Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Henry Roth »

With these words, Henry Roth beganCall It Sleep, a novel published in 1934 when its author was twenty-eight years old.Call It Sleepranks among the most powerful novels of the 20th century, precisely because of the questions it does ask about the conflicts of immigrant life, the demands of assimilation, and the search for spiritual nourishment in the modern world. Roth locates his narrative in New York City during the peak years of mass migration from Europe between 1907 and 1914. At the center ofCall It Sleepis David, a precocious and sensitive child at age six, who is already questioning his place in the universe and the meaning of God. Thus,Call It Sleeppresents a narrative of how a small immigrant boy makes sense of his world, a world defined by both its physical and spiritual dimensions.

Print literature has always existed in an ecosystem of media forms, among which the attention of audiences have been shared. Periodically, however, novelists have expressed concerns for the charms of literature in relation to its competitors. This article explores three interrelated experiments that harness the effects of authorial presence to revive the capacity of literary fiction to detain readers. Henry James's ‘The Death of the Lion’ (1894), Philip Roth's The Ghost Writer (1979) and Joshua Cohen's Book of Numbers (2015) speak to each other by mobilising the trope of the author in ways that probe the fault lines in under-nuanced accounts of the author's coercive role in delimiting the meaning of a literary work. These texts, I offer, reimagine the author not as a disciplining force but as a compelling figure, working in distinctive ways to summon readerly attention.

There has been a major effort in Australian academic circles over the past fifteen years to develop a critical discourse in environmental education curriculum, pedagogy, history, and research (Henry et al 1981, Di Chiro 1987, Gough 1987, 1994, Robottom 1987, Greenall 1987, Fien 1993 a,b, Greenall Gough 1993, Robottom & Hart 1993). This discourse is critical of ‘mainstream’ approaches to environmental education that are alleged to be positivist, behaviourist, masculinist, and instrumentalist. Internationally, environmental educators have also considered various shortcomings of environmental education. There is general concern about unrealised aspirations, unrealistic expectations, definitional problems, values issues, conceptual obfuscation and questionable research endeavours (Brennan 1979, Disinger 1979, 1985, Williams 1979, Baer 1980, 1981, 1985, Knapp 1983, Roth 1988, Iozzi 1989 a,b, Gigliotti 1990, Marcinkowski 1990, Wals, Beringer & Stapp 1990, Ham & Sewing 1992, Leming 1992, Pinar & Bowers 1992, Ramsey, Hungerford & Volk 1992). Consequently, it can be asserted there are practical deficiencies of a moral, social, political, and ecological nature. If so, one conclusion about the development of the field of environmental education is that it is problematic and often contradictory.

The purpose of this work is to offer a study of the novels of Jewish-American author Henry Roth, situating those novels within several contexts, namely: early twentieth century life and ethnography in New York City, immigrant-specifically Jewish-experience, Judaism, with special reference to Eastern European orthodoxy, Roth's autobiographical style, and Hebrew literature. Of particular note is the issue of continuity that Roth himself incessantly sought.The first chapter provides a biographical sketch of Henry Roth, weaving together a brief story of his life that includes commentary upon his boyhood years, his family and relationships, his novels, and the sixty-year-long writer's block that intervened between publication of his first novel, Call It Sleep, and the 1990s volumes of the Mercy of a Rude Stream series; four novels of that series are currently in print. Chapter Two offers a brief outline of Jewish history that not only helps place Roth among the Eastern European Diaspora Jews of early twentieth century New York City but that also introduces the concepts of sin, atonement, and covenant that pervade Roth's writings.Chapter Three is devoted to an examination of Call It Sleep. This third chapter introduces and credits previous Roth scholarship while discussing the novel as an immigrant story, as Hebraic literature in its use of Midrashic elements and themes, and as ethnography. Additionally, this section suggests that Call It Sleep is somewhat polemic in its emphasis upon the Judaic convenant, despite Roth's assimilationist.stance during the years in which he composed the novel.Sequent to a fourth chapter describing the years between 1934 and the 1990s, years in which Roth found himself unable to write another novel and published but sporadically in periodicals, a fifth chapter discusses Roth's Mercy of a Rude Stream series. Those novels, again valuable documents that accurately depict turn-of-thecentury New York as well as the tale of the immigrant, exhibit continuity both among themselves and with Roth's first novel in their covenant thematic and Midrashic structure. Concepts discussed include intertextuality, teshuvah, and kedushah. The conclusion provides summary and is followed by a brief glossary.
