SOURCE: De Julio, Maryann. Review of A la frontière, by Michel Butor. World Literature Today 71, no. 2 (spring 1997): 343–44.

In the following positive review, De Julio praises A la frontière for pushing boundaries and reconsidering standard distinctions between the self and the other.

Experimentation with the concepts of time and space has always marked the writings of Michel Butor. From the very first novels Passage de Milan (1954) and L'Emploi du temps (1956) to the more recent essays and imaginative criticism like Improvisations sur Henri Michaux (1985), Butor has sought to reexamine literary devices and the view of reality that they inevitably implied. It comes as no surprise, then, that A la frontière is the title of Butor's latest collection of poems.

Divided into six major sections, A la frontière begins with a meditation on the image of la frontière and the notion of limits. The usual distinctions...