The Writer's Identity as Self-Dismantling Text in Julien Green's Si j'étais vous. . .

Written between 1944 and 1946, Julien Green's novel Si j'etais vous . . . is one of the author's most fantastic and enigmatic texts, having generated interpretations ranging from the Freudian to the theological. Yet certain central features of the text have not yet been addressed and may lead to a different approach, one focusing on the problem of the writer's identity in his works. Despite the fact that his literary efforts are unsuccessful, Fabien is shown as being a writer like Green himself, but more importantly, he is a character in another writer's fiction. As metatext, Green's novel describes the conversion of an author into a succession of language objects which are similar and alien to him. In each of his different incarnations, Fabien transposes himself as text, marrying a residual consciousness of self to the desired attributes of his "host." Fabien's round-trip journey may, therefore, represent the process of turning the writer's reality into language, and the subsequent endeavor to resituate what that language had displaced. This article is available in Studies in 20th Century Literature: http://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol14/iss2/3 The Writer's Identity as Self-Dismantling Text in Julien Green's Si letais vous . . . Robert Ziegler Montana Tech Written between 1944 and 1946, Julien Green's novel Si j'etais vous . . . is one of the author's most fantastic and enigmatic texts, having generated interpretations ranging from the Freudian to the theological. For example, Melanie Klein's 1968 analysis stresses the psychological mechanisms of identification adopted by the hero Fabien Especel, while Marilyn Gaddis Rose's more recent essay (1986) emphasizes the "ethical conventionality" of the work, a teleology that designates "the will of the devil" as "the more visible and immediate realization of the will of God" (Rose 79).1 Recognizing the self-reflexive nature of the work, Jacques Petit assimilates Fabien's psychic itinerary to that of the writer "qui se cherche travers les titres qu'il cree" (Petit 106), or who, as Green remarked, "se transforme . . en qui bon lui semble" (Si fetais vous . . . , Avantpropos 1527). Yet certain central features of the text have not yet been addressed and may lead to the proposal of a different interpretation, one focusing on the problem of the writer's identity in his works. The argument of this essay is that Green articulates in this book the dynamics of the novelist's impulse toward self-elaboration, so that, as Jeanne had said in Varouna, Green's immediately preceding work, "le fait d'ecrire un roman est en soi un roman dont le heros est l'auteur" ( Varouna 827). Green seems to ponder further the nature of an author's creative self, or what remains of it when it is left in a state of textual undress, unsupported by the fictional doubles who cover up its lack of cohesion. To begin with, despite the fact that his literary efforts are unsuccessful Fabien is shown to be a writer like Green himself, but more importantly, he is a character in another writer's fiction. As metatext, Green's novel describes the conversion of an author into a succession of language objects which are similar and alien to him. In each of his different incarnations, Fabien transposes himself as text,