Alain Robbe-Grillet RIP

I just wanted to put this up on the blog. Alain Robbe-Grillet died while I was at the first day of Vinisud, and the hotel TV in Montpellier didn't bother to tell me so on any of its several channels; in the end I found out from my free Figaro on the flight home. Here's the Guardian's obituary:Alain Robbe-Grillet | Obituaries | guardian.co.uk Books After Kathy Foley's piece in the Sunday Times:

We have few, if any, counterparts to the American blogging elite, whose online dispatches zing with flair, attitude and insight, not to mention - in some cases - with intellectual rigour...

I'm a bit afraid of getting anywhere near the highbrow oche - I just want to mark the passing of an author I admire. I never saw the use in getting too theoretical about the nouveau roman. I just like reading those books. Some people need intellectual rigour as a rod to beat others (or themselves) with. Takes all sorts. I saw M. R-G about twenty years ago when he was part of a John Calder roadshow with Snoo Wilson and William Burroughs' emanuensis, whose name I forget. Eugene Ionesco was meant to be there too, but was unavailable. I remember being pretty fed up about that, but the curious assembly formed an impressive quorum as it was.