The beautiful Hortense

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The beautiful Hortense is a novel by Jacques Roubaud thatappearedin Paris in1985.

It is the first of three novels that are about the heroine Hortense. The kidnapping of the Hortense was published in 1987, followed by The Exile of the Beautiful Hortense in 1990 . It is a detective novel in which it is on the one hand about the secret of the Poldevian cat Alexandre Vladimirovitch and the seduction of the Hortense by the Poldevian Prince Morgan, but on the other hand it is about the "horror of the household goods dealers". Originally, Roubaud had planned a cycle of six volumes of novels, which can be traced back to his preference for certain numbers, which also appear again and again in his works.

In the novel, individual contraintes (restriction, compulsion) become clear that are typical of the Oulipo group , of which Jacques Roubaud belonged. By playing with numbers, letters and narrative instances, Roubaud integrates the reader into his novel and thus into the crime story that takes place in the plot.

Table of contents

This first novel in the Hortense cycle stages various intrigues associated in different ways with the appearance of a princely cat of Poldev origin by the name of Alexandre Vladimirovitch. On the one hand, the seduction of the beautiful heroine Hortense by the Poldevian Prince Morgan, who, as it turns out in the course of the novel, steals and betrays her in a deceitful manner, and the love story between Alexandre and Tioutcha, a little Russian cat, which is described in intermediate chapters, for the Professor Orsells "works". On the other hand, the story of the mysterious criminal “The horror of the household goods dealer”, who for the thirty-sixth time, at first without a sound, ravaged a household goods store in the district in order to steal a Poldevian statue. He announces every robbery with a drawing of a peeing man, which is 53 paces away from the respective shop on a wall, and he ends the crime with the noise of 53 pots falling in a spiral.

The case is handled by Inspector Blognard, whom the narrator G. Mornacier comes to the aid. A suspect is arrested, but the solution to the riddle appears to have been transformed by the cat Alexandre. With the help of some of the neighborhood residents, Hortense is able to break free from Morgan and marry the narrator. A few months later, however, another criminal is wreaking havoc in the neighborhood's cleaning shops.

Text analysis

teller

The role of the narrator is occupied several times, even if Mornacier is announced as the actual narrator by the text-internal author. The presence of several narrators is necessary in order to be able to view the plot from different positions. However, Mornacier is the only narrator who is aware of his role in the story and also knows that he is a fictional character created by the author. Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, he often tries to oppose the text's internal author. There are frequent arguments between the author and the narrator, with the author constantly trying to prove his superiority. He mostly succeeds in this by showing off his omniscience and his influence on the action. Mornacier always has to refer to other characters as sources of knowledge, whereas the author does not need to. Furthermore, the narrator is constantly interrupted by the author as soon as he strays too far from the topic in his opinion. Ultimately, the author proves his power over the story by pairing the narrator, who is actually in love with Hortense, with a young Poldevin.

The change of levels

The crossing of the boundaries between the real and the fictional world or between several narrative levels, known as metalepse , leads to comical situations in Die Schöne Hortense . The author interferes in the action and vice versa, the narrator complains to the author. This change between the real and fictional levels destroys the reader's illusion and creates playful, parodic effects. The dispute between the author, publisher, narrator and even the (intra-fictional) reader has an amusing effect and the real reader has difficulty telling the difference between reality and fiction.

The figures

Since the entire action takes place in the district of Hortense, the characters know each other. The only person who is new to the action is Morgan (Gormanskoi). The main characters of the novel are:

Hortense

Heroine of the novel. She is a young student who draws everyone's attention with her appearance. She falls in love with Morgan, who betrays her.

Alexandre

Poldevian tomcat. He is found and looked after by the shopkeeper Mme Eusèbe. He notices important clues about the criminal case in the neighborhood early on and interferes with it not insignificantly. He is in love with Professor Orsell's cat, Tioutcha.

Inspector Blognard

Inspector dealing with crime in the neighborhood. However, he is not very successful in his investigation. As a result, he ends up being forced to arrest a suspect with no clear evidence.

Arapède

Assistant to the inspector.

Morgan / Gormanskoi

Poldevian Prince. He suddenly appears in the neighborhood, falls in love with Hortense and seduces her. Due to his unforeseen appearance and his suspicious behavior, he is quickly suspected by the reader as the perpetrator.

G. Mornacier

Journalist and narrator. He tries to help the inspector with important information in solving the criminal case. For example, he discovers the drawing on the walls and discovers that the perpetrator is carrying out his attacks in a spiral towards the center of the district. He falls in love with Hortense and ends up marrying her.

M. Orsells

Philosophy professor who supervises Hortense on her thesis. In the end he is arrested as a suspect by Inspector Blognard.

Places of action

The entire action takes place in the district of Hortense. Even if it's not clearly mentioned, the reader is quick to guess that the neighborhood is in Paris. This can be traced back to individual locations that can be associated with Parisian street and square names. Examples: Rue des Citoyens - Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, Place des Ardennes - Place des Voges, Boulevard Marivaux - Boulevard Beaumarchais etc.

The time structure

There is no clear time in the novel. The only thing the reader learns about time is that the story begins on a summer day in September. The plot is written in the past.

The narrative time, i.e. the time of narration, is predominantly the same as the narrated time, the time of the story. In some cases, however, there are gaps in the text ( ellipses ) in which the narrated time continues, but the author considers it to be insignificant for the story to be told. He uses the opportunity to describe people or places in more detail.

