Les Fruits d'Or by Nathalie Sarraute

Les Fruits d'Or Reviews

• 
  Katia N

  Have you ever sit outside cafe on a busy street while people just passing along with different speed and only thing you register is snippets of their conversations without beginning or end. Sometimes a few sentences, sometimes just word. Also visually sometimes you see only a stand alone gesture, or a fragment of a face or the colour of a dress. I once was thinking of doing a study. Just sit like that for a whole day, record those things like a stream and see what come out at the end. But I never came around to do it.
  
  Sarraute way of writing this novel has reminded me about it. I felt being dropped right into the middle of ongoing conversation conducted by a set of the voices. A new set would start while the previous one would fade from our ear. Only difference between what I described earlier and this book is that all of these people discuss the common topic. They all talk about “Golden fruits”. You won’t figure out how many characters are there and barely get who they are. Only thing important is what they say. It is a wonderfully disorienting way of writing that sucks you in and does not let you drop off the bus so to speak.
  
  “Golden fruits” they talk about is a book. The title is unavoidably symbolic. It might be a kind of book which appears soft and pleasant. But when one starts reading it he might “cut his teeth” over the hardness of a metal. Never mind it is gold.
  
  In the novel Sarraute examines a new book as a phenomena. More strictly how a book moves from total obscurity to a sudden hype. How this situation shapes the prevailing opinions. How many people react on the utterances of the perceived authorities and how difficult to be in decent. Sarraute also made me think why it is so often at some stage the discussion about a book moves into discussion of the personal life of the author. She is so effective in showing that the real life of the book could only start when the hype is over.
  
  Wonderful gentle satire, very relevant and intelligently metafictional. The fact that I read the book called “Golden fruits” more that 60 years since it has first appeared has proved her point.
  
• 
  Taghreed Jamal El Deen

  رواية غريبة كُتبت بأسلوب غامض وغير معتاد وصعب نوعاً ما؛ حوار مُجتزأ بلا نقطة بداية أو نهاية، ممتد على طول الصفحات، يدور بين شخصيات غير محددة المعالم، حول رواية بعنوان " ثمار الذهب "، يبدأ غير مفهوماً وينتهي كذلك .. يُستشف منه اختلاف الناس في تقييمهم للأمور والطريقة التي يكونون بها آرائهم، والمؤثرات التي تقف وراء هذه الآراء، والدوافع وراء إخفاءها أو التصريح بها، هذا ما التقتطه منها بالمختصر.
  
  لا أستطيع إخفاء أنني قد أعجبت بها لشيء لا أعرف ماهيّته، لكني بالتأكيد لم أفهمها.
• 
  Edita

  
  Štai taip ir atsitiko, kad knygas, kurios iš esmės buvo tuščios, kiekvienas stengėsi kuo nors pripildyti...Patys jautriausi, patys protingiausi žmonės krovė į jas — ir kaip dosniai! — visus savo turtus... nedidelėje jų apimtyje įžvelgdavo subtilų žavesį... Jų neaiškume atskleisdavo dievai žino kokią prasmę... o paskui tos knygos tarsi subliukšdavo ... sunku buvo atlaikyti tokį svorį... jos grįždavo į savo pirminį būvį, susitraukdavo į tai, kas buvo iš tikrųjų: tuščios... neaiškios... prastos... banalios... aogailėtinos...
• 
  Naim Frewat

  Until February of this year, Les Fruits d’Or felt to me like Duras’ Le Ravissement de Lol V Stein. Twice did I start with both books, only to find myself quickly dropping them and moving to a more familiar book. This time, though, I came prepared; quite prepared actually.
  By chance, I stumbled upon Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Preface A Une Vie d’Ecrivain, freely available on ubu.com. I was vaguely familiar with Robbe-Grillet and his Nouveau Roman phenomenon but until I heard him defending himself and his Nouveau Roman and expounding on his thoughts on literature and writing, the Nouveau Roman and the shift in modern literature would still have remained intangible to me.
  
