ABSTRACT
The geometric precision and the apparent objectivity – for they are only superficially rational qualities – of the husband’s lengthy descriptions of the banana plantation are an attempt to conceal his unease about his relations with his attractive wife. The jealousy is never described, even less analysed: it is shown in the obsessive looking, in the morbid scrutiny of the presumed lovers’ least gesture or utterance. Stendhal in the nineteenth century and Proust in the early decades of this century considerably extended the range and scope of the novel Jealousy in the handling of love and of jealousy, its concomitant emotion. The Immortal One is an account of a love affair which ends in loss. The Immortal One is perhaps Robbe-Grillet’s least-known work; the film soon passed into oblivion and the book has sold fewer copies in France than any of his other works.
