The first novel that Robbe-Grillet wrote, Un Régicide, had a quotation at the start from Kierkegaard, an out of the way source for an agronomist turned writer who gave an impression of never having known a moment's metaphysical unease in his life. It came from The Seducer's Diary: 'One might have said that this man passed through life without leaving any trace . . . and one might even claim that he had no victims.'

'This man' was Kierkegaard who, in the Diary, practised what he defended as a 'necessary deception' by misrepresenting himself there as a seducer. What Robbe-Grillet will have liked most about this is letting on that you're a deceiver even as you go about your deceptive business.

LRB 21 March 2002 | PDF Download