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Imagine a Cubist painting in the form of a novel. As we witness the iterations of the same sentence — same scene — same room — same art piece and hear the same laughter from diverse perspectives, multiple angles, different sides, numerous stories, varied reasonings, and distinct hierarchies, we delve deeper into the maze of words created by the author. Nathalie Sarraute accomplished this in her book, Do You Hear Them?, a novel whose complexity creates a three-dimensional object within the surface of its pages. A multifaceted structure within the surface of its pages — each plane reflecting and refracting meaning, shaping an intricate, dimensional object in language. Only a straightforward analysis can cut through this tangled fragment of internal monologues and intergenerational communication passing through class hierarchy and cultural hegemony.
The novel is set around a dinner conversation between a father and his friend, discussing a pre-Columbian statue. The father’s children, laughing upstairs, a new generation that mocks and challenges his traditional values. This generational clash mirrors the broader societal conflicts of May 1968, where young people questioned and rebelled against established norms and authorities. Sarraute’s fragmented, impressionistic dialogue and internal monologues highlight the complexities of communication and misunderstanding between generations. The novel’s structure, with its lack of clear exposition and reliance on the reader to piece together meaning vividly reflects the chaotic and transformative nature of those protests, allowing us to feel these events’ intensity and impact.
Quotes from Do You Hear Them? by Nathalie Sarraute that illustrating the novel’s May ’68 connections :
Now, I will open up the three-dimensional Octahedron the novel rests in and reveal its hidden dimension. Perhaps, the Octahedron carries something sacred or cryptic inside it.
The Father says “DO YOU HEAR THEM” eight times in the book.
“Let your imagination rule.”
”DO YOU HEAR THEM?… a gentle melancholy mellows his features… They’re light-hearted, eh? They’re enjoying themselves… After all, that goes with their age… We, too, used to have fits of laughter like that… we couldn’t stop.”
This first-time statement reveals that most times, oppressors come from the same people who once were oppressed. Yet again there’s a thought that at some time, everyone tries to get rid of the oppressor, but then most people give up, and the student protestors might have looked the same as them.
“Jouissez sans entraves”
“the pure notes of their crystalline laughter come in ripples… They are enjoying themselves… DO YOU HEAR THEM?”
The pure crystalline notes can also be taken as well-coordinated slogans during the May ’68 protests. As the laughter — the giggles keep coming in the waves or ripples and spread so does the sound of protest slogans.
“Free information”
“those who are listening, their faces beaming with kindly smiles, who are tapping peacefully on their old pipes, one ear cocked, heads raised with a nostalgic, fond expression… DO YOU HEAR THEM? They’re enjoying themselves, eh? That goes with their age. They’re light-hearted.”
This statement can be interpreted as the older generation showing their acceptance but it’s filled with doubts. They are thinking of their youth but at the same time taking note of the young/ children and the noise they are making. This is what the protesters are doing, as most of the politicians have their own youth politics days which are filled with fights against the old rules and protests.
“Attention: the radio lies”
“DO YOU HEAR THEM? and together listen… scrutinize… I may be mad. But it seems to me… The other becomes motionless, the other lends an ear… What’s that? —Don’t you think that laughter… a bit too insistent…”
A laughter too insistent, a protest too insistent, a revolt too insistent, a mass too insistent — ready to engulf all that it seems invalid in the waves of its anger. A mass that silences every lie, every word coming from the speakers of power and listens to only what it speaks out loud. A revolt guided by its own sounds.
“Je suis Marxiste—tendance Groucho”
“DO YOU HEAR THEM? They’re calling me, they’re bewitching me, they’re luring me up there, with them, toward everything that babbles, skips, rolls, sprawls, leaps, nibbles, squanders, bungles, destroys, mocks… toward offhandedness, indifference, flightiness, frivolousness, thoughtlessness…”
Here, the curtain falls, finally showing the truth of what this father thinks of the children, the old think of the youth, the ruling class thinks of the lower classes, the politicians think of the citizens, the men think of women, what religion thinks of humans, what science thinks of emotions.
“Marx, Mao, Marcuse!”
“DO YOU HEAR THEM? Those little titters… sharp as needles… But wake up, don’t look so vacant… Those titters like the drops of water that are made to drip on the heads of torture victims… they drip on us, to make us suffer, to destroy us… Don’t you really hear them?”
This happens when, finally, those in power start to acknowledge the protesters. When protesters finally are making those against whom the protest is going on to accept the seriousness of their protest. That is how slowly the protest was making an impact, which could no longer be accepted and must be stopped, or it’ll become a much more painful thing.
Here is also the play of victimhood by the oppressors when put in front of the oppressed people.
“The fight continues.”
“Heads raised they hold out their faces… a simple-minded smile distends their features…DO YOU HEAR THEM?… My father used to say about us: They are so silly… you have only to wiggle your little finger for them to burst out laughing..”
This is the memory of the adults who acknowledge the existence of power and hegemony even before their own existence. But it also shows how those in power thought that they were the one controlling the protest and protesters. Elites in the beginning thought the protest was their creation and they could control it.
“Be realistic, demand the impossible.”
