Sexual-textual erotics in Après l’amour by Agnes Vannouvong
Abstract
Abstract:
Après l’amour, Agnès Vannouvong’s first novel, gained critical attention when it was published in 2013 as much for its literary qualities as for the erotic nature of its prose. An exploration of female love and doubly so because the novel treats love between women, Après l’amour is a text haunted by the inter-textual presence of Marguerite Duras, Monique Wittig and Violette Leduc and which tells the tale of a young Parisian lesbian on the rebound at the end of a long relationship. Taking as its starting point formulations on the erotic by Marguerite Duras and Audrey Lorde, this article proposes to discuss the relationship between desire, the erotic and artistic creation at work in Vannouvong’s text. It will consider what it means to write a Don Juan-esque lesbian narrative, set in a capital city (over) synonymous with the romantic, the sensual and even the downright saucy, and this at a time when the very codes of amorous encounters are experiencing a radical transformation, shifting from the physical desire and sexual attraction underpinning nineteenth and twentieth century conceptions of romantic love to the disembodied textual interaction of the Internet. Are the ‘true feelings’ of the erotic to be opposed the simulacrum of pornography as Lorde suggests? Or are we now living in a time that is quite literally “after love”, where we are condemned to look back with nostalgia on the age of authentic emotions, just as the narrator in the novel looks back with longing and regret on her past relationship with Paola? Is there not always an element of fiction, of illusion, of fabrication in every amorous relationship? Do true feelings really exist or are they rather a chimera necessary for literary creation?
Key words: Erotics, homosexualité féminine, Vannouvong, Duras, Lorde, Illouz.
Resumen:
Après l’amour (2013), primera novela de Agnès Vannouvong, ha llamado la atención de la crítica desde su publicación, tanto por sus cualidades literarias como por la naturaleza erótica de su prosa. Exploración del amor en feminino, ya que se trata de amor entre mujeres, en el relato, que cuenta el desenfreno sexual de una joven lesbiana parisina tras una ruptura amorosa, resuenan ecos de Monique Wittig, Viollette Leduc y Marguerite Duras. Partiendo de las formulaciones de lo erótico de esta última y de Audrey Lorde, nuestro trabajo reflexiona acerca de la relación entre deseo, erotismo y creación estética en la novela de Vannouvong. ¿Cómo escribir un relato donjuanesco en la ciudad romántica, libertina por excelencia, en la era digital, en un momento en el que los códigos del encuentro amoroso se hallan en plena mutación y en el que asistimos a una transformación de las costumbres (del deseo físico y de la atracción sexual característicos del amor romántico de los siglos XIX y XX a la interacción textual desencarnada en internet? ¿Deberíamos, siguiendo a Audrey Lorde, oponer los «verdaderos sentimientos» de lo erótico al simulacro pornográfico? ¿Es la nuestra una época que se encuentra literalmente «depués del amor», que nos condena a lamentar un tiempo de emociones auténticas ―a imagen de la narradora que contempla con nostalgia su relación con Paola, su único y verdadero amor? ¿Acaso no hay siempre una parte de ficción, de ilusión, de construcción en toda relación amorosa? ¿Existen los «verdaderos sentimientos» o son, ellos también, una quimera necesaria para la creación literaria?
Palabras clave: Erotismo, homosexualidad femenina, Vannouvong, Duras, Lorde, Illouz.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors agree with the following:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a license Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).