Journal Article

EDWARD SAID, THE NOVEL 1

Veeser, H Aram

2020

Overview

Dominique Edde, a journalist who contributes to Le Monde and other venues, has also written novels and published a book of interviews with a psychoanalyst. Her book that I am reviewing here, Edward Said: His Thought As a Novel; first published as Edward Said: Le roman de sa pensee, 2017), compellingly novelizes her own life's intersections with life of the renowned literary-cultural public intellectual, Edward Said. Most interesting as a limitcase of supercharged relationships between acolyte and mentor, this book can be read as a less-than-usually-repressed account of the way one electrifying person can irrevocably change another person's career, perceptions, and life itself. Edde has already written one novel (Kite, 2003) that presents her relationship with Said in roman a clef style. She also has patterned much of her reading and pursuit of musical interests along lines suggested by Said's own preferences. She opens with the tantalizing vow: \"There are many reasons why my attempts to write a book about him [Said] have failed in the last ten years.

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Subject: Literary criticism / Literary theory / Novels / Said, Edward / Writers