Browsing by Author "Du Toit, Catherine"
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- ItemAlain Resnais et l engagement documentaire: Une affaire de morale en trois temps(Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2011-12) Du Toit, CatherineWithout history there can be no political engagement. But history can only surpass its analytical, abstract and factual dimensions by the operation of memory. From his first short documentaries, such as Guernica, Les Statues meurent aussi (Statues also die) and Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog), the problem of the past is present in Alain Resnais’ cinema. Reconstructing the past does not only occur on the level of text and image but also through cinematographic techniques. This article examines the way in which lived memory in Alain Resnais’ politically engaged documentaries becomes conscience, participating in the imaginary of mnemonic reconstruction.
- ItemBeyond the mask : Guy de Maupassant in Algeria(Peter Lang, 2003-07) Du Toit, CatherineENGLISH ABSTRACT: The enlightened foreigner who travels to a distant land wears two masks : the mask woven of pre-conceptions when he considers the ‘other’ he encounters and a second, a mirror-mask in which he sees in the ‘other’ only his own image, his personal convictions persuading him that we are all alike. Guy de Maupassant wears this double mask when he travels to the recently colonized Algeria in 1870. He documents his perceptions in a travel journal and in the form of reports sent to Parisian newspapers. These collected essays were republished as «Au Soleil» (In the Sun). In his reports, Maupassant sharply criticizes the harsh actions and methods of the French colonizers. At the same time, however, he cannot distance himself from the very conceptions of European superiority, used by the colonial powers to justify colonization. On the other hand, Maupassant as a modern, intelligent and liberal young author, seems to believe in the sameness of human culture and nature. All ‘otherness’ is absorbed into likeness and his approach to the other is one of assimilation. This approach inevitably leads to comparison and since his frame of reference does not extend beyond his own culture, the ‘other’ is judged inferior as soon as he falls short of this limited measuring stick. In our relations with the ‘other’ – whether this ‘other’ be from a different continent, race or gender group – nothing much has changed over the past century. The key concern remains : how to lay down the various masks that prevent us from seeing the other as a whole and wholly different being that we can relate to precisely because this otherness is and remains beyond our comprehension and control.
- ItemDeux Anglaises et le Continent d'Henri-Pierre Roché : des avatars et des affres de l'amour(Association for French Studies in Southern Africa, 2007) Du Toit, CatherineDeux Anglaises et le Continent was Henri-Pierre Roché’s second autobiographically inspired novel. Published in 1956, three years after his best known work, Jules et Jim, it principally draws on a period from the author’s youth and consists entirely of manipulated or fictional journal extracts and letters. More youthful in style and approach than his other works, the novel contains both the origins of Roché’s conception of love as well as its finality. For this reason, Deux Anglaises et le Continent can be seen as a pivotal work, embracing most of the themes, especially those relative to love, found in Henri-Pierre Roché’s œuvre.
- ItemDog guides as witnesses with specific reference to Miles and Houellebecq(Van Schaik Publishers, 2018) Du Toit, CatherineSince Wild Dog first crawled from the Wet Wild Woods and laid his head on Woman’s lap, he has helped man, not only to hunt and protect, but also as guide. A guide with enhanced senses in the physical world who could find a way across unmarked landscapes, a clever empathic being who could lead man to certain places or to specific individuals. No wonder then that the best-known ancient dog deities accompany humans as guides, often on their way to the afterlife. Dog guides—not to be confused with guide dogs—have remained a constant feature of the representation of dogs in literature, reflecting as much of the nature of these dogs as of the nature and needs of the humans they attend. In this way, the human-animal relationship also reveals how the solipsistic tendencies of human self-definition limits our capacity for being in the world. In the two contemporary novels that form the basis of my enquiry, La Possibilité d’une île (2005) by Michel Houellebecq and Op ’n dag, ’n hond (2016) by John Miles, the agency of dog guides introduces an intriguing element of distancing, reminding us that the self has meaning only in relation to another and that human concerns are not absolute.
