SOURCE: "Innovation and Ambiguity: Sources of Confusion in Personal Identity in Les jours et les nuits, " in French Studies, Vol. XLV, No. 3, July, 1991, pp. 295-307.

[In the following essay, Bridgeman attempts to justify stylistic and technical innovations in Days and Nights: Novel of a Deserter that have disconcerted readers.]

Alfred Jarry's Les Jours et les nuits: Roman d'un déserteur presents a challenge in ambiguity which few readers appear prepared to take up. Remy de Gourmont, in his review for Le Mercure de France of Jarry's early collection, Les Minutes de sable mémorial, defends obscurity which, as part of the process of literary innovation, represents the essence of the creative spirit; and blames the reader for any difficulties in reading: 'L'obscurité en écriture, quoi? La préface de M. Jarry donne un système par lequel un anatomiste se guiderait,—mais avouons plutôt que l'obscurité n'est souvent que l'ombre même de notre ignorance ou de notre mauvais vouloir' ['Les Livres', Le Mercure de France, October 1894]. Is the innovation in Les Jours et les nuits so great that nearly a century after it was written it is still too new for the reader to grasp, whether through ignorance or ill will? Or does the obscurity of Les Jours et les nuits lie not in its undeniable innovative force but in the layers of meaning described by Michel Arrivé [in Les languages de Jarry, 1972], and in the fluidity of the relationship between text and reader, both of which leave the reader facing too great a gulf of uncertainty that none of the elaborate structures and wit of Jarry's language can conceal?

The reading problems expressed by early commentators on Les Jours et les nuits as yet remain unresolved. The novel holds no classifiable position in the literary canon, unlike Jarry's Ubu Roi which bears the label of precursor to the Theatre of the Absurd, or Faustroll which has become the flagship text of the Collège de 'Pataphysique. Les Jours et les nuits is strikingly different from Ubu Roi and in this respect it disappointed contemporary critics such as Henri Ghéon, whose review of the novel for L'Ermitage [July 1897] expresses bewilderment. Expecting the burlesque and epic acidity of Ubu and finding instead a blend of dream and reality, he protests at the 'alternances fâcheuses qui achèvent de déconcerter le lecteur' and which in his view lead to a lack of balance in the whole. Even Quillard, who appreciated the skill and beauty of Jarry's language, nevertheless foresaw that a readership still accustomed to the tales of bourgeois adultery popular since Flaubert might find it unapproachable [Pierre Quillard, Revue Blanche, June 1, 1902].

One of the puzzles presented by this text is why a twentieth-century audience should also be unreceptive, for, although Jarry has had the support of the forward-looking critics of his time, and also of writers such as Breton, Queneau, Leiris and the members of the Collège de 'Pataphysique, his works (other than Ubu Roi) are still hardly known among the general public. In particular, Henri Béhar describes [in Les Cultures de Jarry, 1988] the inability of his pupils to identify with Les Jours et les nuits, despite their expressed willingness to do so. Why should the innovations of a century ago still present problems to the reader?

Les Jours et les nuits abounds in elements which should appeal to the readership of the late twentieth century. The central themes of the mind, the will, and desire have been popular throughout the century; the word-games which have brought success to Queneau and Perec are there, as are the paste-in techniques of Dos Passos. In addition, we encounter a degree of spoken French woven into the narrative which must have thrilled Queneau or Céline, an early use of the monologue intérieur which far surpasses Dujardin's Les Lauriers sont coupés in subtlety, and, as Saillet has pointed out [in Sur la route de Narcisse, 1958], moments of stream of consciousness which are worthy of Joyce. We further encounter a pleasure in intertexuality (made more explicit in Faustroll) which should please followers of Gérard Genette, and moments of cinematographic prose to match the works of Dashiell Hammett and Alain Robbe-Grillet. That so many of these techniques regarded as of the twentieth century should occur in a novel published in 1897 speaks for the degree of innovation in the novel, but makes the lack of appreciation from present-day readers harder to understand.

