French Literature Series

Considered by many to be his greatest book, Michel Butor's "Mobile" is the result of the six months the author spent traveling across America. The text is composed from a wide range of materials, including city names, road signs, advertising slogans, catalog listings, newspaper accounts of the 1893 World's Fair, Native American writings, and the history of the Freedomland theme park.

Butor weaves bits and pieces from these diverse sources into a collage resembling an abstract painting (the book is dedicated to Jackson Pollock) or a patchwork quilt that by turns is both humorous and quite disturbing. This travelogue captures--in both a textual and visual way--the energy and contradictions of American life and history.

Degrees

by Michel Butor

Published 17 February 2005

On Tuesday, October 12, 1954, Pierre Vernier, a teacher in a Paris lyc?e, begins setting down an account that is to be a complete record of the life lived by himself, his students, and his fellow teachers. He begins by meticulously recording what he already knows of his students, their relationships to one another, and the books they're studying. Then he's forced to enlist his nephew--who's in his class--to report on the private lives of the other boys. To record all reality, he must know all that has passed, is passing, and will pass through his pupils' minds. Degrees is an extraordinary novel exposing one man's obsessive project, the impossibility of its completion, and the damaging effect this obsession has on both Vernier and those who surround him.