Critique de la Vie Quotidienne by Donald Barthelme

Elle Magazine - January, 1965.

Congrats, you're back in my good books again Donald. Sometimes it can be really hit or miss with you but "Critique de la Vie Quotidienne" is quite an achievement. Maybe even a great achievement in your short-story writing career. In contrast to "The Party", which I reviewed recently, the radically disruptive and experimental style in this story does not inadvertently cause the narrative to become incoherent babble. His post-modernist literary aesthetic tends to focus on fragmentation by utilizing a kind of kaleidoscopic perception of reality. He is interested in deconstructing conventional narrative forms and  pushing fiction beyond its own limitations. There is often a certain self-reflexivity in his work, highlighting the art of fiction as a way to challenge traditional forms of representation. He revels in the process of composition and radical technique, eschewing traditional plot or character development. Personally, this approach can often feel overwhelming and inaccessible. Yet, "Critique de la Vie Quotidienne" seems to find that sweet spot where Barthelme's fragmented prose and intertextuality merge smoothly into a satisfying reading experience. Plus, the irreverent and darkly absurdist humor really shines. 

This story offers abundant subtext and nuance waiting to be uncovered. It can be seen as a satire of bourgeois domesticity, a parody depicting the cliches of an unhappy marriage where alcoholism serves as a coping mechanism against the ennui of conventional responsibilities such as the 9-to-5 grind and child-rearing duties. The title is a reference to an academic research study by Henri Lefebvre, a French Marxist philosopher. In essence, this story becomes a metanarrative, an intertextual revision of Lefebvre's work within a postmodern cultural context. The intertextuality and mosaic narrative structure creates a palimpsestic effect--constantly altering the original text, revealing multiple layered meanings. 

For example, individualism and subjectivity is replaced by an amalgam of pop culture, magazines and various media. This is most prevalent in Wanda, the narrator's ex-wife, who is obsessed with reading Elle Magazine:

"Wanda empathizes with the magazine. "Femmes enceintes, ne mangez pas de bifteck cru!" Elle once proclaimed, and Wanda complied. Not a shred of bifteck cru passed her lips during the whole period of her pregnancy. She cultivated, as Elle instructed, un petit air naiif, or the schoolgirl look." 

Wanda has been stripped of individuality, she is a two-dimensional cliche of recycled phrases and social behaviors dictated by a popular fashion magazine. The narrator also falls into a similar category, where the enormous influence of mass media has cultivated a collective consciousness. Their conversations are contrived and predetermined simulations; a recycling of cliches, which lack any genuine emotional connection. They are so oversaturated with information where they have become a simulacra version of themselves. In the digital age of social media and TikTok, does this not sound familiar? 

Furthermore, this intertextuality allows Barthelme to draw upon a wide variety of scattered materials and references. Then, he rearranges these disparate elements into a type of pattern, emphasizing the tension between fiction and reality. These collected fragments become the story material, revealing the limitations of language as a means of representing a fragmented reality. Paradoxically, "Critique de la Vie Quotidienne" feels both inchoate and weirdly cohesive within this fractured narrative framework. 

You can read this story HERE.