8 - Formal experiment and innovation

Summary

The two decades spanning the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries were a period of intense crisis for the novel. On the one hand, it was not clear what more could be done with the form after the achievements of Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert and Zola. Balzac had created a world rivalling 'l'état civil' for his era, and Zola's project for systematic, scientifically documented studies of all sectors of society, had been all but consummated by its principal begetter. The realistic portrayal of everyday life could be extended into ever more marginal or sensational sectors such as those explored by the Goncourt brothers (Germinie Lacerteux, 1864) and less memorable exponents; but this was merely following in Zola's footsteps, without the creative conviction or epic gifts that, until the anticlimax of Les Quatre Evangiles, compelled the assent of his readers. In Pierre et ]ean (1888) and its prefatory essay, 'Le Roman', Maupassant sought to revitalise realism by drawing attention to the illusions of the mind that influence the formation of stories, but the picture conveyed by the naturalist novel was beginning to be perceived as the least significant feature of reality.