Butor, Michel

Butor, Michel (mēshĕl` bütôr`), 1926–, French novelist and critic. As one of the chief exponents of the nouveau roman [new novel] (see French literature), Butor is less interested in the outcome of action in his novels than he is in the action itself. His technique involves the use of shifting time sequences, strong visual images, and the interior monologue. He often focuses on one small area of experience to reveal the larger complexity of life. His novels include Passage de Milan (1954), L'Emploi du Temps (1956; tr. Passing Time, 1960), La Modification (1957; tr. Second Thoughts, 1958), Degrés (1960, tr. 1962), Mobile (1962; tr. Mobile: Study for a Representation of the U.S., 1963), Niagara: A Stereophonic Novel (tr. 1969), and Boomerang (1978). He has also written numerous critical pieces.

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Butor, Michel 

Born Sept. 14, 1926, in Mons-en-Baroeul, a suburb of Lille. French writer.

In his rhythmic prose (for example, the novel Passage From Milan, 1954), Butor reflected on his experience as a human being and a poet (the poem Michurin, 1949, published 1966). Butor’s heroes display great energy in their effort to resist the leveling power of the capitalist city and bourgeois life (the novels Passing Time, 1956, and A Change of Heart, 1957) or to save themselves from deadly routines (the novel Degrees, 1960). However, they see no way out. An opponent of the theory of “pure art,” Butor sometimes pays tribute to experimentalism (the radio show Air Lines, 1962), overestimating the role of the literary techniques of M. Proust and J. Joyce (the critical collection Repertoire, 1960) and becoming carried away with the metaphysics of structuralism (Repertoire II, 1964). Butor’s work has profound meaning when, violating the rules of the so-called school of the new novel, he gives sociohistorical reasons for the transformation of the individual in the USA into a cog in a machine (the novelistic reportage Mobile, 1962). Butor is the author of studies on C. Baudelaire (An Extraordinary Story, 1961), D. Diderot (Repertoire III, 1968), and M. Montaigne (The Essay “On Experience,” 1968). He has also written an autobiography (Portrait of the Artist as a Monkey, 1967).

WORKS

Le génie du lieu. Paris, 1958.
Description de San Marco.[Paris, 1963].
Illustrations.[Paris, 1964].
6, 810, 000 litres d’eau par seconde.[Paris, 1965].
In Russian translation:
“Stupeni [Fragment romana].” Inostrannaia literatura, 1963, no. 1.
“Izmenenie.” Ibid., 1970, nos. 8-9.

REFERENCES

Balashova, T. Frantsuzskii roman 60-x godov. Moscow, 1965.
Charbonnier, G. Entretiens avec M. Butor.[Paris, 1967].
Leiris, M. “Le réalisme mythologique du M. Butor.” In M. Butor, La modification.[Paris, 1965].
Raillard, G. Butor.[Paris, 1968]. (Bibliography, pp. 295-313.)

V. P. BALASHOV