文章基本信息

标题：Desperately Seeking Julia, or the Truth and Untruth of an Obituary Photograph: Anita Brookner’s Brief Lives (1990)
本地全文：下载
作者：Laurence Petit
期刊名称：Image & Narrative
印刷版ISSN：1780-678X
出版年度：2019
卷号：20
期号：3
页码：51-60
出版社：Image & Narrative
摘要：Half way between necrology, autobiography, and photobiography, Anita Brookner’s Brief Lives opens and closes with the in absentia photograph of Julia perused by the narrator Fay. This circular novel takes the form of a long anamnesis in the first person in which Fay retraces the dual story of her life as well as Julia’s. The itineraries of the two women indeed appear as intimately connected in this narcissistic, exhibitionistic, incestuous, and endogamous world ruled by the specular, the spectacular, and the spectral, in which mirrors and photographs multiply ad infinitum a self perceived as totally alienated to the image. Drawing from Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Georges Didi-Huberman, and Julia Kristeva, this essay examines the way in which this novel, through the sudden irruption of the Real of death (in the Lacanian sense) comes to thwart what is in fact a relatively common photographic apparatus in which the inaugural “memory-photograph” triggers off in the female narrator a hermeneutic quest – as well as its resolution – in an essentialist perspective aiming at presenting the self – that is to say, Julia, the subject matter of the photograph – in its essential truth. Indeed, if the inaugural photograph tells about death in the literal sense in that it comes with Julia’s obituary, it also “signifies” the narrator’s death by becoming, more than a mere starter or shifter for the initial narrative, an invitation – an injunction even – to the final journey. The narrative indeed ends with the prophetic “You might give it a try one of these days,” with which the deceased Julia seems to address the narrator from beyond death. As a result, the increasingly irresistible fascination that Fay seems to feel for this “mirror-photograph” in which she immerses herself to the point of drowning makes it possible to rethink the narrative not as an elegiac and truthful reminiscence (the newspaper obituary as the modern-day elegy) or even as an extended funeral oration, but rather as the symptom of a hidden, deep-rooted, and morbid melancholy that, for me, characterizes Anita Brookner’s entire œuvre.
其他摘要：
Half way between necrology, autobiography, and photobiography, Anita Brookner’s Brief Lives opens and closes with the in absentia photograph of Julia perused by the narrator Fay. This circular novel takes the form of a long anamnesis in the first person in which Fay retraces the dual story of her life as well as Julia’s. The itineraries of the two women indeed appear as intimately connected in this narcissistic, exhibitionistic, incestuous, and endogamous world ruled by the specular, the spectacular, and the spectral, in which mirrors and photographs multiply ad infinitum a self perceived as totally alienated to the image. Drawing from Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Georges Didi-Huberman, and Julia Kristeva, this essay examines the way in which this novel, through the sudden irruption of the Real of death (in the Lacanian sense) comes to thwart what is in fact a relatively common photographic apparatus in which the inaugural “memory-photograph” triggers off in the female narrator a hermeneutic quest – as well as its resolution – in an essentialist perspective aiming at presenting the self – that is to say, Julia, the subject matter of the photograph – in its essential truth. Indeed, if the inaugural photograph tells about death in the literal sense in that it comes with Julia’s obituary, it also “signifies” the narrator’s death by becoming, more than a mere starter or shifter for the initial narrative, an invitation – an injunction even – to the final journey. The narrative indeed ends with the prophetic “You might give it a try one of these days,” with which the deceased Julia seems to address the narrator from beyond death. As a result, the increasingly irresistible fascination that Fay seems to feel for this “mirror-photograph” in which she immerses herself to the point of drowning makes it possible to rethink the narrative not as an elegiac and truthful reminiscence (the newspaper obituary as the modern-day elegy) or even as an extended funeral oration, but rather as the symptom of a hidden, deep-rooted, and morbid melancholy that, for me, characterizes Anita Brookner’s entire œuvre.
Résumé
À mi-chemin entre la nécrologie, l’autobiographie et la photobiographie, Brief Lives d’Anita Brookner s’ouvre et se termine sur une photographie in absentia de Julia examinée par le narrateur Fay. Ce roman circulaire prend la forme d’une longue anamnèse à la première personne, au sein de laquelle Fay retrace l’histoire binaire de sa vie ainsi que celle de Julia. Les itinéraires des deux femmes semblent en effet intimement connectés dans ce monde narcissique, exhibitionniste, incestueux et endogame dominé par le spéculaire, le spectaculaire et le spectral, dans lequel les miroirs et les photographies multiplient ad infinitum un « soi » perçu comme étant totalement aliéné de l’image. En s’inspirant de Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Jean-Marie Schaeffer, Georges Didi-Huberman et Julia Kristeva, cet essai se penche sur la façon dont ce roman, à travers l’irruption soudaine du Réel de la mort (au sens lacanien), entrave ce qui est en fait un dispositif photographique relativement courant, au sein duquel le « souvenir-photographie » initial déclenche une quête herméneutique – ainsi que sa résolution – chez la narratrice, dans une perspective essentialiste qui vise à présenter le « soi » – c’est-à-dire Julia, le sujet de la photographie – dans sa vérité essentielle. En effet, si la photographie inaugurale raconte la mort au sens littéral, puisqu’elle accompagne la nécrologie de Julia, elle « signifie » également la mort de la narratrice en devenant, davantage qu’un simple déclencheur ou transformateur du récit initial, une invitation – une injonction, même – au voyage final. Le récit se termine en effet avec le prophétique « Tu peux tenter le coup un de ces jours », avec lequel Julia, décédée, semble s’adresser à la narratrice de l’au-delà de la mort. Par conséquent, la fascination de plus en plus irrésistible que Fay semble ressentir pour cette « photographie-miroir » dans laquelle elle s’immerge au point de s’y noyer ouvre la possibilité à repenser le récit non pas en tant que réminiscence élégiaque et véridique (la nécrologie dans le journal en tant qu’élégie moderne), ou même en tant qu’oraison funéraire approfondie, mais plutôt en tant que symptôme d’une mélancolie cachée, profondément ancrée et morbide qui, selon moi, caractérise l’œuvre entière d’Anita Brookner.
关键词：Anita Brookner; Brief Lives; photography; truth; untruth; trauma; melancholy