SOURCE: Harger-Grinling, Virginia, and Tony Chadwick. “Djinn by Alain Robbe-Grillet: Or the Architecture of the Fantastic.” In Reflections on the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Fourth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, edited by Michael R. Collings, pp. 25-31. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986.

In the following essay, Harger-Grinling and Chadwick address the ways in which Robbe-Grillet uses the image of the traditional Arabian genie to guide readers through fantastical elements in Djinn while setting large parts of the book in a realistic world.

For the first decade or so of the nouveau roman in France, critics focused on the excessively realistic aspect of works as diverse as Les Gommes of Robbe-Grillet, Le Planétarium of Nathalie Sarraute, and La Route des Flandres of Claude Simon. Critics tried various labels in an attempt to pin the specimens to the display board. Having with difficulty accommodated their thinking...