An imaginative and subtle book written with wonderful lucidity. One of the smartest studies of modern French literature.

This is by no means a story in the classical sense. Almost without exception, everything we learn is what the main narrator tells us and he basically confines himself to describing the scenes surrounding and tangential to the mainly untold plot. The narration of the 'story' is continually broken off only to be repeated in almost the same words. Again and again the narrator devotes himself to the neurotically precise description of objects around him. I interpret this as an escape by the narrator from the further development of the truncated plot fragments. The narrator seems to be tormented and psychologically paralysed as this is obviously the story of a moribund relationship and thinly veiled deceit.
This is not your regular jolly-old read but there is something about this book that lingers on long after the plot of a more conventional novel is forgotton. There is something here that seeps osmotically into the consciousness and remains like memories of undramatic moments in human life.

I read Jalousie in college, over 20 years ago, and still think of it with great affection. It is a novel of obsession by an author equally obsessed with technique and perspective, and if you submit to it it is hypnotizing. We pretend, in our 'real lives' to see in three dimensions, and to understand the people around us as well, but jalousie makes the case that we are really very limited in what we actually know -we are like a paranoid man peering at the world through the slats of the blinds that cover our windows: we can only guess the true shape of the world, the actual motivations of people. From this perspective everyone's motives are suspect, and paranoia blooms in the heat of this banana plantation, into madness. My favorite image, recalled 20 years since I have read the work, is the monstrous centipede on the wall: first there, then smashed into the wallpaper, then the stain of its presence, and over and over again. Robbe-Grillet, given your willingness to submit, crawls into your consciousness like this luscious, preposterously large, poisonous insect.

One of the best and most mysterious novels ever. It is the most psychological of novels because there is no psychology involved in interpreting the events.

This book is not a bad one by any means. The oddity of the various identities/meanings of the character are intriguing as well as the search for the truth of what happened. The way the various events are tied and and switched about to make, in essence, three stories is nice. However, all I really left with from the book is a bit of a hollow feeling. Too much ambiguity to find answers, and too little depth to find fulfillment. Perhaps I read too fast or overlooked the point, but to me it was simply a good writer flexing his literary muscles for show.

I like this book very much. It has been over 10 years since I read it and some of the graphic images are still with me. The myth of genies usually is one of benevolence. This genie is not a benevolent genie. It kept my attention because as a youth, my interest in mythology was a fascination I have never outgrown. Don't look too hard for hidden meanings, it is a book meant to entertain. You will learn a thing or two about many things associated with genies not commonly added to modern interpretations.

Dreams of a Young Girls is a typical work of David Hamilton's. Those who are familar with his particular brand of artistry will feel at home with his adoration of the young female form. Those a bit more on the prudish side will see the man as nothing more than an aging voyeur. Whatever your personal opinion, "Dreams of A Young Girl" is standard Hamilton fair.

Compared to his other works, i did not enjoy it as much. But this is a brilliant writer. Anything he writes overflows with creativity. I recommend this book. But i recommend The Voyeurs or The Erasers first.

The settings of both stories are oriental. In `Djinn' the protagonist works undercover for an androgenous American spy. There are some curious adventures met in the hands of two children. After a while the book begins to fold back on itself and we find ourselves right where we started but we go off in a slightly different direction. It is as if the protagonist is trapped in some never ending mystery that doesn't explain itself. `La Maison De Rendez-Vous' is about an evening get together, again we find some mysterious elements and the story folds back on itself various times, everytime we get a further glimpse into the affairs. It is the most curios style of narration that ends up adding a nightmarish aspect to the mystery. I wouldn't suggest this book to a die hard mystery reader but this will make an interesting reading otherwise

These two novels (the author's third and fourth, respectively) make for a pretty good introduction to the strange world of Alain Robbe-Grillet. I tend to think of his books as post-modern detective stories, in which the mystery to be solved is nothing less than existence itself; that the reader often finds himself in the dark is very much to the point. They should be interesting to anyone looking for an off-the-beaten-path read.

"Jealousy" (the better of the two) deals with a love triangle in a remote African plantation... which may or may not be all in the narrator's mind. It's creepy and enigmatic. "In the Labyrinth" is a vaguely Kafkaesque tale about a soldier attempting to deliver a mysterious package in a vast, unnamed city. Admittedly, Robbe-Grillet is not the most approachable of authors, but these densely composed novels amply pay off the attention required to read them.

I am a high school student and I take Cinema and Literature, a college class. I was suppose to read this book, and I did. At the beginning it was going pretty slow...it was too detailed. Then around the middle it started to get good. At the end, it left me empty. I felt like everything I wanted, and was expecting to be answer was not. It is an okay book if you are able to understand what happens at the end, I didn't.