- ItemHenri-Pierre Roche et Peter Altenberg : une emotion qui nait de l ellipse meme(Association for French Studies in Southern Africa, 2011) Du Toit, CatherineHenri-Pierre Roché’s life as well as his work is characterized by a certain movement which seems to be contradictory at first glance: a dissipatory movement that manifests itself through a curiosity of all and everyone, long journeys and parallel loves – ephemeral or lasting – are accompanied by a strong desire to distil a unique essential and authentic wisdom from this apparent disarticulation. It is a process of concentration and distillation that is equally valid for the contents of his writing as for its form the essential characteristic of which is its concision. The quest for purity of expression most probably has its origins in the 1903 meeting between Roché and the Austrian author Peter Altenberg. Roché found himself at a sensitive and impressionable stage of his writing career when this influential Viennese thinker instilled in him a philosophy of brevity and restraint. Fifty years later, the elliptical and terse style of Jules et Jim, would reveal the lasting impressions of the Viennese experience. Among Henri-Pierre Roché’s numerous travels, his journey to Germany and Austria in 1903, would be decisive for his evolution as a writer. The article reconstitutes the principal stages and meetings of this journey in order to trace their influence in Roché literary career.
- ItemIntroduction a Don Juan et ... d Henri-Pierre Roche. Un destin fragmentaire(Nuxos Publishing, 2010-11) Du Toit, CatherineIn spite of a growing interest in the life and works of Henri-Pierre Roché, little has been written on his first publication, Don Juan et... Published in 1920 under the pseudonym of Jean Roc, this series of vignettes represents the first serious attempt Roché made to transform his life and his ideas about love into a literary work. It is also the first time the figure of the seducer appears in Roché’s writing – a seducer he creates in the image of his own conception of love, in other words, a human phenomenon the can be dissected on all levels, whether metaphysical, geopolitical or medico-scientific. In this article, I concentrate on the genesis of this text, studying the conditions in which it was created, the influences authors such as Franz Hessel and Peter Altenberg may have had on its creation and the way in which Roché’s portrayal of the Don Juan figure echoes contemporary texts and perceptions of love, desire and, consequently, the representation of the age-old myth of the relentless and unrepentant seducer. This texts deserves more attention since it effectively reflects the most important European conceptions of the time with regards to love and seduction while serving as a precursor to Roché’s future writing. The figure of the seducer became an important presence in Roché’s life (and consequently in his future autobiographical works), particularly in his liaison with Helen Hessel. The repercussions of this obsession were therefore to lead to the creation of Roché’s most famous novel, Jules et Jim.
- ItemPolyphony and counterpoint : mechanisms of seduction in the diaries of Helen Hessel and Henri Pierre Roche(AOSIS Publishing, 2015-06-25) Du Toit, CatherineHenri Pierre Roché (1879–1959), the author of Jules et Jim, has been called a general introducer, an exemplary amateur, a collector of women and art and one of the most prolific diarists and active lovers in recorded history. Author of a collection of vignettes about Don Juan, Roché was fascinated with the figure of the seducer and in his twenties planned to devote his life to the creation of a body of work which would examine moral, intellectual, social and sexual relations between women and men. To this end, he would transform his life into a laboratory where real-life experiences would become the main source of reference. Roché’s diary spans sixty years and abounds in tales of seduction. However, the most intense and captivating intrigue of seduction and betrayal in his diary, is his relationship with Helen Hessel. At the start of their affair, Roché suggested that she too should keep a diary of the maelstrom of passion into which they were plunged. Written in French, German and English, Helen Hessel’s diary captures the drama of seduction and functions on several levels: realistic, visionary, absorbed in her thoughts and emotions and yet critical of herself and others. A juxtaposed reading of the two diaries generates a fascinatingly dense texture, revealing the mechanisms of seduction at play. The counterpoint created by these two interdependent voices becomes ever more complex as one becomes aware of the intertextual references that contribute to the emerging polyphony of recorded life and love.
- ItemPrimeurs : les premieres productions litteraires d Henri-Pierre Roche(Association for French Studies in Southern Africa, 2009) Du Toit, CatherineThe first literary productions of Henri-Pierre Roché are short stories published in different reviews at the start of the 20th century. This article presents the six short stories in question and analyses their principal themes while situating Roché as a young author who, not without audacity, proves to be quite aware of the modernity around him.