Make It Vague

The Age Suspicion by Nathalie Sarraute. Translated by Maria Jolas. George Braziller, $4.00. 

Nathalie Sarraute is the chief critical intelligence of the nouveau roman or l’anti roman or “anti-novel novel” in France. Not only is the name of the movement in question; the identity of its adherents remains uncertain. Roughly speaking, it would appear to include the novels of Mme. Sarraute, the work of Robbe-Grillet, Pinget, Sollers, and Claude Mauriac, and, if one crossed the Channel, perhaps Philip Toynbee in England. In the four essays that make up The Age of Suspicion, written between 1947 and 1956, Mme. Sarraute presents us with a little guidebook to “the method” or at least her “method.”