Grillet Alain Robbe: Džin: crvena rupa između razdvojenih ploča na kaldrmi

Alain Robbe Grillet: Jean: the red hole between the split slabs on the cobblestone

The first version of the novel *Jean*, under the title *Rendez-vous*, was published in 1980 in America as a manual for learning the French language. The author compiled it at the request of Professor Yvonne Lenard from Dominguez Hills University in California. And that edition contained eight chapters that ended with questions intended for students. Transforming the book into a novel, the author removed the exercises and added a prologue and epilogue to the text. The choice of textbook concept simultaneously sharpened Rob-Grillet's poetic views, but also relieved them in a certain way. The text follows the pattern of language acquisition. In each chapter, new grammar rules are gradually introduced: the first chapter is told in the present tense, while from the second chapter onwards, increasingly complex tenses are represented. On the other hand, the textbook form provided a training ground for the application of Rob-Grillet's literary strategies. The protagonist, whose name is Simon Lekker, expresses his uncertainty by practicing conditionals. Dry descriptions, typical of that author, in the context of language learning acquire a new purpose: the introduction of vocabulary related to everyday objects. By using these literary and grammatical means, the author achieved theoretical-practical completeness in the book. Another feature that sets *Div* (or *Jean*) apart from all the other books in Rob-Grillet's oeuvre is humor. The author banished it from his works as a "residue of humanism", as a means of "natural" rapprochement with the reader. Here he is present and is mainly based on self-irony. When Simon tells the fairy tale to the little girl Maria, at first he uses the *passé composé* (complex past tense), but the child asks for the aorist. The narrator then reveals to us that he has to think for a moment "because he is not used to using that verb tense". Rob-Grillet's readers will know that he himself resolutely rejects the aorist - that typical narrative tense in the French language - as a remnant of a fairy-tale, omniscient, "divine" perspective (while, of course, arguing for a subjective "I"). Likewise, when after the fairy tale about the robot, little Maria criticizes the narrator, reproaching him for his inability to create "lively and likeable characters", he sounds like the usual critic of Robbe-Grillet's books, who - as we have seen - still makes the same objections to him today.