The concern of deletion: effacement: insignificance and narrative poetics in Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Examined here is Jean-Philippe Toussaint's poetic narrative rife with insignificance. First we seek to discern how the insignficant is detailed within the diegesis, within space and specific activities. We theft broach the work of indifferentiation, from the insignificance to which Toussaint subjects the narrative form, as per the fundamental roles of the patients (his typical characters) and the agent (what they mostly avoid being) in structuring the intrigue. Thirdly, we relate this poetic of the insignificant to a narrative palate that colours Toussaint's oeuvre, like the Romanesqueness of this "self-portrait" (...) without me or anyone else" that haunts his novels. Thus does the poetic narrative of the insignificant serve to erase the self.