Department of English

En 1934, à l'âge de vingt-huit ans, Henry Roth publie son premier roman, "Call it sleep", aujourd'hui considéré comme un des chefs d'oeuvre du modernisme américain. Ce n'est qu'après soixante ans d'un silence presque total que Roth publiera sa deuxième oeuvre majeure, "Mercy of a rude stream", dans laquelle il reprend certains thèmes de son premier roman, en les abordant d'un point de vue radicalement différent. Une des grandes difficultés auxquelles Roth et ses critiques se sont heurtés est celui de son identité, en tant qu'homme et en tant qu'écrivain, puisqu'il se situait au point de rencontre de plusieurs courants : le roman juif, le roman prolétarien, le roman moderniste. Cette étude propose une analyse de l'oeuvre de Roth dans son ensemble. Elle met en évidence la persistance de certaines obsessions, mais aussi la transformation, le déplacement et le recyclage du matériau utilisé par l'écrivain. A la lumière de la confrontation de la correspondance, du journal inédit et des romans publiés, ce que Roth appelait sa désuétude, la panne d'écriture qui l'affligea pendant de si longues années semble pouvoir être liée au besoin d'appartenance si souvent évoqué par l'écrivain
Henry Roth's "Call it sleep", an autobiographical novel which brought the rhythms and aesthetics of modernism to the Lower East Side, was published in 1934, when the author was twenty-eight years old. After an almost complete silence of nearly sixty years, Roth then published his only other major work, "Mercy of a rude stream", which, remarkably goes over much of the same territory as his first novel, although the story is told from a very different point of view. One of the major stumbling blocks for Roth-as well as his critics-was the question of his identity both as a man and a writer-whether Jewish, proletarian, American or modernist. This study of Roth's fiction, as well as his correspondence and journal, proposes an analysis of Roth's work as a whole. It brings to the fore the author's recurring obsessions, but also the transformation, displacement and recycling of the material that went into the writing. Roth's writer's block or, in his own words, his "desuetude" is seen in the light of the author's life-long attempt to come to terms with the need to belong

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation sets out from the assumption that there is a phenomenon one can call literature of impasse. By this is meant that there is a body of literature that can be defined as a literature of impasse because of the specific time of writing or of its setting. The definition used in this exploration is based upon the historical, social, political and psychological forces that shape literature of impasse. Broadly speaking the term refers to works of literature of which the authors are considered to be fully aware that what they were describing, analysing and exploring was the impasse which the Western individual had to navigate in order to arrive at any coherent sense of self. The authors in this study – Joseph Roth (1894-1939), Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000) and Henri Fauconnier (1879-1973) – can be regarded as three such authors, and the aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate in what way they are indeed authors of impasse in the works under discussion and what the devices are that they have employed to convey their vision. Far from being a vision that (myopically) sees no resolution, the authors demonstrate a need to identify the impasse itself and its causes and consequences in a narrative style. As part of the acknowledgement of impasse, the description of the ontological impasse of the protagonists is also explored as is the central discussion of modernity and Modernism and how modernity appears to exacerbate the sense of impasse. The position of the protagonists in these works leads in turn to the exploration of individual attempts to overcome the impasse and, in so doing, the study inevitably has to explore the philosophical attributes reflected in each of the works. The comparative nature of this analysis, straddling three languages and literary traditions, and the complex contexts of “impasse”, necessitates studies in other disciplines. The works of Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) seemed particularly suited to this exploration as an analytical springboard inasmuch as his works examine the anthropological and philosophical aspects which have determined the historical forces and milieux with which the three novelists have to contend in the formulation of their respective visions.