  In those 21 audio clips, Robbe-Grillet sounds fiercely anti-Balzacien but he justifies himself: Europe was demolished after World War 2, it had to be rebuilt again, therefore, the Europeans had the chance of starting afresh; in literature, this meant a rejection of the classical structure of the novel: plot, characters, environment, but most notably the certitude of the omnipresent narrator, and the truthfulness of the dialogue.
  Robbe-Grillet -it felt to me- believed he had a mission to compile and push forward the efforts and works of the Nouveaux Romanciers into a school (ironically, a very structuralist endeavor from someone like him) that should have its legitimate place in Literature and Cinema. I don’t think the other Romanciers (Sarraute, Simon, Butor, Pinget) saw the Nouveau Roman as he did; at least Sarraute didn’t but it seemed they all agreed to step out of the dualist form/content of literature, to get rid of perspectives, therefore of characters, to neutralize psychology and to pay a closer attention to the relationship of time/space and to explore non-linear action (if one could label what happens in these books as action)
  
  I anticipated that I would start Les Fruits d’Or once I would be done with those clips, and therefore, I classify the above as my planned literary fortification against what Nathalie Sarraute might throw at me. But there is another aspect of my literary education which I would like to dwell upon; it is not planned -indeed cannot be planned- but it’s an accumulation of experiences and knowledge and I believe other readers will identify with it.
  
  The past 2-3 years have forged in me a somewhat global understanding of modern art, of modern literature, cinema and music. Indeed things have changed a lot, though one could choose to disregard this transformation and maintain an attachment to ancient words or lines or sounds packaged in 21st century form. Much of modern art still eludes me, but I am beginning to appreciate the possibility of experimentation and I feel that, gradually, I’m able to make some sense out of it.
  
  One is struck by the immense change that gradually came over Western Art strolling in a museum from room to room and coming in contact with the shocking, the strange, the objects, the details, the vague, the eerie… The familiarity of human shapes and figures, of landscapes well-defined within a known time and space, the meaning in the painting -if only a recognizable beginning and end- are no longer available to us.
  Bit by bit, I no longer rejected discontinuity in a work of art; indeed, if I myself no longer recognize a continuous stream of events in my life, I cannot ask for it from the artist.
  
  I assume that this all started with the death of God which I do not qualify as blasphemous; instead, I consider it liberated imagination, triggered questions, and opened possibilities. It behooves the modern thinker to answer such inquiries in an absence of meaning/structure, though I wonder if one can do more than doubting, or focusing on the fleeting, or finding certainty in repetition – a repetition of events, a mirroring of faces – as if modernity dealt a blow to the linear progression of History as a whole and focused on the micro-event magnified to provide substance to the thinker.
  
  I suppose out of all of this humor emerged; of a different form, no doubt. It’s the humor of the cynics, perhaps, but it’s humor. Liberated from God, independent of a linear progression of time, yet facing the certainty of a linear progression of time, and therefore age, the modern artist revels in the absurdity of the minutiae and dresses juxtaposition in a some comical robe: Kafka, Bunuel, Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute…
  
  It is through the gate of modern humor that I decided to tackle Les Fruits d’Or. The first half of it is immensely funny. Because this is Sarraute writing, I don’t know when or where the dialogue is taking place and how many people are there in the book. At times it feels only 1 or 2, at times a gathering of invitees, and at others an infinity of generations…
  Still, I assumed that this is a Parisian literary salon where invitees got together for some reason. Eminent among them are two art critics (maybe 3). Because I read it in French, I was able to spot (among the invitees) a man and a woman dialoguing in the opening pages: the woman was surprised at the indifference with which the man handed over a postal card of a Courbet painting of a dog’s head to his female companion, triggering a consternation on the face of the critic.
  Because the woman found such an affront too harsh on the critic, she lends him a helping hand and asks him: “And, Les Fruits d’Or, how did you find it?”This last sentence is repeated infinitely throughout the book because [Sarraute's] Les Fruits d’Or is this question and the implications this question triggers.
  