The chronological order of history is often broken. Most of the time, the author resorts to an earlier event in order to describe people in more detail or to explain to the reader how certain events could come about. Sometimes there are even intermediate chapters that seem to tell a completely different story, namely that of Alexandre Vladimirovich and Tioutcha, who fall in love with each other. The connection remains doubtful to the reader. The author uses an intermediate chapter to ask the reader questions about the plot. With this he wants to put him back on the right track and stimulate him to think. The reader is thereby integrated into the story. He is supposed to clear up the crime.

interpretation

An Oulipist novel

The OuLiPo group is an association of poets around Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais, founded in 1960 , whose playful, combinatorial text production is based on mathematical orders. They use mathematics to test poetic possibilities. Since Roubaud also belonged to this group, it can be assumed that he also used typical Oulipist means in The beautiful Hortense . However, since he has not published any “reading instructions” for the novel and there are no references to typical Oulipist contraintes in the foreword or afterword, the reader has to find out and evaluate the playful formal constraints on his own.

As a child, Jacques Roubaud had a great passion for numbers and counting. Numbers have a symbolic meaning for him and he connects them with personal events. This fascination can be seen in many of his works. In Die Schöne Hortense , too, the game with numbers quickly becomes clear if you read carefully. Roubaud uses the number here as a structuring element. The numbers 6, 53, 36 and 366 appear conspicuously frequently in the novel and thereby attract the attention of the reader who is trying to find out the system that could be hidden behind it.

The composition of the novel Die Schöne Hortense is based on the sextine . This form of poetry, which goes back to the troubadour Arnaut Daniel , is closely related to the mathematical terms of permutation and the spiral. For Roubaud, the sextine thus links mathematics with poetry. In the text, spiral transformations of six elements are repeatedly described, such as in the case of the succession of the six Poldevian princes. The omnipresence of spirals and snails as well as the frequent appearance of the number six and its multiples can be seen as further indications.

The beautiful Hortense as a detective novel

Schöne Hortense contains many of the literary features of the classic crime novel, but Roubaud playfully transforms the conventional genre. Above all, at the end of the novel there is no unequivocal resolution of the case, because it is obvious to the reader that Inspector Blognard and the philosopher Orsells convicted the wrong perpetrator. The transformation of the text, known as a parody , in which the style of the writing remains the same but the content is changed, is strengthened by the effective presence of individual text sections from Georges Simenon's Les mémoires de Maigret , which Roubaud reproduces in a deformed way. The reader is made aware of the reference to another text by the fact that the heading of Chapter 6 clearly sets it apart from the others. He draws the reader's attention to the parody, whose interest is now directed to the primary, parodied text. The Maigret novels are well-known examples of crime fiction. Most of the time they have the classic plot structure that is typical for crime novels. The crime has already been committed, the perpetrator is unknown and the detective clarifies the course of the crime through extraordinary talent for combination and identifies the perpetrator. This stereotypical structure lends itself very well to imitation and distortion. It could be assumed that Roubaud wanted to deliberately differentiate his works from classification in this literary genre through the effective presence of the text and the reworking of classic plot elements of the detective novel. However, it should be noted that the parodied Maigret novel stands out from the others and has rather atypical characteristics.

literature

Text output

  • The beautiful Hortense , German by Eugen Helmlé, Munich: Hanser 1989
  • La Belle Hortense , Roubaud, Jacques. Paris, Points, 1985

Secondary literature

  • Elisabeth Lavault, Jacques Roubaud: Contrainte et Mémoire dans les romans d'Hortense . Dijon, Editions Universitaires, 2004
  • Christophe Reig, Mimer, miner, rimer: le cycle romanesque de Jacques Roubaud : "La belle Hortense", "L'enlevement d'Hortense" et "L'exil d'Hortense". Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2006
  • Elvira Laskowski-Caujolle: The Power of Four: From the Pythagorean number to the modern mathematical concept of structure in Jacques Roubaud's oulipotic story La princesse Hoppy ou le conte du Labrador , Peter Lang / Arteffekt, 1999
  • Arno Schmidt: Life in the Work , ed. v. Guido Graf; Publishing house Königshausen und Neumann GmbH, Würzburg, 1998
  • Ludger Scherer, Avant Garde and Komik , Editions Rodopi BV, Amsterdam - New York, NY 2004

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ludger Scherer: Avant Garde and Comedy. Rodopi, Amsterdam and New York 2004, p. 326.
  2. ^ Journal for French Literature, Volume 117–118, Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz, commissioned by F. Steiner, 2007.
  3. ^ Arno Schmidt: Life in the work, ed. v. Guido Graf; Publishing house Königshausen und Neumann GmbH, Würzburg 1998.
  4. ↑ Elvira Laskowski-Caujolle: The power of four: From the Pythagorean number to the modern mathematical concept of structure in Jacques Roubaud's oulipotic story La princesse Hoppy ou le conte du Labrador . Peter Lang / Artifact, 1999. p. 55.
  5. ↑ Elvira Laskowski-Caujolle: The power of four: From the Pythagorean number to the modern mathematical concept of structure in Jacques Roubaud's oulipotic story La princesse Hoppy ou le conte du Labrador , Peter Lang / Arteffekt, 1999; P. 164.