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif berus op die veronderstelling dat daar ‘n fenomeen bestaan wat letterkunde van impasse oftewel van die dooie punt genoem kan word. Dit beteken dat daar ‘n korpus van letterkundige werke is wat gedefinieer kan word as letterkunde van impasse op grond van die spesifieke tydperk waarin dit tot stand gekom het of die narratiewe agtergrond daarvan. Die definisie wat in hierdie studie gebruik word is gegrond op die geskiedkundige, sosiale, politiese en sielkundige kragte waardeur letterkunde van impasse gevorm word. Die term verwys in die breë na werke wat geskep word deur skrywers wat ten volle daarvan bewus is dat dit wat hulle beskryf, ontleed en verken die dooie punt is waardeur die Westerse individu moet beweeg om enige koherente sin van die self te bereik. Die skrywers in hierdie studie – Joseph Roth (1894-1939), Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000) en Henri Fauconnier (1879-1973) – kan beskou word as drie sodanige skrywers en die doel van hierdie proefskrif is om aan te toon waarom hulle inderdaad skrywers van impasse is in die werke wat bespreek word en op watter maniere hulle hierdie persepsie oordra. Dit handel hoegenaamd nie oor ‘n persepsie wat stiksienig geen uitkoms sien nie en die skrywers toon veral ‘n behoefte om die impasse, sowel as die oorsake en gevolge daarvan, in ‘n narratiewe styl te identifiseer. As deel van die erkenning van impasse, word die beskrywing van die ontologiese impasse van die protagoniste ook ondersoek sowel as die sentrale bespreking van moderniteit en Modernisme en die wyse waarop moderniteit die gevoel van impasse blyk te vererger. Die posisie van die protagoniste in hierdie werke lei weer na die verkenning van individuele pogings om die dooie punt te oorkom en gevolglik moet die studie noodwendig ook die filosofiese standpunte ondersoek wat in die werke gereflekteer word. Die vergelykende aard van hierdie ontleding wat strek oor drie tale en literêre tradisies en die komplekse konteks van “impasse” maak verwysing na ander dissiplines noodsaaklik. Die werke van Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) het besonder geskik voorgekom vir hierdie verkenning as analitiese wegspringplek aangesien sy werk die antropologiese en filosofiese aspekte ondersoek van die geskiedkundige kragte en omgewings waarmee hierdie drie romanskrywers te kampe gehad het in die formulering van hulle onderskeie sienings.

La présente étude traite d'À la merci d'un courant violent de Henry Roth. Cette tétralogie de près de 2000 pages, publiée entre 1994 et 1998, venait rompre le silence de plus d'un demi-siècle qui avait suivi la publication du seul roman de Roth, Call it Sleep (L'or de la terre promise). Elle s'inscrit de manière originale dans le sillon d'œuvres au statut générique indécidable, sinon problématique. Discours référentiel et fictionnel y cohabitent, s'y intriquent et s'y contredisent. Si la matière est en grande partie autobiographique, les procédés formels sont issus sans conteste de la tradition des romans réalistes, modernes et contemporains (de Dickens à la métafiction de Gass en passant par Joyce, Proust et Dos Passos). Devant beaucoup à la théorie des genres littéraires de Jean-Marie Schaeffer et plus particulièrement à la définition théorique et historique du roman autobiographique comme genre littéraire de Philippe Gasparini, cette étude cherche à approfondir le problème du genre contradictoire et hétérodoxe de l'œuvre tardive de Roth, le roman autobiographique. Le mémoire, en trois chapitres, traite du pacte de lecture contradictoire, scellé par le double affichage générique délibérément orchestré par l'auteur et par l'éditeur, et de ce que Vincent Colonna a appelé la lecture duelle, à la fois référentielle-autobiographique et fictionnelle. Par là, il touche au problème de la vérité dans sa relation à la fiction et tente, finalement, de proposer des pistes d'analyse inusitées sur la question épineuse de l'auteur (comme notion, comme figure et comme personne) en études littéraires. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Henry Roth, À la merci d'un courant violent, roman autobiographique, roman juif américain, auteur.

