Like Tropisms, [L'usage de la parole] is a collection of prose pieces and reconfirms that the "primary subject of writing" has been the object of [Nathalie Sarraute's] search. Language is the author's powerful tool, and the word is the true "hero" of this book. Endowed with microscopic vision, she examines the word's reactions to the forces that surround it. Various "voices"—words such as love, family, hypocrisy, friendship, fatherhood, laughter and silences—create minuscule dramas. Spanning the entire spectrum of human experience, these short pieces condense the essence of what Sarraute has sketched elsewhere on a larger canvas. There is the "institution" of the family, in which every member is fixed within established relationships; the word love is associated with God but also with hypocrisy and boredom; acquaintances in a chance encounter would much rather pretend not to see each other, yet they convey meaning to their void...