From a geometric shape to a rhetoric figure: The circle as a narrative and temporal metaphor in Claude Simon’s novels

Abstract

One of the most important authors of the [French] New Novel, Claude Simon, perceives scriptural work as being in correlation with mathematical concepts, such as symmetry and geometrics, which manifest themselves both structurally and thematically. The motif of the circle provides the best representation of repetition, which is reflected in the diegetic composition of the novel — looped or spiraled — as well as in the non-linear conception of time, forming a Möbius strip. Thanks to such plasticity of geometric and textual matter, Simon circumvents the ontological problematic of fi nitude, inherent in the existence of beings and the duration of things.