A brief description of the central themes of the novel will provide some insight into a major source of difficulty: the questions concerning personal identity which it raises. Les Jours et les nuits recounts an exploration of the powers of the mind and the individual. It follows the thoughts, memories, fantasies, experiences, theories and experiments of the central figure, Sengle, in a narrative which slips from dream to reality in a blend of Sengle's past and present, interspersed with poems and anecdotes.

Sengle is seeking the figure of his beloved brother, Valens, who may never have existed except in Sengle's mind ('Sengle n'était pas bien sûr que son frère Valens eût jamais existé') as a projection of himself. This quest ends in failure, as Sengle loses contact even with his own identity: 'Et Sengle tâtonnait dans la nuit vers son Soi disparu'. The ambiguous relationships between dream, memory and reality in Sengle's thought are reflected at all levels in the language of the novel, in the vocabulary which is often exotic, unexpected, or neologistic, and in the complex syntax. They are also reflected in the 'cohesive' and 'pragmatic' indicators in the text, those elements which provide readers with clues of person, time and place, and of social context, enabling them to establish what might be happening in the novel, and to identify their own position in relation to the novel. [Bridgeman adds in a footnote: 'In the course of my analysis I shall draw on the work of M. A. K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan on Cohesion in English, 1976, and on the pragmatic models set out in G. N. Leech, Principles of Pragmatics, 1983, to support my suggestions concerning the possible processes which may be operating on the reader'.] As Sengle's exploration of identity is a central theme, so are the markers of person essential to the reader's approach. If those signals are ambiguous or conflicting they will contribute to the difficulties experienced by the reader in approaching the novel. As I shall discuss below, Jarry makes use of such indicators to generate a degree of complicity between either the reader and Sengle, or the reader and the narrator, but his use of them can also serve to alienate the reader.

Let us examine these indicators in more detail. Although Les Jours et les nuits has a number of autobiographical elements, one of the frictions in the personal relationships set up by the novel occurs between the identification of the reader with the author and narrator on the one hand, and with Sengle on the other. For, although Sengle, who like Jarry is a writer, may echo some of Jarry's experience and character, they do not share a speaking voice and there is often an ironic gap between the identities of the narrator and Sengle. As the novel progresses, there are increasing signals that the reader should move from a close identification with Sengle to a relationship in which his or her individuality and judgement must be asserted independently: for instance, in reading a prose piece by Vensuet the reader will form a more detailed and considered opinion than Sengle's dismissive 'prose d'officier' which is a straight repetition of his former judgement 'vers d'officier'.

There are also moments when the reader is pushed into a relationship of complicity with the author which repeatedly relegates Sengle to the tragi-comic role of Don Quixote. He tilts at windmills for the sake of the lady of his thoughts, Dulcinea: 'Et Sengle avait dulcinifié ou déifié sa force' with Dricarpe (in 'Chevaux de bois') as his Sancho Panza, and his identification with this role culminates in the penultimate chapter 'Sur la route de Dulcinée'. Thus as Sengle fails in his own search for identity, he loses contact not only with himself but also with the reader. There is, however, a further subtlety in the relationship of the reader with Sengle. For at the end of the novel, although Sengle himself is lost in the dark, his motivations, and therefore he himself, continue to exist in the reader's memory, evoked by the lines of the Chinese legend which close the novel.

The longest and most explicit passage in which the author as narrator addresses the reader directly occurs at midpoint in the novel, and under circumstances which nevertheless leave the reader unsure of his or her own position.

Puisse ce chapitre faire comprendre à la foule, la grande héméralope, qui ne sait voir qu'à des lueurs connues, que d'autres peuvent la considérer comme une exception morbide, et calculer les ascensions droites et déclinaisons d'une nuit pour elle sans astre; qu'il lui fasse pardonner ce que dans ce livre elle trouvera sacrilège envers ses idoles, car en somme nous affirmons ceci . . .