“DO YOU HEAR THEM?… something at last that is intact… it’s flexible, undulating, vigorous, alive… it’s surely theirs…”
Finally, the demands of the protesters were met. When many of the teachers and those adults who wanted change also joined the student protests, the rigidity ended, the steep path was destroyed, the weak and dead system collapsed. The freshness, liveliness or life came to the land, which won in one of the most significant revolts.
As we read, we find the duration keeps changing between the frequencies of the subsequent, “Do you hear them?”
With that, the emotions also keep on changing from gentle to annoyed, to angry, to belittling, to violent.
Now, the word art is also used eight times in this book, pointing to the insignificance of language without human emotions.
It’s the reiteration of the phrase, “Do you hear them?” and the word art. Sarrute puts art on the same pedestal as religion and then puts the question of whether it should be free or possessed by people. Here, the significance of the church, government body, etc., is questioned in reference to art. Also, as the Nouveau Roman or the French New Wave was also going on in the same duration, it put a lot of questions out on the old monotonous, high art forms. The art represents itself and various other markers.
“No Justice, No Peace”
“You know he used to be a professor… Of what, ye Gods! I pity his students… Why, of art history, of course, ho, ho..”
Art history: Art can be politics and religion here, as it is thought of and emphasized upon youth. Here, the father represents power, which is shown as strict, even to the point that art history was his subject though he keeps saying he has no inclinations as a collector. Same as those in power who keep emphasizing that they have no inclinations towards it, but they are interested in working only for the people. In such cases others surely will pity the citizens whose demands go unheard.
“Brushes Over Batons”
“But now, look at them, look at these privileged youngsters, turning up their noses at art treasures…”
In the first Omen film, there’s this scene where the priest asks the nun what will happen after this protest achieves its goal. What will come after all this (protest)? The nun says ‘Satan’; the priest then himself answers ‘Secularism’. He goes on to say one thing the church is more afraid of than Satan is of Secularism.
This shows the disdain of the church and clergy when they see how the new generation has no attachment to their religion, how they can and are going against the church.
“Art is Activism”
“No, I went to London to see the exhibition of Japanese art at the Tate Gallery.”
Japanese art in Britain points towards Western supremacy and how art is an object of conspicuous consumption for the clergy and bourgeoisie. How immigrants and their culture becomes/is treated as an “Exotic” something and not let to merge with that of the existing culture.
“Paint the Revolution”
“Is it true? —Yes, it is true. —They hold art in contempt.”
It may represent the protesters’ anger against the clergy and ruling classes. The hierarchy and the rigidity were being frowned upon, and people wanted to break it.
“No Art, No Voice’
“the silken covers of art books…”
Though the artist may not be given the due respect or pay, their art is highly regarded. While humans may suffer from cold, art is highly worshipped and is supposed to be placed on a high pedestal. Even a copy of a high art is supposed to be regarded as high art.
“Creativity can’t be Censored”
“Daltonian or not, painting means nothing to me. Sculpture either, for that matter. Nor art in general.”
Here, it might represent the political associations, the lineage, the ancestral history, or even ethnicity from a newer perspective.
“Books not Bombs”
“The Art that Papa respects, adores.”
The words, the sections, and the rules that were / are so crucial to older people and people in power meant nothing to the youth. Words like religion, clergy, church, county, borders, etc., arose no feelings.
“Inquilab Zindabad”
“…to go with their families to make their devotions in the art galleries, in the museums…”
Even the people who once showed affection and inclination toward the old ways started to change their perspectives and ways. As the protest grew more decisive, the conservatives were left behind, alone, while others switched their ways.
Language, art or anything that comes with rigidity was rejected by the protesters in May ’68. It was also the time when student protests were going on in South Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Reading the book, the laughter felt like grass. No matter how many times it stopped, it kept coming back, the same as how grass keeps growing back. The book kept reminding me of an Indian contemporary and activist, Avtar Singh Sandhu, famously known by his pen name Pash, was a revolutionary Punjabi poet born on September 9, 1950, in Talwandi Salem, Punjab. His poetry is renowned for its strong political overtones and critique of social injustices, influenced by the Naxalite movement and Marxist ideologies.
मघास हूँ
मआपके हर किए-धरेपर उग आऊंगा
बम फक दो चाहेविववियालय पर
बना दो होटल को मलबेका ढेर
सहागा ु फिरा दो भलेह हमार झोपड़िय पर
मझु ेक्या करोगे
मतो घास हूँहर चीज़ पर उग आऊंगा
बंगेको ढेर कर दो
संगर मिटा डालो
धलू ममिला दो लधिु याना ज़िला
मेर हरियाल अपना काम करेगी…
दो साल… दस साल बाद
सवारियाँफिर किसी कंडटर सेपछू गी
यह कौन-सी जगह है
मझु ेबरनाला उतार देना
जहाँहरेघास का जंगल है
मघास हूँ, मअपना काम कंगा
मआपके हर किए-धरेपर उग आऊंगा
References
Do You Hear Them?; Sarraute, Nathalie
Desire in Language: Nathalie Sarraute’s Theatre of Interpellation; Noonan, Mary
Events of May 1968; French History; Wolin, Richard; Britannica; The voice of Nathalie Sarraute; Roger Shattuck; The French Review; Pash; Kavita Kosh
