Characters Discussed
Alain Guimiez
Alain Guimiez (ah-LAY[N] gee-MYEHZ), an aspiring young writer, snobbish, insecure, and overly anxious to impress. At twenty-seven years of age, he has not completed his doctoral dissertation or established himself professionally, but he covets the trappings of success. Living in a tiny efficiency apartment, he envies his aunt’s five-room apartment in a fashionable neighborhood. When, in a thoughtless moment, his aunt suggests an exchange, Alain first hesitates but soon greedily pictures himself entertaining friends in spacious surroundings. When his wife urges practicality and a teaching position, he sneers at “bourgeois” values and seeks solace from Germaine Lemaire. An established writer, she has praised his work and so flattered him that he has memorized her exact words. When she encourages him, she becomes the standard by which he lives. He acts ashamed of his father in her presence, questions his wife’s taste, and even submits his own expertise in art to her approval. Blinded by her aura of superiority, only occasionally does he glimpse her need for adulation. In rare moments, he sees her as ordinary, almost vulgar, but he cannot relinquish his faith because of his almost total lack of confidence in himself.
Gisèle Guimiez
Gisèle Guimiez (zhee-ZEHL), Alain’s wife, who clings to her husband but also is still dependent on her mother. Gisèle adores her husband but worries about their future and about Alain’s lack of ambition. She tries to keep the peace between Alain and her mother, but sometimes she does not know which of the two to trust. Like Alain, she is concerned about appearances, wants his aunt’s apartment for the same reasons, likes expensive antiques for their ability to impress, and is flattered by Germaine Lemaire’s interest in her husband.
Aunt Berthe
Aunt Berthe (behrt), Alain’s aunt, an elderly, lonely woman obsessed with the details of redecorating her apartment. Until now, her major concern has been whether the oval door she has installed fits in with the rest of the decor. Now, with the apartment itself at stake, she panics, suspecting everyone. Ultimately, however, she fears losing Alain, whom she regards as a son, more than losing the apartment. As she spoiled him as a boy, she yields now, promising him her fortune as well at her death. Abandoned by her husband years earlier, she cannot bear another desertion, another enemy.
Germaine Lemaire
Germaine Lemaire (zhehr-MEHN leh-MAYR), an established writer and a Parisian celebrity. With aristocratic mannerisms and a false accent, she tries to replace beauty with style. A queen adored by vassals, she exults in being surrounded by young admirers. Meeting Alain’s father, she exercises all of her self-control to hide her insecurity. Not a follower, he looks on her not as a writer but as a woman, and he finds her woefully lacking. In his gaze, she feels ugly and shapeless. When critics describe her work as waxlike, she rereads her favorite passage to restore her confidence. Following such attacks, she acts more imperious than ever, gloating in the power she holds over youth. When Alain accuses another writer of vanity, Germaine proclaims all authors guilty of such excesses, claiming that just such weaknesses account for their uniqueness.
Pierre Guimiez
Pierre Guimiez, Alain’s father, a widower, proud of having early introduced his son to intellectual pursuits but considering him now led astray by the coddling of his aunt, the frivolity of Gisèle, and the superficiality of Germaine Lemaire. He intercedes with his sister in the matter of the apartment but is ashamed of appearing the villain. When Berthe ensures Alain’s future, Pierre is primarily...
(This entire section contains 618 words.)
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relieved to have the burden of responsibility removed from his shoulders.
The Characters
Alain Guimiez is too much the dandy to be a cad, too much the weakling to be mean, too shallow to be likable. He is interesting only because of a series of perceptions and observations which push him to the verge of paranoia. Alain sees his relationships—with his wife, with his aunt, and with Germaine—as adversarial. He is continually on the defensive, ready to apologize; continually bracing himself for the blow to his self-respect; constantly balancing between the emotional retreat and the verbal thrust.
Though still a young man, Alain is already something of a failure. He has been working on an academic thesis for a number of years, but it is obvious that he will never finish it. His father, Pierre, waits expectantly for him to secure a position, but Alain’s laziness and his reliance on his father’s and his aunt’s money permit him to live a life of decadence. He has been pampered by his aunt and has become selfish, petulant, and insecure.
Gisele, Alain’s wife, evokes the passive Victorian bride in a romantic novel. Devoted to Alain, she has few thoughts which do not concern her husband, and her own goal is to please him, to respect his wishes, especially with the furniture (she does not want the leather chairs that her mother gave them as a wedding gift, for example, because Alain thinks they are in bad taste). Gisele is absolutely convinced of Alain’s genius; when her mother warns her about Alain—a “queer” young man unlike others of his age—she merely smiles and insists that she loves him for his very peculiarity.
Aunt Berthe is the most interesting character in the novel. Though she is prepared to leave Alain a small fortune in her will and thus perpetuate his aimless life-style, she is not necessarily blind to her nephew’s true character; she senses Alain’s weakness and realizes that he will probably never amount to anything. In contrast, she is unquestionably loyal to her brother. In her eyes, Pierre possesses all the strengths of character lacking in Alain. Near the end of the novel, brother and sister view each other with renewed respect. Indeed, Pierre admires Berthe for her intelligence and hardihood. He recognizes her shrewdness in financial matters and notes sarcastically her seeking his advice when he knows that she has already made the right investments.
Despite her strengths, however, Aunt Berthe maintains a skewed sense of reality. The opening section of the novel, in which she obsessively reflects upon the decorations in her apartment, suggests that things themselves have become the focus of her daily life. Her furnishings, like her investments, are what keep her in touch with the world; they have become the axis around which everything else—her relationships, her feelings—revolves.
At the center of her own universe is Germaine Lemaire. The title of the book, The Planetarium, effectively and metaphorically defines her position and importance in the lives of the other characters and in the novel itself. Germaine is, like the sun, the foremost luminary in the local universe of would-be writers and failed literati, such as Alain. The first scene in which she appears evokes the image of a comic solar system, in the center of which she sits, serenely enthroned, while around her the “ape-like” Rene and other members of her coterie spin in her reflected light.
Though Germaine thus exerts a controlling influence on Alain—impelling him to impress her, to succeed with her where he has failed in his own career—she herself, like the sun, is but a mediocre star. Her work has some popular appeal, but it does not claim any critical importance. Germaine enjoys the attention of Alain and her other admirers, but she has nothing important to say. When, at the novel’s close, she presents Alain and his wife with a copy of a Greek vase as a gift for their apartment, Alain immediately perceives her superficiality. Like Aunt Berthe, like Alain himself, she is entangled with the material and the commonplace, which in this case make a pretense of art but which are actually dull, empty, and lifeless.
Characters
Although The Planetarium may seem traditional at first glance, it is actually more innovative than the author's previous works. Unlike those earlier works, this novel lacks a central narrator. Instead, similar to Sarraute's later novels, it features multiple narrators, none of whom are easily identifiable. Readers must rely on character's internal states to differentiate between them. Sarraute aims to downplay the significance of physical appearance or personality in her characters. She ultimately removes the concept of identity entirely, presenting only a vague collective of consciousnesses that merely develop tropisms. All of her characters possess the potential to become novelists, but their creativity fails to progress to the verbal stage. In essence, Sarraute continues to explore the fundamental elements of writing through her "characters."