Here, the atmosphere of complicity between Sengle and the reader is abruptly broken by Jarry's formal intrusion into the narrative (this formality is expressed through the use of nous rather than je), for he implies that the reading public, including the reader, is in the position of a night-blind soldier, unable to see or understand what the writer grasps fully. Thus, in interpreting Les Jours et les nuits, the reader will make mistakes because of the limits of his or her possible understanding.

Such a passage acts as a direct challenge to individual readers to be different from the mass of readers so clearly despised by Jarry, and deliberately sets up an antagonistic relationship between author and reader. At the same time we as readers, having already experienced the obscurities of the text, realize the impossibility of escaping from the role in which Jarry has cast us. Once the figure of Jarry the author has been revealed, he cannot be excluded from the reader's awareness, even when silent.

Jarry does not allow these suggested roles of author and reader to remain unchallenged. He forces the reader to reconsider this relationship as the chapter continues, for we see Sengle deliberately deceiving a group of night-blind soldiers by pretending to be their general. In this picture of Sengle the writer fooling the héméralopes (who, as we have seen, represent the readers) into believing that he is a figure of authority and wisdom (. . . 'un général intelligent serait un grand mage') there lies the suggestion that Jarry is fooling his reader. Because of our blindness we must take on trust Jarry's account of himself, leaving Jarry free to fool us as he chooses.

I have discussed this passage in detail because it contains a number of keys to the reading of the novel. It also highlights one of the most disconcerting elements of Jarry's writing: that the edifice of Jarry's text is built on a fundamental uncertainty, that of the deceptive powers of language, leaving us with the suspicion that everything might be a game in which the reader is the victim.

This question of the deceptive role of language is closely related to Jarry's views on the function of literary language expressed in 'Un peu de sacrilège', where we find the following words spoken by a God, Dom***:

'Les Commandements seraient monstrueux d'exiger la confidence d'un soi compliqué à qui n'en est pas digne. Le Christ en ses paraboles parlait selon l'actuelle compréhension des peuples. Et il faut se faire foule pour entretenir la foule—sauf dans l'œuvre d'art, qui ne la regarde pas/

Leaving aside the question of elitism inherent in this concept, Jarry makes a very important distinction between discourse as comprehensible communication, and art, which has no obligation to render itself understandable to the masses. This distinction is close to that made by Mallarmé in his introduction to René Ghil's Traité du verbe, between the ordinary everyday language of communication, and the language of poetry which is not governed by the same rules. The expression of such a concept of the function of literature from the lips of the deity can act as a reassurance to its readers: art is not meant to be understood on the level of everyday communication, and they should therefore not expect to understand everything in Les Jours et les nuits. This is an explicit statement concerning obscurity in art; the main objective of a work of literature is not necessarily to be understood.

The idea has already been expressed in 'Linteau', the introduction to Minutes de sable mémorial, described by Gourmont as a 'système par lequel un anatomiste se guiderait', which states that literature should 'suggérer au lieu de dire, faire dans la route des phrases un carrefour de tous les mots'. In the above passage from Les Jours et les nuits, Jarry apparently suggests that in experiencing the novel, its readers are free to interpret the text as they wish, but that this does not necessarily constitute an act of understanding. Both of these passages underline the elusive nature of Jarry's novel and imply that the reader who looks for a definitive reading of the novel will be disappointed.

