Claude Ollier. Missing. Paris. POL. 1998. 179 pages. 90 F. ISBN 2- 86744-638-4.
Brown, John L.
Paul Fahan, the narrator of Claude Ollier's novel Missing,
recalls in his old age his encounter and his friendship, nearly half a
century before, with Frost, a well-known international journalist and
tireless globe-trotter who in many ways resembles the author himself.
Born in Paris in 1922, Ollier, after studies in administration (an early
Enarque!), went abroad on assignments in North Africa and Asia. He soon
decided to devote himself to his writing, however, and published his
first work, Le jeu d'enfant, in 1946. Since that time, he has
produced some twenty novels and novellas, as well as texts for radio and
the movie screen. His meeting with Robbe-Grillet in 1948 had an
important influence on both of them, as well as on the creation of the
nouveau roman (a movement with which Ollier has been identified
throughout his career) and on the elaboration of the concept of
objectivite totale. This preoccupation with "the object"
characterizes the nouveau roman as a whole and is clearly evident in
Missing, in which descriptions of places and things seem more important
than the analysis of the characters themselves.
In a 1973 interview Ollier declared that literature is a selection
and combination "de formes grammaticales et non une annexe de la
psychologie," and he pointed out (as he did in a number of works
such as La mise en scene [1958]) a complicity between the reader and the
author which requires that the reader "compose the meaning"
for himself. It does not surprise us that one of the authors he most
admires is Jules Verne, "who relegated to the museum the
psychological analyses of the humanist novel." Fahan, the narrator,
at the age of seventy, recalls memories of his meetings with Frost, who
in midcareer had suddenly disappeared (i.e., gone "missing")
for over a year. When he emerged from hiding, he found that his
reputation had withered, that he no longer enjoyed the same success as
before. An old man now, and feeling that "the best is over,"
he desires to take "one last big trip" and travel across
Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Fahan, a young Parisian
teaching French at Queen's University in Kingston (Ontario) and
preparing a thesis which will deal extensively with the work of Frost,
happens to encounter him in a museum in Vancouver. They take the same
bus across Canada, and during the journey Ollier tirelessly (and
occasionally tiresomely) describes the landscape in great detail. (The
reader would do well to have a tourist guidebook at his disposal in
order better to follow the text.) They observe, in many of the villages
through which they pass, large posters with photos of "missing
children."
When they reach Kingston, Fahan, who has discussed the project of
his thesis with Frost, persuades him to stay over for a few days so that
he can obtain firsthand information from him. Fahan introduces him to
Samantha, his student and girlfriend, "a secretive, mysterious
young woman." Frost is immediately drawn to her, and she to him.
Shortly after their encounter, Samantha leaves Fahan for Frost. Their
liaison, however, is a very brief one. After a few days with her, Frost
mysteriously vanishes. Is Ollier implying that our society is one of
"missing persons" who flee desperately from their daily
existence? Samantha calls Fahan desperately to come to her rescue and to
try to find Frost. He immediately responds and hurries to her in
"his little red Japanese car." They take off together on a
long and bewildering trip as far as Lake Ontario, trying, in vain to
find some trace of Frost on this "dernier voyage" of his
across the vast Canadian landscape, a voyage in which he is "perdu dans l'immensite blanche." This is the fate he evidently
desires: to be "missing" for good.
John L Brown
Washington, D.C.
