Report on Lydie Salvayre’s Subversive Classicism

“Tout le monde abomine les explications de texte, c’est bien connu. Il n’y a que les professeurs de français pour ne pas le comprendre et commenter pesamment ce qui ne doit que s’effleurer.”¹

Dear Reader,

I am happy to tell you that as far as our selection trials are concerned, your performance has been laudable. Your conformity is flawless, your behavior exemplary, and your endurance index, on a national scale, is very high. Your dedication to critical inquiry and obscure French theory does not cease to amaze us. Ladies and gentlemen, bravo !

In the following you will be rewarded with a surprising piece of postmodern literature. We do not refer to Lydie Salvayre’s novels (if indeed they are novels, or even postmodern), but to fragments of a report from the SBLI (the Special Bureau of Literary Investigations, European Department, French Division) one of the CIA’s most secret branches. Thanks to a leaked report, we now know that certain French writers are under surveillance. (This should be good news for students of French Literature, trained as they are in hermeneutics, deconstruction, and French sibylline writers—they are well-positioned to join this special branch of the CIA, putting their talents to use for national security and for the protectionof moral literature.)