The Voyeur

Alain Robbe-Grillet · 1922–2008 · France

Originally Le Voyeur (French)

Why it matters

A traveling watch salesman returns to his native island, and a girl is found dead: the narrative circling the crime's scene while never quite naming what happened. The nouveau roman's obsessive surfaces applied to a possible murder.

At a glance

Obsessive, repetitive object-description and a circling, elliptical timeline obscure the central crime.