  The woman is surprised by the reply of the critic: “Les Fruits d’Or, I found it to be good”. This scenario which could have ended in the first two pages, is repeated in various shapes and forms many times, sometimes recounted in its entirety, at others, fragments of it are thrown in paragraphs where the fictitious Les Fruits d’Or is being defended or ridiculed.
  In non-conventional, yet very humorous, dialogues and “actions”, we get a glimpse of the pretentious conformity that people in literary salons slip into in the presence of “eminent critics”.
  Personally, this conformity wouldn’t have made much sense to me, had it not been for serendipity and Youtube. Recently, INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel) released its video archives on Youtube, and searching for Robbe-Grillet, I found an episode from a Bernard Pivot show. The invitee was Robbe-Grillet against a threesome of conventional critics and I found it to be a gem: the reaction of the critics and their derision against Robbe-Grillet’s book when Pivot gave a a brief synopsis of it to the guest, and asks him: “Did I get it right?” “And Robbe-Grillet replies: “Yes, this is one way of looking at it”.
  
  Of course Sarraute could not have been referring to that, because the book came decades before that episode, but it clearly demonstrates the attacks Les Nouveaux Romanciers were enduring from critics who, apparently (and as Robbe-Grillet fiercely declares it in that show, “They have not even read Joyce or Kafka or Faulkner”) had no idea of what those writers were writing, and who refused to admit of writers who did not maintain the Balzacienne vein.
  
  But back to the book. Within the frame of this affected elegy and praise, there comes a simple-minded reader who challenges the eminent critics and their backup choruses to demonstrate to this ignorant -book in hand- where the genius lies of the fictitious Les Fruits d’Or lies. This unfolds funny episodes where the critic attempts to elude the challenge by ruse rather than reason, such as when the critic makes use of his divine right to confer a literary quality to an otherwise banal work of art by announcing that it was done on purpose, with the express knowledge and planning of the writer.
  
  The book could be read as both: in the first of half of it, it is an attack on the critics of classic literature, which Sarraute refers to as: “this well-built, properly-oiled, old machine, untouchable and well-preserved”. It is also a reflection on the collective hallucination that accompanies the release of a work of art by an established artist and the wave of synchronized chorus from laypeople and critics alike that uplifts that work to the level of glorious masterpieces.
  Conscious of but disregarding the classical focus on content, the writing is one of the most charming in French literature. (And here I go, impersonating any character from Les Fruits d’Or – and I knew I would fall into that trap) She utilizes this classic French writing habit of successive adjectives or descriptive words to make fun of the classical critics themselves.
  
  Sarraute -if I shouldn’t assume that she is intelligent – shows her support to Le Nouveau Roman – even if without adhering to it – through the posing of a very literary question towards the end of the book when the woman asks: “Le sujet… quelle importance? Simple pretexte.” [What is the importance of the subject? it's only a pretext]
  This has always been the position of the Nouveaux Romanciers regarding content and subject, and they take this from Flaubert who considered that Madame Bovary without the writing, without the form, would not be Madame Bovary, or it would be anybody’s Madame Bovary.
  The reviewed book joins this stream of thought. In this book where nothing happens, somehow 160 pages are filled on the premise that someone is surprised that another liked a particular book. It’s amazing when I think of it in retrospect. Indeed, the subject completely disappears to reveal the excessiveness of the writer’s imagination, another typical position adopted by the Nouveaux Romanciers. (The films of Robbe-Grillet and Bunuel, thought not an adherent of the Nouveau Roman, reflect this subordination of content to style)
  
  I waited no less than 5 years to read this book -I think I added it to my Currently Reading list on Goodreads ever since I opened the account- and now I rank it among my favorite books of all time.
• 
  Radioread

  Kim derdi ki burada bir romana verdiğim -kaçınılmaz- beş yıldız, aynı zamanda onunla ilgili vermek zorunda kaldığım çırılçıplak bir spoiler olacak :)
  
  Saplantılı bir dil sevgisinin deneysel, yoğun, eğlenceli, bol vitaminli meyvesi. Geçmiş gelecek tüm okumalarınıza ve yorumlarınıza etki edecektir. Şanslıysanız, Fransız Yeni Roman ekolünün bu nadide eserine bir sahafta rastlama şansınız var. Sahaf candır :)
• 
  metsch

  Altın Meyveler bugün birden karşıma çıktı kitaplıkta ve aldim okumaya başladım. Amacım rahat okunan bir kurgu romandı. Bu kitap da Fransız Yeni Roman türünün öncülerindenmis. Kitabın kahramanı bir roman. Bu romani tartisanlar, beğenenler, begenmeyenler, beğenmediğini saklayanlar. Kitap eleştirileri üzerine yer yer hicivle harmanlanan bir kitap. Herkesin seveceğini düşünmüyorum. Yazmayi, edebiyat eleştirisini ve farkli türde metinler arayanları tatmin edecek bir eser. Emeği geçen herkese teşekkür ederim.
• 
  Cody

  One could be forgiven if they mistook Sarraute's minor masterpiece as a fictionalized account of Goodreads. A book is spoken of by the 'right' person (who may or may not have read it), and suddenly the haut monde is falling over themselves to lavish increasingly over-the-top praise. But what happens when something becomes too popular for these, in Sarraute's words, "exhumers of dust?" Woe be the author whose intelli-tide has turned against him. A must read for us 'exhumers,' if only as a hubris-checker. Exceptional.
• 
  Marko Suomi

  Tartuin tähän koska Laura Lindstedt hehkutti Suurteokset kakkosessa. Ei ole sellainen kirja, jota ehkä kannattaa edes yrittää tiivistää someen... sellainen lukukokemus että mielessä tapahtui paljon, ja yritin ikäänkuin ymmärtää mitä luen ... Jonkin ajan päästä luovuin siitä ja vain olin tekstin kanssa... oli todella kiehtovaa, ja tällä ekalla lukukerralla jäi mieleen että mitä kaikkea voi ylipäätään lukemisesta tai taiteen kokemisesta ymmärtää, mitä voi kokea, mitä voi edes jakaa toisille ja mitä jakaa siksi että aidosti kokee niin ja mitä siksi että haluaa vaikuttaa omaavansa hyvän maun... Haastava ja kiehtova ja aivoja kivasti hierova lukukokemus, joka vaati jotain kummallista irtipäästämistä. Hieno!
  
  Nathalie Sarraute: Kultaiset hedelmät (kääntäjät Pentti Holappa ja Olli-Matti Ronimus 1964, alkuteos 1963)
• 
  Jeff Jackson

  A fictitious novel called "The Golden Fruits" is the toast of literary culture, collecting reviews from the most esteemed critics and becoming the book of the season everyone feels they must read. But slowly, a backlash develops and the novel undergoes a strange transformation, even from those who initially celebrated it. Sarraute seamlessly weaves together a chorus of voices - internal and external - of critics and readers who publicly and privately hold forth, opine, posture, and wrestle with their feelings about the worth of this novel.
  
  Formally adventurous, perceptive, and still relevant, Sarraute's "Golden Fruits" should resonate for anyone who loves books and is curious about the many mechanisms that play a role in establishing literary reputation. As well as that infinitely more tricky maneuver, establishing actual artistic merit.
  
  4.5 stars
• 
  Andrew

  This was my first venture into the nouveau roman, and found this dusty, out-of-print gem in my college library. I've got to say I was impressed. This very thorough dissection of a fictitious novel pulls off two feats: the first is an exploration of why we read, and the second is creating a novel without real characters or events, rotating around a book that we know next to nothing about. Then why is it worth reading? That's a question you'll ask yourself, but in the end it is worth reading, and you'll ask yourself after enjoying the shit out of it why you did.
• 
  emmarps

  «Il y a ceux d'avant les Fruits d'Or et il y a ceux d'après.»
• 
  Mikko Saari

  Ranskalainen Nathalie Sarraute (1900–1999) opiskeli lakia ja kirjallisuutta Sorbonnessa, mutta kirjailijan ura voitti asianajajan uran – kenties Vichyn hallinnon vuoksi, sillä juutalaisena Sarraute ei voinut työskennellä juristina Vichyn Ranskassa. Sarraute oli kovin ihastunut aikansa nykykirjallisuuteen, kuten Marcel Proustiin ja Virginia Woolfiin.
  
  Kirjallisuuden kentällä Sarraute asettuu nouveau roman -liikkeeseen eli osaksi 1950-luvun kokeellista kirjallisuutta. Vuonna 1963 ilmestynyt Kultaiset hedelmät on Sarrauten maineikkaimpia teoksia, sillä se voitti Prix international de littérature -palkinnon ja nosti siten Sarrautea suurempaan maineeseen. Nyt tämän 60 vuotta vanhan kirjan on nostanut suomalaisten kirjallisuudenystävien tietoisuuteen ja luettavaksi kirjastojen varastoista Laura Lindstedtin oivallinen essee Suurteokset 2 -kokoelmassa.
  
