He brings images towards Marthe’s letters whenever you are imprisoned on the Villa Chagrin; she writes conditions on her lover’s picture of one’s Adour and you may the bridge one covers it
The latest illustration of Marthe was interesting where respect, because gift suggestions an enthusiastic ironic fable out of writing and its own future. Cosnay confides in us appear to that Marthe try troubled by the photo she got seen in Africa, and you may she notes more over you to Marthe is actually move because of the you want to type (47). She says one to Marthe typed a keen anticolonialist text message named Manieres de- Blancs at Versions Sociales Internationales within the 1938 (64), (10) and you can she feedback, too, that when Marthe passed away she is concentrating on a manuscript. “Elle tenait sous ce bras un manuscrit. C’etait durante 1959, vingt-deux ans elie ainsi que Bayonne. C’etait ce il aout 1959” (53). (11) One to manuscript, Cosnay suggests, is a lifework. Yet , they palls in comparison to the lifestyle, or in other words lifestyle, which chronicles, and you will such as those lifestyle it’s deeply subjected to a system from loss and you may forgetting:
The newest implicit question you to definitely Cosnay puts forward hinges upon this new example off Marthe’s writing along with her own. Commonly their writerly services meet with the exact same result while the Marthe’s? Try her very own efforts to seize the picture and started to profitable conditions inside it using words just as destined?
Brand new narrator’s motion van Velde’s, however in the newest negative as it had been. Her creating is always fragmentary and you may disrupted, bearing the brand new shade away from emergency and you can testifying materially thereto. (12) Because white, it’s is why one to comments very incredibly on Cosnay’s very own reputation. Moreover, just as it can to possess Marthe, the image happens basic to own Marie Cosnay, requiring this 1 approach it since the a matter of natural concern. “Voila oils je voulais venir, depuis le debut,” she remarks, “passant par les images et tout cc que l’on ne voit pas” (64).
There is the core of the amount, I believe: the picture while the unseen. To possess you might say brand new effect of your photo, and also the original, artwork leaving of the perception is actually short issues as compared to people. Actually, Cosnay means just that once the she talks concerning the genesis out of Property Chagrin:
It is truthfully one to something was at procedure here, which one thing try intimately sure upwards in the other currents you to circulate by this unique: catastrophe and its own peoples outcomes, how past inflects up on the current, the fresh moving on associations out-of topic and target, the fresh fragility out-of human relations, etc. However it is clearly the image itself one functions as the latest preferred denominator of them certain discourses, the only invariable integer when you look at the Marie Cosnay’s literary algorithm. Wordless and you will properly mute, the image nevertheless inquiries all of us, Cosnay argues, demanding that individuals comprehend it in a manner that is eventually vital. On her behalf, it is a question of enjoying, and particularly away from watching inside an exceptionally penetrating method, so that you to definitely perceives what exactly is generally speaking unseen. Whenever she says you to their way of proceeding in the House Chagrin necessarily concerns a reflection into the photographs “et tout ce los cuales l’on ne voit pas” (64), Cosnay was thought not so much away from eyes, but alternatively out-of understanding. She invokes one to insight–seeing what exactly is always unseen–towards the several instances inside Villa Chagrin, (13) and is realistic to imagine it is a switch function from this lady visual.
Ce sexe etait beant, bien au premier plan de- la photo
During the certain times regarding the book, new narrator’s ability to get a hold of insightfully is positioned significantly into the take to. One particular times happens in the hole profiles, from inside the an integral part of Property Chagrin named “Photo 1.” Appearing due to the girl bed room, the fresh narrator discovers a photograph from a naked lady, maybe something which the woman mate has actually missing. At first sight, she doesn’t recognize that lady, yet , as the she will continue to go through the photographs, identification dawns: “Le 18 janvier, j’ignorais ce que j’avais loisir de- contempler. Le visage de los angeles femme, inconnu jusquela, m’etait dentro de un coup d’oeil devenu familier” (12). This is the objectivity of these photo, and its most undeniability, you to definitely strike the narrator and you will challenge her. Among the many particularities of the photographic photo, since Roland Barthes has actually listed, is the fact they testifies in order to exposure, they promises a type of becoming-around in dimensions and you can day. (14) It’s mainly one element of so it photo you to definitely problems brand new narrator. She sensory faculties additionally you to simple viewing and you will recognition cannot serve in this case. “Je voudrais voir 
de tous mes yeux, il serait you’ll be able to d’autopsier,” she statements, “Je veux voir le respect gull perspective en ce qui concerne la femme” (34)–since if really the only high enough technique for watching this photo was to understand the brand new look of your own photographer who presented it.