In the varying relationship between text and reader certain techniques can be singled out which contribute to the shifting patterns of personal identity in Les Jours et les nuits and thus aggravate the reader's sense of uncertainty. I shall discuss first Jarry's use of spoken style. One of the most innovative features of his language is the incorporation of constructions and terms characteristic of spoken French into the body of the narrative, in such a way that these constructions are identified by the reader as part of the discourse of the narrator, thereby linking them to the authorial voice. [In Poétique de Céline, 1985] Godard has suggested that until the publication of Celine's Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932), authors such as Zola, Vallès and Barbusse, although introducing versions of 'spoken style' into their novels, had been careful to distance the authorial and narrative voice from such styles, presenting them in the form of direct or indirect quotation. Godard has good reason to claim that Céline was the first to introduce 'spoken style' into the narrator's discourse in a consistent manner, but I would contend that Jarry's close association of 'spoken style' with the narrative and authorial position is sufficiently strong to be worthy of note, although the variety of registers and the rapid passage from one to another which are essential stylistic features of Jarry's novel must preclude such a consistent use of spoken style in the narrative voice. Thus passages of high rhetoric may remain just that, or be interspersed with interjections in a different tone, and passages of spoken French may end with a classical reference. Indeed, in my view, the flexibility shown by Jarry's discourse in allowing the intrusion of 'spoken style' into passages related by the third-person narrator, closely associated with the author's own position, flies more strongly in the face of convention than the first-person narrative of Voyage au bout de la nuit in which the stylistic revolt can be associated with the speech patterns of a character.

In Les Jours et les nuits, styles usually confined to spoken French occur in dialogue, and in unmarked thoughts, where the indication that they are Sengle's thoughts, not the words of the narrator, is either delayed or not provided. This imitation of unplanned discourse enhances the impression of familiarity between narrator, characters and reader. It is part of the stream of consciousness technique sometimes used by Jarry which I shall return to, but in the meantime I shall give a few examples of this which create an impression of proximity between narrative voice and reader.

Consider, for instance, the following passage:

Sengle comprit l'utilité au régiment des caleçons contre le contact de ces doublures. Désinfectées, soit, physiquement; mais les relents y restaient en esprit. Détail aggravant: les chaussures. Tout ce qu'il y a de plus petit, chercha-t-il.

It is apparent here that such a technique can involve a degree of ambiguity in the identity of the speaking subject. In this example, the indication that the abbreviated style of the first sentence, and the familiar tone of 'Tout ce qu'il y a de plus petit' are the result of a direct transmission of Sengle's thought only comes with 'chercha-til'; until this point, the reader cannot distinguish the speaking voice from the third-person narrator of the immediately preceding sentence.

In contrast to this, in the following chapter the spoken style is not marked in any way as being part of Sengle's internal thoughts: 'Lui qui avait peur des glaces se mirait par ces baies dans d'autres militaires'. Jarry also makes use of narrative fillers which would be more commonly found in spoken French, for example: 'auquel il ne comprit rien d'ailleurs' contains the filler d'ailleurs which could be a tiny snatch of style direct libre, but which could equally well belong to the discourse of the external narrator (I shall use the term style direct libre to describe the direct transmission of what would otherwise be expected to be reported speech).

However, the use of forms more common to spoken French does not always involve such ambiguity. Indeed, it may represent an assertion of the author/narrator's direct relationship with the reader. For example: '(malgré le titre de ce livre, ce qui fait qu'on l'a choisi)' comes at the end of a series of interjections into the process of Sengle's thought made by a narrator very close to Jarry himself. Another example of this can be found in the tag n'est-ce pas in 'mais toute science est plus analyse qu'une littérature, n'estce pas?', which must also represent a direct address by the narrative voice to the reader. This tag is not really a question requiring an answer, instead it acts as a phatic marker, establishing that the reader is present and continuing to be interested in the text.

Jarry also makes use of the strongly exophoric presentatives voici and voilà to generate the impression of direct physical speech between the narrative voice and the reader. For instance the 'Et voici que vogue son lit' in the opening passage of the third chapter generates the impression of spoken French in a situation where the speaker and reader are physically present. In some instances, the presentative can act as an indication of style direct libre, as in the case of 'En voici un qui commence la déroute' which provides the reader with direct access to a thought or spoken phrase commenting on the action. Here, in a further blurring of identity, it is not clear whether the thought comes from Sengle or whether it has been spoken by another soldier, and is heard through Sengle's ears.