  Suomessa nouveau roman -suuntauksen edustajiin lasketaan Wikipedian mukaan muun muassa Pentti Holappa ja Olli-Matti Ronimus, jotka asuivat 1960-luvun alkupuolella Pariisissa ja suomensivat uutta ranskalaista romaania. Kultaiset hedelmät ilmestyikin suomeksi jo 1964 Kirjayhtymän Arena-sarjan ensimmäisenä kirjana.
  
  

  
  Huumoria… Raisua huumoria. Kolkkoa. Kolkkoa ja puhdasmielistä yhtä aikaa. Jonkinlaista viattomuutta. Kirkasta. Synkkää. Lävitsetunkevaa. Luottavaista. Hilpeää. Inhimillistä. Armotonta. Kuivaa. Nihkeää. Jäistä. Polttavaa. Hän vie minut epätodelliseen maailmaan. Se on unen aluetta. Sen todellisempaa maailmaa ei ole. Kultaiset hedelmät on kaikkea tätä.
  

  
  
  Koska Kultaiset hedelmät on uutta romaania, siltä ei kannata odottaa perinteisen romaanin rakenteita: siinä ei ole juonta tai henkilöhahmoja. Kultaiset hedelmät on metakirjallisuutta, joka kertoo kirjallisuudesta. Kirjan sivuilla kuljeskelet ikään kuin kuuntelemassa sivusta keskusteluja –katkelma sieltä, katkelma täältä, päästen välillä jonkun pään sisään kuulemaan ajatusten kulkua. Keskustelut ja ajatukset koskevat ”Kultaiset hedelmät”-teosta, uutta sensaatiota, josta kaikilla pitää olla mielipide ja näkemys. Kultaiset hedelmät kuvaakin tämän yleisen näkemyksen muotoutumista.
  
  

  
  On kahdenlaisia ihmisiä, toiset elivät ennen Kultaisia hedelmiä, toiset tulivat sen jälkeen.
  

  
  
  Kovin pitkä kirja Kultaiset hedelmät ole, mutta sivumääräänsä raskaampi kylläkin. Tajunnanvirtainen teksti on perinteiseen romaaniin verrattuna työläämpää luettavaa. Toisaalta Kultaiset hedelmät ei ole mikään tavattoman vaikea kirjakaan: on jokseenkin selvää, mistä tässä puhutaan ja tokihan kirjallisia keskusteluja käydään ja teoksia nostetaan kaapin päälle edelleenkin, joten konteksti on tuttu.
  
  Ehkä kirjallisuudesta keskustellaan hieman vähemmän kuin 1960-luvulla, mutta näitä samoja keskustelujahan käydään toki muunkin median äärellä ja samat konsensuksen mekanismit sielläkin toimivat. Näitä mekanismeja Kultaiset hedelmät valaisee oivallisesti. Kannattaa siis noudatuttaa Kultaiset hedelmät paikallisen kirjaston varastosta ja suoda kiitos Lindstedtille kirjan nostamisesta takaisin lukijoiden mieliin.
• 
  Lee Foust

  Given the form of this novel, a collection of people's feelings about a novel and how their social interactions and egos are delineated, interrupted, and put into question by sharing their feeling with each other about said novel, I'm a bit hesitant, here, to, well, put down my feelings about this novel.
  
  My first impulse was to imitate, with my review, Sarraute's style, thus adding my own review as a kind of missing chapter. It would work as the novel everyone's discussing in The Golden Fruits is, you guessed it, a novel called The Golden Fruits. But even this kind of literary imitation as a kind of review is explored in a chapter of the novel itself, so I just couldn't go through with it. And, in the end, there's nothing I can really say here that the novel itself doesn't already say and also show how, at its worst, my opinion will be false, or, at best, a bit absurd given all of the other opinions out there and how and why I'm putting mine down here in order to interact with others who also have opinions, to either impress them or stupefy them or out-do-them or declare my individuality by going against them or, heaven forbid, my belonging by seconding them.
  
