Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Jelloun, Tahar Ben - Eric Sellin (review date autumn 1998)

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Eric Sellin (review date autumn 1998)

SOURCE: Sellin, Eric. Review of La Nuit de l'erreur, by Tahar Ben Jelloun. World Literature Today 72, no. 4 (autumn 1998): 884.

[In the following review, Sellin compliments Ben Jelloun's lyrical prose but argues that La Nuit de l'erreur is too derivative and dependent on the formulaic narrative structure established in the author's earlier works.]

Upon completing my reading of La Nuit de l'erreur, I was reminded of a comment Jean Cocteau once made concerning the work of art, to the effect that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a building being erected from one being demolished, if one passes quickly and does not look carefully. The reader unfamiliar with Tahar Ben Jelloun's earlier works may be stunned by the virtuosity and poetic style displayed in La Nuit de l'erreur and be swept along by the sheer narrative energy of the text; and even someone familiar with such...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Jean-Louise Thatcher (review date summer 1988)
   2. Robin Buss (review date 27 January-2 February 1989)
   3. Adam Zameenzad (review date 19 November 1989)
   4. Mustapha Marrouchi (essay date winter 1990)
   5. Robin Buss (review date 15 June 1990)
   6. Mildred Mortimer (review date winter 1991)
   7. Odile Cazenave (essay date February 1991)
   8. Richard Eder (review date 11 April 1991)
   9. Tahar Ben Jelloun and Thomas Spear (interview date 25 May 1991)
   10. Aamer Hussein (review date 21 June 1991)
   11. Eric Sellin (review date autumn 1992)
   12. Danielle Chavy Cooper (review date spring 1993)
   13. John D. Erickson (essay date spring 1993)
   14. Marie Fayad (essay date December 1993)
   15. Danielle Chavy Cooper (review date autumn 1994)
   16. Brinda Mehta (essay date October 1994)
   17. James Campbell (review date 16 December 1994)
   18. Nada Elia (review date autumn 1995)
   19. Richard Eder (review date 19 October 1995)
   20. Allen Hibbard (review date spring 1996)
   21. Ramzi M. Salti (review date spring 1996)
   22. Kenneth Fleurant (review date May 1996)
   23. Eric Sellin (review date autumn 1998)
   24. Tahar Ben Jelloun and Shusha Guppy (interview date fall 1999)
   25. Eric Sellin (review date summer 2000)
   26. Michael Brett (review date 4 August 2000)
   27. Jamal Mahjoub (review date 17 August 2001)
   28. Publishers Weekly (review date 4 March 2002)
   29. Ziauddin Sardar (review date 17 February 2003)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright