A Sociocritical Reading of the French Contemporary Novel No and Me, by Delphine de Vigan

Abstract

To choose is to eliminate, but it is also to privilege and, for this article, my choice fell on No et moi (2007) by Delphine de Vigan, a novel that is at the crossroads of two literary tendencies much studied today by Dominique Viart and Alexandre Gefen. The first of these two French theorists has been analyzing field literature since the 1980s; the second explores the therapeutic function of a scriptural practice that seeks to repair the world. This crossroads of optics at the edge of literary production and the humanities and social sciences illustrates the faculty of literature to stage individual encounters that help us to understand better the social world, its aesthetic and ethical issues, its tortuous and improbable paths that reveal us to ourselves and others. It is through the sociocritical perspective of Claude Duchet and Pierre Popovic that this article plans to elucidate what the novel says about the world and in what ways it says it. Thus defined, the sociocritical reading takes shape and sense as one intertwines the textual analysis and sociological study of the novel. This hybrid approach captures the spirit of our time and fosters critical reflexivity.