| Synopsis: |
Written over an extended period, Ostinato is the long-awaited autobiography of Louis-Rene des Forets, one of France's most beloved writers. A few sections of this remarkable text have been published in fragments over the years, and then, with some reluctance on the part of the author, as a series of fragments in France in 1997. The ostinato - a persistently repeated musical figure or rhythm - is a continual, stubborn, and essential element of certain musical pieces and of the life that emerges in this book. A series of connected, loosely chronological, imagistic reflections that form an emotional history, Ostinato is neither poetry nor prose. Rather, it is a kind of antibiography, in which the facts of this life are less important than the style in which they are rendered. What is there to tell that matters? Neither history, nor memory, but emotions. It is not the events that make this work possible to understand but the work that gives the life its form and its music. Louis-Rene des Forets (1918-2000) lived in Paris. He was best known for his novels and poetry and was awarded the Grand Prix National des Lettres for the entirety of his work.Mary Ann Caws is Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. She is the author, editor, or translator of over forty books, including Manifesto: A Century of Isms (Nebraska 2000) and The Surrealist Look: An Erotics of Encounter. |