The figure of the writer seems to occupy the center of Nathalie Sarraute's latest novel. The opening paragraph projects the image of a man typing, tearing out the page, throwing it away, taking another sheet, continuing to pound on his typewriter. "Between Life and Death" is however not so much about the writer as about the act of writing. Words are here the true protagonists. (p. 4)

Can one even say that this is a novel? No, if one looks for definable characters, dramatic situations, psychological developments in the habitual sense. Yes, if one believes that it is the prerogative of the novelist to blend levels of reality, to telescope time, to project fears into the as yet unlived moment, to transform even the pettiest of obsessions into a poetic experience.

Perhaps it would be fairer to say that this is a dramatic prose poem about words. "Words" might...