Conference Agenda

The literary genre biofiction is becoming more intriguing through its potential: Authors can use the story of famous people to create a new story that is not entirely based on a biographical truth. Readers can broaden their imagination through interesting stories about well-known personalities standing between fiction and reality.

Therese Fowler describes Zelda's life in the biographical novel Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013). Even though people initially perceived her as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda also wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz. She was a passionate woman who tried to be a painter and a writer.

The friendship and literary rivalry between Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway made them famous ‘frenemies’. Paula McLain wrote The Paris Wife (2011), a historical fiction focused on the marriage and divorce of Hemingway and his first wife. The novel became a New York Times bestseller and describes how the relationship between Hemingway and Richardson fades.

The aim of this comparative analysis between those two biographical novels, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and The Paris Wife, is to expose if there are gender-specific characteristics: Are Fowler and McLain, both women, focused more on emphasizing forgotten women’s life stories or are they rather neutral in the storytelling process? Is it a way of ‘female writing’ in the stories of unique but somehow invisible women by their husbands’ side? And how different or similar are the stories of people who lived in the same era in both novels?

Jean Echenoz’s biofiction Ravel (2006) profoundly illustrates the deep interplay between literature and music. The novel focuses on the final decade of Maurice Ravel’s life, with the creation and first performance of Boléro at its core. By employing the musical qualities of repetition and difference, Echenoz constructs a unique narrative rhythm and multi-dimensional portrayal of Ravel’s character.

The fiction’s depiction of the musical structure of Boléro is both meticulous and insightful. This composition centers on a single rhythmic pattern and two alternating melodic themes, brought to life through an ever-evolving orchestration that defines its innovative musical language. Echenoz seamlessly integrates these structural characteristics into the novel, creating a text that harmonizes rhythm and narrative complexity.

The repetition and difference of rhythm in the fiction are reflected in the dynamic interaction between historical events and fictional imagination. Ravel’s creative process, his American tour, and the gradual decline of his health serve as the rhythmic foundation of the narrative, with their repetition emphasizing historical authenticity. However, Echenoz enhances these historical events with imaginative details, imbuing each retelling with novelty and exceeding the boundaries of traditional biography.

Similarly, the repetition and difference of melody are expressed through two alternating portrayals of Ravel. In Boléro, the alternation of bright and dark melodic themes injects emotional tension into the music. In the fiction, Ravel’s brilliance and struggles alternate to construct a conflicted and multi-faceted character. On one hand, he is a celebrated composer of immense talent and public acclaim; on the other, he endures insomnia, neurological decline, and profound solitude. Each iteration of these character traits is deepened emotionally: the tension between his success on tour and discomfort with public exposure, the burst of creative inspiration contrasted with the uncertainty of the creative process, and the intensifying suffering of his final years as he grapples with the inevitability of death. These evolving emotional layers mirror the “repetition and difference” of the novel’s melodic structure, adding richness and complexity to Ravel’s characterization.

By merging the rhythmic, melodic, and orchestral techniques of Boléro with the interplay of historical and fictional elements, Echenoz endows Ravel with an innovative narrative aesthetic. The fiction is not only a literary reimagining of Ravel’s life but also an experimental exploration of the possibilities between literature and music, reality and imagination.