THE GOLDEN FRUITS by Nathalie Sarraute. 177 pages. Braziller. $4. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? —T. S. Eliot
Baldly stated, French Novelist Nathalie Sarraute's newest novel is a plotless collection of cultural chatter about an imaginary French novel. Like her own book, the new work is called The Golden Fruits. It is praised extravagantly by a few literary lions. Cultural toadies in Parisian salons begin to croak approvingly about it. A few foolish rebels dare suggest it is unreadable.
Nothing could seem less promising, or more likely to induce yawns, except, perhaps, within sneering distance of the Café Flore. But Miss Sarraute is a genuine minor genius, whose motto might be "They that live by the word shall perish by the word." By the time she is through, the Louis XVI chairs are all beslobbered with blood.
Flaying Alive. Few of Miss Sarraute's victims have names. They are anonymous critics who pretend they have always been for the new writer, when in fact they panned his first collection of short stories; sycophantic women who have latched onto novelists to be part of the cultural whirl; legions of cultural snobs who fear nothing so much as being accused of having no taste; and a few perplexed commoners who actually try to read the book in question. "You expect to bite into juicy pulp," one confesses shamefacedly (and in secret) to a friend, "and you break your teeth on hard metal."
Drawing-room duels, in literature as in life, seldom seem lethal. But in Miss Sarraute's special world, all the characters appear flayed alive in advance. Like the cartoon creatures of Jules Feiffer, they fear nothing so much as loneliness; they long to make human contact. But when they plunge together, each touch inevitably is anguish.
Whimpering Puppies. In The Golden Fruits, the delivery of a critical opinion can be an appeal for love—or an attempt at assassination. A fashionable author, who has been unwise enough to admit he does not like the book, is forced to cling to a dowdy female guest for support. Even as he does so, he burns with shame and a sense of "degrading promiscuity." As for the woman, "she listens to him," Miss Sarraute writes, with the "face of a rapt fanatic . . . and an inadequately furnished head into which come to settle perhaps, taking up all the room, who knows what absurd beliefs . . . Christian science . . . occultism . . . yogi . . . Greek sandals . . . table-tipping." Two critics pass the ill-matched pair. "Ha, ha," they gibe, "still discussing The Golden Fruits?" Translated into Sarrautese, this sally means: "Poor creatures, incapable of grasping, dissecting anything delicate . . . trusting only in their instinct, which immediately makes them react to what is 'true,' 'beautiful,' 'alive' as they say, like puppies that lie on their backs and whimper at the mere sound of a caressing voice."