Tanguy Viel's Manic Fictions

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Notes

Notes

1 Specifically his first four novels. The most recent, Paris-Brest, is a bit of a departure in certain regards.

2 Translations of this and all other texts by Tanguy Viel are my own.

3 My reading of Viel's fictions therefore subscribes to Tzvetan Todorov's recent inquiry into the enduring value and purpose of literature, and why we should continue to teach it. For Todorov, “literature does not replace lived experiences but forms a continuum with them and helps me understand them” (Todorov 17).

4 While the narrator of L’Absolue perfection du crime remains anonymous throughout most of the novel, at one point the text very quickly reveals that his name is, in fact, Pierre.

5 See, for example, Galand.

6 Perhaps it is no mere coincidence that Tanguy Viel hails from the country that lays claim to the largest consumption of psychotropic medications, per capita, in the world. See Fleming and Morice.