SOURCE: Kelley, Monica. “Passive Suicide.” Esprit Createur 40 (spring 2000): 69-78.

In the following essay, Kelley presents a close textual reading of Giono's novel Un roi sans divertissement, pointing out semiotic similarities between the processes of murder or suicide and the act of writing.

In his first post-war novel, Un roi sans divertissement, Jean Giono obsessively returns to the physical act of writing. The novel tells the story of a murderer, M.V., and the gendarme, Langlois, who tracks him down. M.V. attacks only during the winter, when heavy snows repaint the world in black and white, and it is strongly suggested that he does so for diversion, to add a little color (namely red) to a dull life. I wish here to address three scenes of writing in this novel.

Scene One—M.V. has just botched an attempt to strangle a villager. Everyone gathers to hear the...