Philippe Sollers: contract and counter contract

We are often told by commentators that there are no longer any great French writers
and that novelists are now incapable of writing about the society in which they
live. Or else we are told that the quality of writers’ work suå ers because they are
preoccupied with self-aggrandisement. Jean-Philippe Domecq wrote:
Sollers, a writer entirely of the present moment, of whatever’ s in the
air and of the ego, is the very image of the usurpation that has often
punctuated literature and that doesn’ t last, fortunately. He has a
notoriety and a power that are aberrant. His books don’ t talk to us
about today’s conditions but about his feats. His style is a patchwork
of pre-itemised literary eå ects, and his behaviour symptomatic of one
who has all the more power for having less authority.