Book//mark – In The Labyrinth | Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1959

“I have a missing order from the Iowa State Fair.”

“I am alone here now, under cover. Outside it is raining, outside you walk through the rain with your head down, shielding your eyes with one hand while you stare ahead nevertheless, a few yards ahead, at a few yards of wet asphalt; outside it is cold, the wind blows between the bare black branches; the wind blows through the leaves, rocking whole boughs, rocking them, rocking, their shadows swaying across the white roughcast walls. Outside the sun is shining, there is no tree, no bush to cast a shadow, and you walk under the sun shielding your eyes with one hand while you stare ahead, only a few yards in front of you, at a few yards of dusty asphalt where the wind makes patterns of parallel lines, forks, and spirals.”

“Then there is the electric bulb swaying at the end of the long wire and the man’s shadow swaying across the closed door like a slow metronome.”

“An arm remains half raised, a mouth gapes, a head is tipped back; but tension has replaced movement, the features are contorted, the limbs stiffened, the smile has become a grimace, the impulse has lost its intention and its meaning, There no longer remains, in their place, anything but excess, and strangenness, and death.”

“Outside it is snowing. Outside it has been snowing, it was snowing, it is snowing.”

Alain Robbe-Grillet – In The Labyrinth, 1959