Used book – The Golden Fruits, Nathalie Sarraute

This work by Nathalie Sarraute contains neither characters nor plot. Its protagonist is a novel, *Les Fruits d'Or*, and its subject is the reactions that this novel and the reception it receives provoke in those who love or reject it. It is not about portraying visible and known reality. The Balzacian vicissitudes surrounding the launch of a book are not Nathalie Sarraute's domain. There is no mention here of publishers, publicity, or the games of literary prizes. The author of *Les Fruits d'Or* is also absent. Only those invisible yet very precise dramatic actions are shown, which constitute this novelistic substance whose scope Nathalie Sarraute has never ceased to expand since her *Tropismes* appeared in 1939, and which has determined all her technical research. By re-creating these movements in the realm of direct or indirect contact with the work of art, sometimes amplifying them to the point of satire, this novel touches upon certain essential aspects of the aesthetic phenomenon. Should we not also call it a poem, so much do the traditional boundaries separating poetry from the novel merge in this new novelistic form.