  So, I guess what I liked most about The Golden fruits isn't how it evoked our need to review, that is to be passionate about works of art and novels, to love or to hate them, but how it inserted these views into a social context, laying bare how this impulse enters into the social arena and how much of a bonding or alienating thing it can be to have an opinion. How opinion gets immediately clouded by others' opinions and their opinions about our opinions and vice versa. It's an endless set of mirrors where we see ourselves multiplied and diminished into infinity.
  
  Obviously the one thing missing in The Golden Fruits is, you guessed it again, The Golden Fruits. It's the opinions about a novel we can never read for ourselves in order to have an opinion. It's all very clever, and true, and made me resist wanting to have an opinion at all. But of course I do have an opinion. And I just put it out there for you to second or contradict, proving the novel's point entirely.
  
  I feel used, but not bad about about being used at all.
• 
  Henna Parkas

  Kritiikin kritiikkiä, jonka lukeminen tuntui paikoin raskaalta ja itseään toistavalta, mutta joka onnistuu esittämään loistavia ajatuksia ja kysymyksiä koskien mm. teosten arvottamisen perusteita. Uskoisinkin palaavani tämän teoksen äärelle vielä tulevaisuudessa. Syystä tai toisesta huomasin myös huvittuvani tekstistä tuon tuosta. Voisin kuvitella Kultaisten hedelmien lukemisen voimauttavaksi kelle tahansa jonka tekeleet ovat joskus saaneet kritiikkiä osakseen.
• 
  Achab_

  DNF
  Ok je pense que ce livre est certainement plus intéressant à étudier, qu'à lire pour le plaisir... Le nouveau roman ce n'est pas toujours ma tasse de thé... J'abandonne pour cette fois !
• 
  Olga Markova

  не знаю такой ли ее задумали, но мне эта книга показалась смешной, хоть и немного слишком вычурной
• 
  Olivia

  When I started reading Les Fruits D'Or I was self-conscious, nervous, tense. The introduction dubbed it as a modern classic, a book that, if read in the right way, would be very profound. This made me worried. Would I be one of them, the ones reading the book the way it should be read? I feared that when closing it, I would have placed myself amongst The Others, those without taste, the uncultured and ignorant, those who will never get it.
  
  Entering Les Fruits D'Or in this way definitely made a big impression on me. Even though it was written in '63, it still feels interestingly relevant. I guess the theme is timeless and universal. It touches on a cultural anxiety, a fear based on who is good enough, and who isn't. Sarraute manages to hit just the right notes to illustrate this disquiet. For me it was quite an experience, reading about just the thing I was feeling myself, being thrown between different streams of consciousness which I sometimes identified as my own. This sort of second dimension to the book grew stronger the further I read. I read about a game I myself was in the midst of playing. At the instant I accept that there is a right and a wrong way to read Les Fruits D'Or, that there is a hierarchy of experiences, I also accepted the anxiety Sarraute is writing about. It is a game of high horses, impressive but primitive, and I'm playing it.
  
  The way in which the author writes craves the absolute attention of the reader. I found myself rereading the same passages numerous times, noticing how a couple of seconds of inattention would cause me to completely lose track of Sarraute's line of thought. There is no clearly pronounced characters, no true storyline to speak of. The perspectives can shift at any time, and a minute of day dreaming would cost me another minute of tracing back to where I lost myself. Les Fruits D'Or doesn't really make for light reading. Even though I got used to the style about halfway through the book, the reader needs to put in work to get anything out of it.
  
  I have to add that even though the words used aren't spectacular in themselves, the way Sarraute uses them is absolutely beautiful. The parables are many and radiant. There is an interesting passage where a character describes culture, and literature in particular, as a holy room, a temple, sealed shut. A room where only a selected few may enter, and only after many years of patient study. The book is ripe with questions, or rather it urges the reader to ask them, and possibly the best part, is how none of those questions are answered. We take them with us when finishing the last page, when we move on to the next book, when we talk about literature. This is what turned Les Fruits D'Or from a good to a great book to me.
  
  I liked Les Fruits D'Or. And I'll probably never know on which side of the game this places me.
  