The use of demonstratives may also serve to heighten the impression of personal judgement by the narrator which he is inviting the reader to share: 'Et la confession fut comme toute confession, avec cet amusement que le prêtre crut parler à la soldatesque coutumière', where 'avec cet amusement' emphasizes a speech situation of 'you, me and the text'. Here Sengle, the narrator and the reader all share in the amusement, having access to the information necessary to perceive the humour of the situation, whereas the priest has no knowledge of Sengle's nature and thoughts.

Jarry's use of the devices described above is not a constant feature of the novel. Instead, he uses them to form part of the word-play which enriches his language and is a source of pleasure for the reader. He can combine familiar and elevated expressions to generate a strongly ironic tone: for instance, when Sengle is invited to a literary party of the type which he clearly despises, Jarry's description is a combination of preciosity and familiarity: 'où il commit la gaffe de ne point paraître, d'ailleurs . . . ', in which 'il commit' and 'ne point' are neatly balanced by 'la gaffe' and 'd'ailleurs', conveying an overall impression of parody.

This use of both spoken expressions and more elevated styles to dislocate the register of certain passages through contrast is worthy of further scrutiny, for these shifts of register often indicate a possible change in the narrative voice, as in the following passage: 'Avec ces loques ça ne fait rien de se salir. On a les mains grosses, les mollets fondus, les pieds lourds, la tête qui pèle dans le képi, le dos se voûte en souvenir du ou en attendant le sac'. The intrusion of the conscious manipulation of grammar at the end of this very direct passage forces the reader into an awareness of style as style. In it, Jarry separates the definite article from the noun, thereby flouting grammatical rules while avoiding the repetition of 'sac'. In this instance, Jarry places concision and neatness above grammatical considerations, and the device intrudes into the physical misery of the soldier.

Equally, Jarry breaks the flow of pseudo-scientific discourse in 'Pataphysique' with a brutally vulgar phrase: 'll est très important que ce soient des battements; mais que la diastole soit un repos de la systole, et que ces petites morts entretiennent la vie, explication qui n'est qu'une constation, Sengle s'en foutait comme du savantasse, son quelconque auteur'. This type of sudden contrast in narrative position prevents the reader from developing any security in his or her relationship with the text. Unable to make a distinction between the lower rhetorical register belonging to the speech of characters and a higher style belonging to the narrator, we are left disconcerted, because both voices may use both registers. The breakdown of the barriers between written and spoken styles thus involves a reworking of the relationship between author and reader and marks Jarry as a precursor of much twentieth-century novelistic prose.

It is interesting to note that in his introduction of some of the characteristics of unplanned discourse, Jarry avoids the unnecessary repetitions and uneconomical use of words usually associated with it. Indeed, he often exploits the possibilities of a freedom from the rigid rules of grammar to generate greater economy of expression, as in the example 'en souvenir du ou en attendant le sac' discussed above. This economy of expression can also be seen in an abbreviated note-like form, which can either generate an internal stream of consciousness, a cinematographic stream of experience which involves the description of events, or style direct libre. This stylistic feature contributes directly to the ambiguities of the speech situation, and the blend of internal and external experience, both new or original techniques in themselves at the time of writing, increases the sophistication of Jarry's manipulation of language.

My first example combines both these techniques:

Il est venu un tas de gens, le général avec, c'est bien possible, tous soldats militaires trimballant un machin doré qui est l'étendard, érigé sur le ventre d'un lieutenant très fier (c'est l'étui des dépêches, disait l'héraut d'Aristophane).

This passage represents a range of speaking voices without providing any of the usual textual indications of quotation marks, or he said, he thought, they said and so on, which are usually included to provide the reader with a clear picture of the speech situation. It is possible that the entire passage represents Sengle's own thoughts, ranging from the dislocated and familiar stranded preposition of 'le général avec' to the classical reference to Aristophanes. But, as is elsewhere the case, several elements do not appear to be part of Sengle's own thoughts, but a direct report of the spoken phrases which he is hearing. Thus, 'un tas de gens, le général avec, c'est bien possible', although unmarked as such except by punctuation, takes on the potential status of remarks exchanged among Sengle's fellow soldiers. At some point there appears to be a further transition to a register appropriate to Sengle's thoughts, which themselves can range from the literary to the obscene, but the brackets which enclose the reference to Aristophanes present a further possibility in the identity of the speaking voice. Although they may merely represent an aside in Sengle's own thoughts, they may also indicate another shift in the narrative voice to the third person narrator, the fictional counterpart to Jarry himself. In accordance with Jarry's own principle of 'suggérer au lieu de dire', I would suggest that the text contains the possibilities of all these speaking voices, and therefore remains ambiguous for the reader.

