R.I.P. Alain Robbe-Grillet (Pynchon reference)

[David Morris]

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2008/03/06/robbe_grillet/

The "new novel" or "nouveau roman," as Robbe-Grillet defined and
explained it in his famous 1963 essay, was high art at its unpalatably
highest. It applied rules and regulations, opposed subjectivity and
tried to dissolve plot and character into description. The approach
was perceived, he admitted, as "difficult to read, addressed only to
specialists." The "art novel" became the preserve of high priests.
Many novelists you've probably never heard of were deeply influenced
by Robbe-Grillet. Even more damaging, though, was the effect his
radicalization and elitism had on readers in the English-speaking
world: They took a look at the future of the novel according to
Robbe-Grillet and walked in the opposite direction.

[...]

English fiction in the wake of Robbe-Grillet has become a deliberately
old-fashioned activity, like archery or churning your own butter. He
represented, through his status as cultural icon of the avant-garde,
an entire generation that turned literary experimentation into
self-involved blandness. In the '50s, writers like Nabokov could
produce "Pale Fire" or "Lolita" and feel themselves part of the
mainstream of literary culture. After the '60s, after Robbe-Grillet,
anyone who experimented in fiction was being consciously marginal, or
at least countercultural. Thomas Pynchon (Nabokov's student) removed
himself in the most dramatic way; Nicholson Baker is another, quieter
example.