• 
  Laura Walin

  Tämä on kirja kirjasta, ja etenkin siitä, kuinka kirjan arvostaminen syntyy ja laantuu korkeakulttuurisissa piireissä. teos herättää todella ajattelemaan sitä, mitä arvostamme romaanissa, kuka teoksen arvon määrittelee,ja millä perusteilla. Suositelisin lukemaan tämän yhdeltä istumalta, jolloin romaanin elinkaareen pääsee parhaiten uppoutumaan.
• 
  Christine

  Such a slow read, but only because it's such a dense and amusing book (as opposed to a dense and boring book).
  
  In a nutshell, the book recreates the frenzied conversation around a book that people laud as the next coming upon its release and that slowly descends into obscurity. Some readers argue that it's flat and boring, to which contrarians reply that well of COURSE it is because the author clearly INTENDED it to be flat and boring and that's the ART of it (and then they have the first readers taken away in a straight-jacket when they refuse to buy this ridiculous argument).
  
  It's an artsy book that still feels relevant and that you can enjoy in small bites (although by all means, binge at will). Sarraute pokes fun at how subjective book reviews are, how the entire argument is meaningless but still feels incredibly important in the moment, and how in the end, people like certainty when trying to categorize whether something is "good" or "bad" art. And you know what? That's all true. But it doesn't change the fact that arguing about art is super fun.
  
  Recommended to anyone who likes to form opinions about books/movies and then seek out reviews to mentally argue with everyone on the planet (so... what's happening with the recent Star Wars film).
• 
  Heba books

  2.5
  .
  هذه الرواية ذات الأسلوب المتفرد، الفريد من نوعه، تدور حول مناظرة بين عدة أشخاص- نحن لن نعرفهم على وجه الخصوص- حول كتاب ثمار الذهب..
  يمضى كل منهم ساردا رأيه وأهم النقاط التي أعجبته والتي لم تعجبه، سترى دائما أسماء أدباء وأعمال أدبية ومقارنتها بهذا العمل الذي يتناقشون فيه.. ستجد من يخشى قول رأيه الحقيقي لأنه مخالف لآراء الآخرين وسترى العكس كذلك، ستجد من لم يسمع بغير عنوان الكتاب وربما لأول مرة ويدلي برأيه أيضا خوفا من اتهامه بالجهل ، ستجد أنواع مختلفة من كل شخص يخبر برأيه في الكتب كما أفعل الآن.
  كانت رواية جيدة ومميزة جدا برأيي، لولا أسلوبها الغامض- أعرف أنه مقصود من الكاتبة كما قالت على لسان أحد أبطالها- لكنه فعلا أزعجني ولم يكن يحمسني لإكمالها.
  وسأقول أيضا كما قال أحد أبطالها ربما المشكلة فيّ أنا.
  .
  قرأتها مترجمة بعنوان " ثمار الذهب "
• 
  Anthelia Amazes

  Insupportable.
  Ça peut être considéré comme un livre d’une rare intelligence… mais quel ennui.
  On mets bien 30 pages à comprendre que le héros du roman est le roman lui-même (remerciez moi pour ce spoiler qui n’en est pas un) … alors oui l’idée de la mise en abîme était probablement d’une fulgurante originalité à l’époque où le livre a été écrit mais est-ce que ça méritait 150 pages ? Pas pour moi en tout cas.
  
  «Les Fruits d’Or, c’est le meilleur livre qu’on a écrit depuis quinze ans.»
  
  «Eh bien … sa voix tremble un peu … eh bien, vous pouvez dire ce que vous voulez, mais moi, Les Fruits d’Or, je n’aime pas ça. Je trouve ça assommant. C’est obscur. C’est abscons.»
• 
  Lee

  Sarraute is considered to be part of the nouveau roman movement in France of the 1950s. These writers did away with literary conventions such as plot and characters in favor of experimenting with new literary forms. Having come across a reference to Sarraute I wanted to read her, and The Golden Fruits was the only novel of hers in my library.
  
  The Golden Fruits has no characters. It has voices of various people, stripped of any individual traits or context. It doesn't have a plot, it has a subject: how works of art, in this case a novel, are established as worthy of adulation by august critics and those who follow them and then how they fall. It has little dialogue; it mostly consists of the interior thoughts of certain persons over time.
  