Such passages also have the effect of adjusting the proximity of the reader to the text. This unfolding of experience, without any commentary, in which the reader must react without any certain knowledge of the identity of the speaking voice, can bring the reader closer to the text. In such a case our identification with the consciousness through which we are experiencing the text can be intensified to the point where our awareness of any narrative voice is effaced. However, the lack of textual interpretation of identity may push the reader into the position of a film-goer, who hears and sees directly the speech and actions of the protagonists but who must draw his or her own conclusions on the nature of events. This technique thus generates a conflicting relationship between the reader and the text. On the one hand, the reader experiences more closely the thoughts and physical sensations expressed, as would be expected of the monologue intérieur used by Dujardin, or Joyce's stream of consciousness, but on the other hand, the cinematographic aspect of Jarry's technique is closer to that of Robbe-Grillet, and has the effect of increasing an impression of non-participation. This impression is often shared by both Sengle and the reader, initially in Sengle's dreams, such as 'Consul romanus', but later as a deliberate choice in 'Jusqu'à une date'. Sengle's approval of the idea of experience through all the senses without active participation is expressed in 'Adelphisme et nostalgie': 'Et il semblait évident à Sengle, quoique trop paresseux pour être jamais allé le voir fonctionner, que le cinématographe était préférable au stéréoscope . . . '.

Another feature of Jarry's writing which calls the position of the reader into question is the author's use of condensed sentences (this is not 'ellipsis' in the sense described by Halliday and Hasan, so I have avoided this term here) in which he has pared down the elements to a dense formulation of meaning. Of these sentences, the most relevant are those which, through the deletion of repeatable elements, not only generate an effect of style, but which also affect the understanding of the text, and hence the reader's interpretation of his or her position in relation to the text. Some such sentences can involve the reader in a generative process, according to the principle of 'suggérer au lieu de dire', in which we find ourselves competent to build a satisfactory construction of meaning from them. Others, however, can exclude the reader from participation in a communication process because they violate the Griceian maxim of Quantity, and do not supply sufficient information for us to be able to interpret them to our satisfaction. In such cases, it is not the identity of the speaking voice which is in doubt, but the reader's position in the relationship of power between text and reader.

An example of the condensing of information, but in such a form that an interpretation is retrievable, occurs in 'Consul romanus':

Sengle et Valens s'étaient rhabillés et assis sur le bord de la citerne, les mains jointes sur les genoux et les pieds mouvant les joncs, suivant la fuite ondulante au repère des paroles visibles.

In this passage which describes Sengle and Valens watching the priest dive, the phrase 'suivant la fuite ondulante au repère des paroles visibles', in which the noun 'repère' does not seem to make sense, can be interpreted as 'suivant des yeux la fuite ondulante afin de repérer les paroles visibles du curé en forme de bulles'. A further ambiguous but intelligible condensed sentence is: 'Après les assassinats possibles acceptés, et tout le nécessaire pour l'évasion vers soi'. This sentence presents a number of difficulties involving rank-shifting and deletion of nouns and verbs, and the structural branching of two different clause types from 'après', but the element which contributes to ambiguity in personal identity is the deletion of the Actor ['Actor' is a term used by Halliday] from each clause. This presents a problem of cohesion because there are two Actors involved. A fuller rendering of these clauses to illustrate this problem would be, restoring the missing indicators of person: 'Après les assassinats possibles [de Sengle furent] acceptés [par le curé] et [après que Sengle eut achevé] tout le nécessaire pour l'évasion vers soi'. In these examples, the reader avoids being relegated to the status of héméralope because a (seemingly) logical pattern of meaning can be constructed from them.