La tesi si propone di individuare e di definire una sorta di (sotto)genere letterario fin qui mai trattato, quello del romanzo-testamento. Con questa definizione mi riferisco a tutte le opere scritte all’interno della “dimensione della morte”, ovvero la fase della vita in cui il pensiero della morte diviene dominante. Questo accade solitamente per tre possibili motivi: per l’età avanzata, per una grave malattia o per una precisa volontà suicida; a queste tre motivazioni corrispondono altrettanti capitoli, ognuno dei quali approfondisce quattro diversi testi (romanzi, racconti o fumetti che siano). La situazione nelle quali gli autori realizzano le rispettive opere è estremamente differente: chi affronta la morte in tarda età può permettersi di scrivere con una certa serenità, nella consapevolezza di avere completato naturalmente il proprio percorso; chi muore anzitempo, per malattia, rimpiange gli anni che non potrà vivere e realizza opere animate da una notevole tensione narrativa; chi sceglie di darsi volontariamente la morte si rivolge al mondo con atteggiamento di sfida, per quanto il suo sguardo si dimostri freddo e distaccato. Segue quindi un’appendice nella quale si analizzano altri tre romanzi: originariamente contenuti nei tre capitoli iniziali, essi sono stati successivamente stralciati in quanto sfuggivano a una precisa categorizzazione e male si amalgamavano agli altri; peraltro, tali romanzi erano troppo pertinenti per ignorarli, per cui sono stati trattati in un’apposita sezione. Capitolo 1. Il vecchio scrittore e la morte. I romanzi analizzati sono Deux anglaises et le continent (Henri-Pierre Roché, 1956), Mercy of a Rude Stream (Henry Roth, 1994-1998), The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (Charles Bukowski, 1998) e Ravelstein (Saul Bellow, 2000). Quattro opere realizzate da autori piuttosto avanti con l’età (si va dai 72 anni di Bukowski agli 89 di Roth) che si rivelano interamente o parzialmente autobiografiche: Roché rivive una fase della propria giovinezza, romanzandola; Roth ripercorre i tredici anni vissuti ad Harlem tra il 1914 e il 1927 dedicandovi ben quattro volumi (per un totale di circa 1500 pagine); Bukowski tiene un vero e proprio diario in cui racconta le proprie esperienze quotidiane; Bellow narra la propria amicizia con Abe Ravelstein, intellettuale ebreo morto qualche anno prima. L’unico dei quattro a usare il proprio vero nome è Bukowski; gli altri tre ricorrono ad altrettanti alter-ego che peraltro nascondono poco o nulla della reale identità dei personaggi. Capitolo 2. Lo scrittore e la malattia. Il capitolo si apre con l’analisi degli ultimi romanzi di Leonardo Sciascia, Il cavaliere e la morte (1988) e Una storia semplice (1989). Si prosegue con il testo più breve esaminato nella presente ricerca: “Nel frattempo”, racconto a fumetti di sei pagine realizzato da Magnus (nome d’arte di Roberto Raviola) nel 1996; si termina quindi con Le soleil des mourants, scritto da Jean-Claude Izzo nel 1999. Si tratta di opere realizzate nell’imminenza della morte (Una storia semplice, “Nel frattempo”) o comunque nella piena consapevolezza che la vita sta per giungere al termine (Il cavaliere e la morte, Le soleil des mourants). Nonostante ognuno dei quattro scritti contenga elementi autobiografici, nessuno di essi è puramente autobiografico: Sciascia scrive due polizieschi, Magnus una commedia, Izzo un dramma on the road. I quattro protagonisti sono accomnati da un fatto: tutti loro si confrontano con la malattia, reale (Il cavaliere e la morte, Le soleil des mourants) o metaforica (Una storia semplice, “Nel frattempo”) che sia. L’unico a uscire vincitore da questo confronto è il personaggio di Magnus; gli altri risultano tutti sconfitti, seppure in misura diversa (la sconfitta è totale per Izzo e lo Sciascia del Cavaliere e la morte, mentre è solo parziale in Una storia semplice). Capitolo 3. Lo scrittore e il suicidio. I testi analizzati nel terzo capitolo sono Le feu follet (Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, 1931), Dissipatio H.G. (Guido Morselli, 1973), “Good Old Neon” (David Foster Wallace, 2004) e Suicide (Édouard Levé, 2008). Realizzate da autori poi suicidatisi, queste quattro opere narrano le storie di altrettanti suicidi: tre sono biografie che ricostruiscono l’esistenza di persone realmente vissute (Feu follet racconta, romanzandola, la fine di Jacques Rigaut; “Good Old Neon” e Suicide si ispirano alla scomparsa di due conoscenti dei rispettivi autori), mentre la quarta (Dissipatio H.G.) è una vicenda di pura invenzione. Nonostante la presenza dei suddetti rimandi biografici, i quattro protagonisti sono caratterizzati in modo tale da divenire dei parziali alter-ego degli scrittori: la fedeltà biografica non è mai una priorità. Due di queste opere (Feu follet e Suicide) hanno uno sfondo estremamente realistico, mentre le altre due (Dissipatio H.G. e “Good Old Neon”) si svolgono in suggestivi scenari