This novel seems much longer than it actually is. The "action" is dragged out and you begin to find Mathias' obsessive plans to sell his watches tedious, but there is something oddly compelling about it that makes you read on. Lingering behind his figure eight strategies is the death of a disreputable girl and this is what keeps you on the edge of your seat, sick with worry and anxiety. Even though we are following Mathias incredibly closely in all his movements we still don't feel we know him. This is largely because we are made to understand that Mathias doesn't know anything about himself. There is a distinction made between "the salesman" and Mathias. It indicates there is an impersonal aspect to him we will never know. He is constantly being made into an impersonal and stereotypical type of person and the reader is forced to search for details that will connect him with a personal experience. His past is portrayed as an impenetrable muddy mess. "it was useless trying to stir up his memories, he didn't even know what he should be looking for." You gather that the world will in a sense always remain unknowable because of our limited personal perspective. In a sense each person's perception causes harm to what they perceive by limiting it by our own values and labels. This is the murderer and the mystery is how to disassemble our own code of perception. This novel is a fascinating exploration of these ideas and a pleasure to read.

repetition, redundancy, monotony, that's the point, open ended, yep. Thought-provoking, hope so. French lit, definitely. Go for it then watch his films.

I count myself among Robbe-Grillet's admirers, but this collection of six early stories really isn't the ideal place to begin if you're unfamiliar with his work. Robbe-Grillet's method is, in part, to replace psychological analysis (a hallmark of French literature) with objective visual description. His work is often hauntingly ambiguous precisely because the author refuses to impose, at least overtly, any kind of meaning on his narrative, or allow us to enter his characters' minds. He simply writes scenes--and let the reader make of it what he will.

In "Snapshots," though, the author generally comes up empty. I just don't know what to think of these stories, which present the reader with a simple sequence of events, elaborately detailed, and then stop. One can pick them apart and find more to them than might be immediately clear, but there isn't much here worth dwelling on. "The Secret Room" is probably the best of an undistinguished lot.

Perhaps the author needed to write these little exercises before he could go on to bigger and better things. I'd advise the interested reader to skip the stories and go straight to the novels, in which Robbe-Grillet's peculiar talent displays itself more fully.

Having just read Peter Nadas' "A Lovely Tale of Photography", I had to reread Robbe-Grillet's "Shapshots". Why? Because they both tell stories based on visual description. The traits they have in common, the points at which they diverge are a fascinating comparison.

I don't mean to imply you must have read Nadas to enjoy Robbe-Grillet. Robbe-Grillet is very consistent in his objective observer technique - the senses which are most subjective - taste, smell and touch are all but absent in Snapshots. Some of the shapshots such as The Dressmaker's Dummy tend to require mental gymnastics to visualize the scene precisely as described. Others such as The Way Back are easier to visualize and provide an implied plot line.

This short book is well worth the time to read - either for enjoyment or for a reminder of what was avante-garde 50 years ago.

robe-grillets use of "transmedial" dialogue gives the book an unearthly realism not uncommon with pynchons earlier works---ooh la la baby

This book was agonizing to read, every turn of the page inflicted pain on my sensitive green eyes. Robbe-Grillet seems to be going out of his way to write extremely boring, dead prose (think Camus, Flaubert, or Delillo). The characters are flatter than unleavened bread, and the "mystery" i couldn't even bring myself to care about. Objectivity in life and in novels is often as dull as anything. To the devil with the "new novel"!

I read this many years ago after borrowing it from a friend and had to buy it now to own it and re-read it. My friend read it for a class and came to love it. He told me about and I found the plot intriquing. It's more than that. It's fascinating! Robbe-Grillet writes in such an unusual style which you soon grab on to, and then it pulls you in. As another reviewer said, take nothing for granted. Everything is important. If you like trite stories with no plot aside from the "been there done that" type, then don't buy this. You'll probably hate it. But if you enjoy being captivated by a story, and want a story and plot line to take you somewhere, this is it. This is a story which requires you to think. The story and the plot fold in and on themselves and becomes tangled, but then unfolds and reveals the brilliant mind of the author. A literary masterpiece!

The narration and elaborate descirptions in this book lure the reader in more and more. You cannot let one single aspect of the narration escape you, it's too important to the impact of the ending. There is also a plot within a plot in this book; the unfolding of events is extremely well done. I couldn't put it down because as the reader, you feel more omnicient than the characters and can't wait to see the final outcome.