Robbe-Grillet on plot and surrealism
[Morrissette paraphrases] …in modern fiction the plot becomes unimportant, assumes forms of pure convention, or disappears altogether. (257)
André Breton’s movement has at least had the merit of expressing “La netteté anormale avec laquelle apparaissent, dans les rêves les plus anodins, une chaise, un caillou, une main, la chute d’un débris quelconque… comme si le fragment s’était éternisé à l’état de chute…”
[The abnormal clarity with which appears, in the most insignificant dreams, a chair, a stone, a hand, the fall of some debris… as if the fragment were frozen in the state of falling…” (my trans.)]
…the surrealist hasard objectif, “qui éclaire… les rapports énigmatiques qui lient la vie quotidienne à ce que devrait être l’art.” (258)
[objective chance, “which throws light on the enigmatic rapport which links everyday life to what becomes art.” (my trans.)]
Morrissette, Bruce. “Theory and Practice in the Works of Robbe-Grillet.” MLN 77.3 (1962): 257-267.