fantastico/fantascientifici, come a suggerire la volontà di abbandonare questo mondo che contraddistingue gli autori. Appendice. (In)consapevolezza di morire. I romanzi qui raccolti sono tre: Palomar (Italo Calvino, 1983), Gli ultimi giorni di Pompeo (Andrea Pazienza, 1987) e Camere separate (Pier Vittorio Tondelli, 1989). L’ultimo è stato scritto da un autore che sapeva di essere affetto da AIDS e che, pertanto, era consapevole che non sarebbe sopravvissuto molto (per quanto la natura della malattia lo autorizzasse a sperare che la fine fosse ancora lontana); gli altri due sono invece opera di scrittori che erano in buone condizioni di salute e non sospettavano che di lì a poco sarebbero morti; eppure, al termine dei rispettivi romanzi, essi uccidono i propri protagonisti (entrambi alter-ego). Il capitolo si occupa appunto di individuare la connessione, evidente o sotterranea che sia, tra il destino del personaggio e quello del suo autore. La condizione nella quale si giunge al termine della vita influenza inevitabilmente l’approccio alla scrittura. La relativa serenità che contraddistingue chi si avvia a morire in tarda età fa sì che il vecchio scrittore si dedichi principalmente a una narrativa apertamente autobiografica che ricorda il passato, in modo che egli lo possa rivivere ancora una volta prima di andarsene. Chi muore anzitempo e incolpevole, a causa di una malattia, guarda con rimpianto agli anni futuri che non avrà la possibilità di vivere: scrivere in questo stato d’animo conduce alla realizzazione di opere con una componente didattica, che mirano a trasmettere un messaggio universale. Il desiderio di raggiungere un ampio numero di lettori fa sì che l’autore ricorra alla narrativa di genere; alla base di tale atteggiamento c’è la volontà di esercitare una forma di controllo su un futuro a cui non si potrà assistere in prima persona. Lo scrittore suicida, infine, realizza con il proprio ultimo romanzo una lunga lettera d’addio: egli dimostra la propria volontà di evadere dal mondo dando vita a elaborati scenari di fantasia oppure descrivendo una realtà all’interno della quale si trova spaesato, fuori posto. In un caso come nell’altro, egli vuole fuggire da questo mondo per andare alla scoperta dell’altro. A prescindere dal tipo di morte che li attende, gli scrittori che hanno raggiunto l’ultima fase della propria vita non usano metafore o giri di parole: nelle proprie opere, essi presentano direttamente la propria situazione. Pertanto, i protagonisti dei loro romanzi-testamento sono anziani che riflettono sulla loro prossima morte, oppure persone mortalmente malate, oppure giovani uomini dalle chiare tendenza suicide: in poche parole, personaggi che sono alter-ego totali o parziali dei rispettivi creatori.
The aim of this doctoral thesis is to identify and to define a new and previously unseen literary sub-genre: the “testamentary novel”. By saying so, I embrace all the works of literature that have been written by an author who is living within the “dimension of death”, that is to say the stage of life in which the idea of death has become overwhelming. This may happen because of three main reasons: old age, severe illness or suicidal tendencies. Three different situations that originate three different kinds of narratives: a man who faces death in his old age writes relatively peacefully, knowing that he has naturally come to the end of his life; a man who dies prematurely, by illness, regrets all the future years that he won’t be able to live and writes works of literature that vibrate with narrative tension; a man who voluntarily gives an end to his own life addresses the whole world as if to defy it, and yet writes in a cold and detached style. After these three chapters there is an appendix in which I analyze three other novels: they were initially meant for the already existing chapters, but then I realized that they didn’t belong there, being quite eccentric and avoiding every clear classification, so I left them out. However, they were too pertinent to be totally ignored, so I put them in this separate section (that so became a sort of fourth chapter). Chapter 1. The old writer and death. In this first chapter I analyze the following novels: Deux anglaises et le continent (Henri-Pierre Roché, 1956), Mercy of a Rude Stream (Henry Roth, 1994-1998), The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (Charles Bukowski, 1998) and Ravelstein (Saul Bellow, 2000). Written by aged authors (spanning the age range 72 to 89, Bukowski being the “youngest” and Roth the oldest), these four narratives are either entirely or partially autobiographical: Roché tells a story about his long gone youth; Roth retraces (in a four-volumes and 1500 pages novel) the thirteen years he lived in Harlem as a kid, between 1914 and 1927; Bukowski keeps an actual diary in which he writes about his daily life; Bellow gives an accout of his friendship with the recently deceased Abe Ravelstein. The only writer who uses his real name in the narrative is Bukowski, whereas the other ones adopt three well recognizable alter-egos. Chapter 2. The writer and the illness. The second chapter begins with the last two novels written by Leonardo Sciascia, Il cavaliere e la morte (1988) and Una storia semplice (1989). These novels are followed by the shortest story analyzed in this thesis: “Nel frattempo”, a six-pages graphic novel that Magnus (Roberto Raviola’s nom de plume) wrote and drew in 1996; the second chapter is completed by Le soleil des mourants, a novel by Jean-Claude Izzo (1999). These narratives have been written by authors who were severely ill and were fully aware that they would die shortly. Each one of the four stories is partly autobiographical, but no one of them is completely autobiographical: Sciascia writes two detective novels, Magnus writes a sort of dark comedy and Izzo writes an extremely dramatic story which resembles a classic tragedy. The four protagonists have one thing in common: they all face illness, sometimes actual (Il cavaliere e la morte, Le soleil des mourants) and sometimes metaphorical (Una storia semplice, “Nel frattempo”). The only one of them who clearly wins this peculiar battle is Magnus’ character; the other ones all suffer a defeat (a total defeat in Le soleil des mourants and Il cavaliere e la morte, a partial defeat in Una storia semplice). Capitolo 3. The writer and suicide. The four works of literature analyzed in the third chapter are the following ones: Le feu follet (Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, 1931), Dissipatio H.G. (Guido Morselli, 1973), “Good Old Neon” (David Foster Wallace, 2004) and Suicide (Édouard Levé, 2008). Written by authors who have actually committed suicide, these narratives tell the stories of four suicidal men: three of them are biographical accounts (Feu follet tells about Jacques Rigaut’s suicide, while “Good Old Neon” and Suicide are inspired by the suicides committed some years before by two acquaintances of the authors), the fourth one is entirely fictional. However, these biographical accounts are deliberately inaccurate, so the characters portrayed by the writers become eventually their partial alter-egos. Two of the four narratives take place in a completely realistic setting; on the other hand, the background of the other two is imaginary and fantastic, as if to suggest the authors’ desire to leave the world he’s still living in. Appendix. (Un)aware to die. In this appendix, which is a sort of fourth chapter, three novels are analyzed: Palomar (Italo Calvino, 1983), Gli ultimi giorni di Pompeo (Andrea Pazienza, 1987) and Camere separate (Pier Vittorio Tondelli, 1989). The third one has been written by a man who was suffering from AIDS and was therefore aware that he wouldn’t survive much longer (even if he couldn’t foresee the specific moment of his future demise, of course); on the contrary, the two other novels have been written by two healthy men who couldn’t imagine that they would die a few months after having completed their works; nevertheless, at the end of their narratives they both kill their main character (who is clearly their alter-ego). There is indeed a connection between the death of the character and the death of the author, and this appendix aims to identify it. After having analyzed these fifteen narratives I realized that different kinds of death originate different kinds of writing. The man who dies in the relative peacefulness of his old age is naturally encouraged to write about his past life, so he can relive it one last time. When a man dies prematurely, because of an incurable disease, he regrets all the future years that he won’t be able to live: he writes a somehow educational work of literature, a novel containing a universal message that aims to teach something to the ones who will survive him; in order to reach the maximum amount of readers, he makes use of an “easy” genre, such as comedy or detective novel. He does so because he wants to use his narrative in order to exert a sort of influence over the future (even if, or just because, he knows that he won’t be there in person). The suicidal man writes his final novel as if it were a long suicide letter: he shows off his strong desire to leave this life by making up imaginary worlds or else describing a reality that doesn’t fit him, a world in which he just can’t find his proper place. Apart from the kind of death that awaits them, the writers who have reached the final stage of their life don’t use metaphors or circumlocution: in their novels, they plainly present their own situation. So, the main characters of their testamentary works of literature are old men who muse about dying, or persons severely ill, or young men with suicidal tendencies: in short, these characters are total or partial alter-egos who have the specific duty of standing in for their creators.