heavy and awkward concepts and notions as those of History, Memory, and Life
Experience. Critics have simply neglected to recognize that this writing is also a profoundly material one, a tangible writing with surprising sonorous qualities" (11). An iconoclast, I said to myself, but

of the best sort, since his audacity is in the service of a true project, whose declared modesty is undoubtedly not (entirely) feigned: "… it is not so much the theme or motif of photography that is to be investigated, as the work considered instead as an enormous camera with all the complications that this metaphor immediately engenders… Thus the excuse that this book gives for its addition to an already-crowded field, its only excuse, is not only that it compares these two questions of time and photography, but that it also forces them together so that they form an object in its own right. Another box, in so many words, a strange box which has never yet been opened because the sound emerging from it makes one fear the worst" (p. 13). Does Roche not speak of a "box of melancholy"?
(Roche 1999).
Each of the six chapters that follow is composed of twelve sections, identified, naturally, by roman numerals. An implicit reference to the months of the year perhaps? Surely a transparent allusion to the face of an analog clock. "The Clockmaker of Salses" and "Measure of the hour" confirm it, which deal respectively with the predominance and vividness of carillons and mechanisms in the novels of Simon, and with the obsession of an impossible mastery of these gears or, in other terms, with the great roll of existential film that crushes all before it.
"Simon and his box" and "Claude Simon Chronophotographer" are, as for them, placed under the macabre signs of the father and the mother, respectively. Here, then, is the box: a coffin, with a false bottom. Literature as a tomb, sometimes the cenotaph of an absence, sometimes the vessel of a decomposing past (see Simon 1990). "Ah!
What a terrible five o'clock in the evening…" and "Except
Pornography" constitute the last diptych, which associates, on one hand, the self-referential monograms S and 5, and on the other,
(meta)physics and Peripatetic eroticism. From Simon Except to the
Pentateuch, in sum; from the original Fall to the temptations of an
Aristotelianism in all but name.
As we see, the originality of this work does not really derive from the themes it engages; Glacet, for example, does not neglect passages generally considered essential: Chronos and photos, Eros and
Thanatos, psychoanalysis and castration, etc. But he touches lightly on them with an elegance and a virtuosity that leave one astonished, without ever forgetting the thread of his discussion and without

losing anything of its substance. All intention is in vain if it is not executed: this is indeed a reproach that cannot be addressed to
Glacet. It is true that his talent can occasionally leave one perplexed, that his vast culture, encompassing even that of classical antiquity, and his long strides from one area of research to the other can be disorienting, that the epigraphs which lack references can give the impression of a brilliance which must necessarily be superficial. Such is not the case. Glacet's work on Simon's poetics is of foremost importance, but it demands readers who are particularly learned, capable of bridging different disciplines, and who have been freed from the shackles of excessively strict methodology.
The humor, irreverence, and even the impertinence of his phrasing inspire us to step back and look at even the most canonical literary criticism from a larger perspective, and thus, to explore by ourselves the multiple avenues of contemplation opened by this critic. His principle merit is in giving flesh to a writer whom we have over time tended to treat as disembodied, or whose works we have filed away under the literature of suffering. For there is also pleasure in the practice of literature, and Claude Simon is no stranger to it. In the majority of the photographic portraits taken of him, we can euphemistically note that we see hardly a broad smile among them.
Aymeric Glacet returns Simon's smile to him – unless it is his own that he lends him? – reminding us thus that among the novelist's favorite portraitists of various kinds (photographic, literary and other) (see Simon 1990), are humanists who know how to laugh, if only in private. I laugh, then, along with all those who have already read this book. Like Sardon, obviously. Like Rabelais, of course.
Review by: Roger-Michel Allemand