Repetition: A Novel [Paperback]

Alain Robbe-Grillet (Author), Richard Howard (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 2004

Reminiscent of Orson Welles's The Third Man, Repetition is an atmospheric spy novel of violence, mystery, and tricks of the eye, set in a bombed-out 1949 Berlin. Henri Robin, a special agent of the French secret service, arrives in the ruined city and feels linked to it by a vague and recurrent memory. There is a shooting, a kidnapping, druggings, encounters with pimps and teenage whores, police interrogations, even torture. Bits and pieces of the Oedipus story resonate through the book's elegant labyrinth as Robin slowly senses that he was in Berlin before — as a child, with his mother, perhaps looking for his father. A brilliantly executed novel in prose of an almost hallucinatory richness, Repetition is proof that Robbe-Grillet's vision is, in a time of identity theft and porous nationhood, more relevant than ever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A spy novel about a French agent in 1949 Berlin becomes an oedipal journey into the agent's past and an adventure in unreliable narration in this work by nouveau roman pioneer Robbe-Grillet, his first in 20 years. Henri Robin (or so his passport identifies him) is a spy crossing Europe on a train, pondering a mission that has yet to be revealed to him. As he enters the ravaged city, Robin is haunted by flashbacks, even though, ostensibly, he has never been to Berlin before. His assignment, he learns, is to watch a murder that's supposed to take place in an outdoor plaza. Robin observes closely, but when he goes to recount the details, his story is confused and contradictory, and Robin finds himself in the heart of the murder investigation. As the nebulous case plays out, Robin comes to live with the murder victim's wife and adolescent daughter, Gigi, the latter representing a pivotal link to Robin's family history as well as the espionage machinations. Robbe-Grillet shifts back and forth between the criminal investigation, the espionage plot and the playful Freudian analysis of Robin's childhood and subconscious. Extensive footnotes introduce the possibility that Robin may in fact be a lunatic. Newcomers braced for surreal narrative lurches will find this an entertaining introduction to Robbe-Grillet's work. As the title coyly suggests, his admirers will find much of this territory familiar, but that only adds another layer of irony to Robbe-Grillet's witty allusions.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In Fifties France, Robbe-Grillet helped originate the nouveau roman, or "new novel," which challenged traditional concepts of narration. He returns after a 20-year silence with a sort of literary thriller, set in 1949 Berlin. Henri Robin doesn't know why the French Secret Service has sent him to the devastated city, but he has the uneasy feeling that he has been here before.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; First Trade Paper Edition edition (February 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802140572
• ISBN-13: 978-0802140579
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,453,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Robbe-Grillet's best, September 21, 2005

By 

Martin Monreal (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Repetition (Hardcover)

This is the kind of book that, after a writer's death, turns out to be a masterpiece which just happened to go unnoticed, and "How is it possible?", Sunday literay supplements will ask, and blah, blah, blah...
It's one of Robbe-Grillet's best three books (the others being "Jelousy" and "The Voyeur").
I'll make it short: just read the excerpts available here at Amazon.com. If you like it, there you go. If you don't: read it again.
(Oh, if you find it, buy the hardcover edition. In the paperback one they gave the "notes" the same font size as the actual text, calling to much attention to them, and weakening the effect - for, you have to know, at some point the "notes" start contradicting and incriminating the narrator, and claiming more and more space...)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Subtle and Complex, February 5, 2010

By 

Howard S. Stein - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Repetition: A Novel (Paperback)

If you want to read excellent books that contain mysteries but aren't police procedurals, this is a great author. I gave it four rather than five stars because I don't think this is his finest book, but it was excellent. There is a fine, subtle, mind at work and this is "literature", not just a razzle-dazzle mystery.

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my best reads of 2011 and a superb dark novel that's not for everyone, September 24, 2011

By 

Liviu C. Suciu (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Repetition: A Novel (Paperback)

This is a superb novel but one that is not for everyone with its hallucinatory prose, uncertain and shifting identities and themes of incest, forbidden love, s&m, Lolita... all taking places in the ruins of Germany in 1949

Everyone encountered is not quite what he or she seems but the main characters - our "hero" HR aka Henri Robin aka many other names - his seeming double (identity and role to be revealed later), his "handler", the older German officer that is a target of assassination and the mysterious mother and daughter of the American zone in Berlin whose past and relationships with the main characters above is also slowly revealed give this novel its power in addition to the superb prose.

Highly, highly recommended and another novel that needs to be read at least twice since early happenings change or deepen their sense after later revelations so the second reading will be quite different than the first