Books of returns. Literature according to Tanguy Viel

Abstract

The idea of return in its multiple forms and manifestations is central to Tanguy Viel’s œuvre. His novels explore this phenomenon in terms of literary aesthetics as well as thematic, narrative and discursive concerns by forging peculiar analogies between form and content. Drawing on selected aesthetic, philosophical and stylistic theories of return, the present paper seeks to discuss its forms in Viel’s texts and analyses how he uses them to create a literary reflection on the sense of returns in human life.