  At a social gathering a new book, The Golden Fruits, is discussed. The wise elders proclaim its self-evident greatness. The confused sheep follow, eager to be told what to think of it so they can share the same opinion.
  

  It has been said that what people dislike most, is to be accused of singing off key. I believe that to be suspected of having no taste is more painful. [p.172]

  
  These taste setters use indecipherable jargon and a veil of resistance to challenge to play their tricks. Not everyone plays along however, and those who resist received critical opinion to stand by their own judgement are those who are able to recognize evil when they see it. It is strong language, to be sure.
  

  They should go away. This befuddled flock should be disbanded. And the culprit brought to me. That man over there, yes, you. You are arrested. Handcuff him. Hold out your wrists. I've been watching you for a long time, I've been collecting evidence against you. This time I've got you. You're caught in the act. Let's talk a bit between ourselves about this gesture that, according to you, depicts the deep sentiments with such exquisite simplicity. This gesture with the scarf which, with what art, "tells everything" better than an entire book. You gave them that. You made them take that poisoned drug. I admired your self-assurance, your daring. You are so sure of impunity, you never make a miss. But here - we can't foresee everything, can we?- here is an obstacle, an unpredictable accident. One of the victims… I admire her force, what a strong personality… like Rasputin she resists miraculously, the deadly drug does not affect her… She rises, she shouts: What is it? What was that you made me swallow? What does it contain? Why, it's harmful, it's dangerous… a false truth… it is something that means nothing, that can mean just anything… she rejects it, she doesn't want it. Then you try another tactic, you bring out your case of soporifics and gags: Of course, by itself this gesture is nothing, only there is the highly complex whole, there is the construction. All this is what gives this gesture its meaning, all these prolongations, these resonances… Ah, because a work of art… In such cases your expression becomes vague, pensive, you are seen moving off toward heaven knows what unknown regions, what mysterious, strange countries… And they, as though hallucinated, and all drugged by you, uplifted… But where, I ask you, I want to know, are you taking them? What ineffable prolongations, what poetic radiance will they be able to see around this mass-produced rubbish, this cheap dime-store article? Show them to me. If you have succeeded in discovering a single particle of something that is intact, that vibrates, that is alive, then that's what you should talk about, that's what you should show them and not this trash - which you should have hidden.
  This can't go on, you understand. You must be kept from doing harm. You are falsehood, you are evil itself. You must be uprooted, I'm going to grab you by the throat, lift you up, take the entire world as my witness, roar…[p.55-57]

  
  So the book, despite a holdout here and there, becomes a sensation. After some time, who knows how long, voices start reflecting on its downfall, its critical re-examination that it failed spectacularly.
  

  "Why, all of a sudden? What happened? Don't tell me they noticed something. That would be too good. Who rereads a book? Who's going to analyze it closely? But it's as though the word had gone round. For what reason? How? Where? When there exists no criterion of values. None. Did you see the exhibition of paintings that were famous in 1900? Eh? What a lesson! It's appalling…" His entire strength tensed with indignation, rage, a savage delight in destruction, he shakes the whole edifice. Let the whole thing collapse and crush them all, let him perish, he too, with them… "Things reach the point where people begin to wonder whether even those present…" his sacrilegious lips have uttered sacred names… "whether even they will last. Whether it is not all so much eyewash, eh? What does anybody know about it?"[p.131]

  
  This review of mine has been heavy on the direct quotes, because if we're going to be reading this novel today, it's going to be due to its nonconforming style, and our interest in seeing how the definition of a novel can be stretched. It's not Joyce, but it follows along that path for the minority of readers who like to see what's down around the next bend.
• 
  Sani

  من حتی یک کنفرانس هم براش دادم تو کلاس...
  ولی هنوز هم واقعا عمق مطلب ارایه داده شده رو نفهمیدم!!!!!
• 
  Huug Roosjen

  Un livre écrit soigneusement et toujours rélévant pour nos jours (tandis qu’écrit en 1963). Un livre qui est excellent pour relire, car on remarquera de nouvelles choses.
• 
  Lucie!!!!

  CE LIVRE EST A RENDRE FOU