Where Do Stories Begin and End? the Example of Marc Petit

Among the comments that critics make about Marc Petit's fiction, there are many flattering comparisons to other writers, including Kafka, Rimbaud, Trakl, Borges, Sue, Verne, Arnim, and the brothers Grimm. (1) This shows the high regard in which his work is held, but it also underlines the fact that much of Petit's work calls to mind other writers, literary movements, and specific texts. There is an important element of parody in nearly all that Petit has written. La Compagnie des indes (The Indies Company) tells the adventures of naive young Scotsman who sails to India, takes part in the wars there between the French and the English, then travels to France and becomes involved in the Revolution. (2) It is strongly reminiscent of the picaresque novel, for its hero is unsure of his true parents, learns through harsh experience to come to terms with cruel world, and is obliged to live off his wits. The hero, whose name is Flodoard, points directly to the picaresque when he claims that his adventures are wonderful than those of Gil Blas de Santillane (Compagnie 315). To some extent this novel is parody of parody, for it constantly reminds the reader of Candide as the hero leaves the protected life of castle, wanders around India observing pointless but bloody battles between the French and the English, discovers land of apparent peace and enlightenment in the mountains, and finds that this is only an appearance. La Compagnie des indes is also conte philosophique with much to say about the human condition, and parody of the extraordinary adventures and coincidences of the seventeenth-century adventure novel. Ouroboros (Ouroboros), an enormous novel of some five hundred pages, is also reminiscent of picaresque novel. Its characters wander the world, experiencing adventures and seeking answers to their questions. The fact that much of it is set in seventeenth-century Germany amidst the cruelty and fanaticism of religious wars makes the reader think at once of Grimmelshausen's Simplicius Simplicissimus. One of the characters, Andreas, is, like Voltaire's hero Candide, an innocent young man who leaves home and has to come to grips with an inexplicable world of cruelty and chaos. The characters' optimism and belief in an order behind this chaos is constantly contradicted by events. The burning of heretics recalls scenes in Simplicissimus and the auto-da-fe in Candide. Le Nain geant (The Giant Dwarf), set in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century, is the tale of an inventor of mechanical toys and automata who bequeaths to his son something that he calls nain geant. The son, Benjamin, has to outwit his brother and various villains to find this object and discover what exactly it is. The atmosphere of mystery, the twists of plot, and the melodrama remind one of nineteenth-century feuilleton. Chases through the streets at night and through the sewers recall Eugene Sue and Victor Hugo, and the police inspector named Juvert is an obvious allusion to Javert in Les Miserables. The detective novel is explicitly evoked when Benjamin, in his search for clues to the hiding place of the nain geant, compares himself to a character in real detective story, like the ones that ate coming into fashion on the other side of the Channel and in America (Nain 119). There is also something of the detective novel in Le Troisieme Faust (The Third Faust), in which an American journalist named Lucian Blackwell worms his way into Goethe's house in search of third part of Faust. Even more clearly modeled on detective fiction is La Morenada (The Morenada), the story of man called Lutzel who arrives in La Paz in search of Nazi war criminal by the name of Schwarz. Continually thwarted by other characters whose identity he is unsure of, misled by false clues and unsure if Schwarz even exists, Lutzel makes rather poor detective. At times, this novel is more reminiscent of Kafka, as Lutzel hunts for answers in city whose geography he never really fathoms and in which he has to find his way without even the aid of map. …

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