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Review [published August 2003]
Jacques Roubaud: The Great Fire Of London
Stephen Mitchelmore
I have tried to write about Jacques Roubaud’s novel
The Great Fire Of London many times.
No, that’s not true. I have not written anything.
Rather, I have felt many times the need to write about
The Great Fire Of London.
But that’s not true either. I have felt the need to remove
this need; that’s all.
I have assumed that writing would remove the need.
There seems to be no other way. But what is there to
write? The Great Fire Of London is a fearfully complex
book. There are pages betraying the influence of Roubaud’s
academic career as a mathematician. I cannot
understand a great deal of it. But maybe that is a good
thing. If I wrote about the novel by trying to unravel
its fearful complexity, I might ruin what makes it so
persistently memorable, which isn’t a result of its fearful
complexity. It is something to do with its underlying
simplicity and intimacy. But such a statement is itself
too simplistic. Either way, it is deeply moving and
inspiring book.
Not that I would unequivocally recommend rushing
out to get a copy. It is not an easy read. The subject
BUY Jacques Roubaud books online from and
matter is frequently incomprehensible, occasionally
boring and evasive. All these aspects, however, seem
fundamental to it; that is, not errors of art and craft.
So, to look beyond these, to direct one’s steady gaze
at the essence of the novel might be to repeat Orpheus’
error when retrieving his wife Eurydice from
the underworld. He looked back as he led her from
the darkness, so breaking his vow to the God of the
underworld. He was not meant to look. She was then
condemned to remain in the dark and he was ripped
apart. Orpheus’ dismembered head sings of his loss
as it floats down a river. Similarly, perhaps, if one
attempts to retrieve art from the darkness of its bookloneliness
by bringing it into the brightness of public
discourse, its essence might well get left behind too.
What’s left would be the beauty of its dissembling
architecture; the words of Orpheus’ song. This is not
what makes it beautiful.
So what is it? One helpful aspect of The Great Fire
Of London is that Roubaud’s narrator also assumes that
writing is his only recourse. Perhaps there is something
to learn about this impulse, or at least how might affect
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