There are other instances, however, where the text appears to assume a knowledge which the reader does not have. For instance the brief reference to 'le suicide militaire classique' gives no explanation of what such a suicide might be, leaving the reader unsure of what has happened. Likewise 'un étang couvert, servant de sépulcre, sous une église', or 'avec les cheveux pareils à un trou sur la fumée chaude', or 'Tout le régiment était parti: c'était le plus décoratif déshabillage' exclude us from the images evoked by Jarry because we cannot imagine what they might refer to. This technique again alienates us from the text and from the speaking voice, because the discrepancy between our understanding and the apparent knowledge of the speaking voice is emphasized, leaving us conscious, as readers, of our inferior position.

In the examples given above, we have seen the repudiation of the reader by deliberate obscurity in the narrative text, which, by implication, is a repudiation by the author himself of the héméralope, unable to understand a greater artistic truth. However, as Sengle's quest moves towards failure, the withholding of knowledge from the reader serves to change our relationship, not with the narrator or imagined author, but with Sengle's inner consciousness from which we are increasingly excluded. In a conversation between Sengle and Philippe, for instance, both speakers refer to events outside the novel of which the reader knows nothing:

—Vous savez que de sortir ça ne m'a pas été utile à Biarritz?

—Je sais, j'ai lu.

This tells the reader almost as little as a conversation overheard in the street; it provides little context for interpretation.

Expectations concerning the reader's relationship with the text are also confused by Jarry's use of simile. The question again is one of complicity or rejection through the presence or lack of shared knowledge. Simile typically generates an alternative image which acts as a point of comparison and a reference point for the initial idea in the text. It can be expected to draw on an element from the shared experience of the writer and the reader which will enhance the reader's understanding of the text. Jarry does not often make use of simile, but when he does, it tends to generate a further layer of complexity, rather than acting to clarify. For instance, in the first chapter he likens Sengle's position while making love to that of the male tarantula: 'comme on dit que peut le plus souvent éviter l'anguleuse patte empoisonnée le mâle de la tarentule'. The effect of this is not to enlighten: even the narrator has not seen what the male spider does, relying only on hearsay—comme on dit. Instead it creates an impression of exoticism, as does the later simile: 'semblables à la méduse marine qui n'a qu'un trou pour anus et bouche', which occurs in the course of the description of Sengle's uniform in 'Eteignoir'. Equally, in 'Consul romanus', 'Et comme on apporte un squelette d'argent à l'issue des festins, il se courba' adds a dimension to the imagery without clarifying the situation. By the means described above, Jarry sets up a complex of personal relationships within the text and between text and reader which are constantly changing. He demands familiarity and yet denies the reader the status of an equal. The effect of this on his readers is naturally disturbing, and they may react by being unwilling to co-operate with the text.

In the course of this discussion, I have described several elements in Jarry's novel which might cause the reader difficulties of identification with the text. Such a picture is one-sided, concentrating on the possible problems caused by obscurity, and does not convey adequately the cohesive threads which act to counter-balance them. Jarry is not only hyperculte, Béhar's term which, although jargonistic, describes so exactly the multiple cultural context of Jarry's works; he is also hyperlinguistique and hyperstylistique, using not one narrative technique but many, which are inextricably interwoven to generate an elusive pattern.

Perhaps Ghéon, in suggesting that the novel lacks balance, was expressing the lack of balance which Les Jours et les nuits induces in the reader. It may be that the complex manipulation of the very techniques described above so narrows the possible audience for such a novel, because of the refinement of linguistic appreciation demanded, that the novel becomes a novel for connoisseurs, almost a novelists' novel. Certainly, in it, Jarry has made no concessions to la foule, which in his opinion need not concern itself with art. For the reader to enter fully into the contract of reading, the appeal of Jarry's rich and subtle language must outweigh the confusion induced by its multiplicity.