From Klotz to Cauvin : an author's stylistic road to success

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From Claude Klotz to Patrick Cauvin : an author’s stylistic road to success

J-P Doumeyrou Hankuk University for Foreign Studies, French Department

Keyword : style , stylistic analysis , word count , literature , author

Abstract

The French author Claude Klotz enjoyed in the seventies a sudden and lasting

success when he began publishing under a new pseudonym : Patrick Cauvin. The

present article tries to verify whether changes in style from the persona Klotz to the

persona Cauvin may reveal a conscious effort, in order to gain a wider readership. A

stylistic analysis has been made regarding the following criteria : Sentence length,

Frequency of Nouns, Adjectives, and Noun phrases, comparison of the Register :

words rarity (in relation to a wide literary corpus).

Results : in spite of the possible subjective impression felt by a reader, significant

differences in style are not found in grammar or syntax. They are however significant

in the choice of a register : in the samples, Klotz’ words are considerably rarer than

Cauvin’s. This result is compatible with the hypothesis according to which, on the

one hand, Klotz may have deliberately altered his style in order to gain in popularity,

and on the other hand, such a gain is more obviously caused by a simplification in

vocabulary rather than in grammar.

CONTENTS

1. ‘Les Innommables’

2. ‘e=mc2’

3. Different genres, different styles ?

4. Sentence length

5. Nouns and adjectives

6. Word register analysis

7. Vocabulary Frequency

8. Conclusions

Reference

Received : 01 September, 2014.

Revised : 02-30 September, 2014.

Accepted : 20 October, 2014.

† Corresponding author : J-P Doumeyrou. 130-791, 107, Imun-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul,

Hankuk University for Foreign Studies, French Department

Tel : +82-02-2173-3168 HP : +82-10-6479-4882

Fax : +82-2-2173-3387 E-Mail : [email protected]

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클로츠에서 코벵까지 : 한 작가의 성공을 향한 문체 여정

쟝피에르 두메루 한국외국어대학교 프랑스어과 중 심 어 : 문체, 문체분석, 단어 세기, 문학, 저자

요약

프랑스의 작가 Claude Klotz는 70년대에 Patrick Cauvin이라는 새로운 필명으로 작품을

발표하기 시작하면서 갑자기 유명해져서 계속 성공하는 작가로 머물렀다. 본 논문은 Klotz

가 Cauvin으로 이름을 바꾸면서 좀 더 인기를 끌기 위하여 문체를 바꾸었는지를 확인하는

작업의 결과물이라 할 수 있다.

우리는 문장의 길이, 명사 및 명사군, 형용사, 부사의 사용빈도를 각각 조사하여 문체 분석을

시도하였고 어휘사용에 어떤 특징이 있는지를 비교·분석하였다. 그 결과 독자가 느낄 수

있는 주관적 인상과는 달리 글쓰기 문법이 달라진 것이 아니라 어휘 선택이 달라졌다는 것

을 확인하였다. 이는 Klotz가 인기를 얻겠다고 작정을 하고 자신의 문체를 바꿨을 것이라는

가정과 맞아떨어지는 한 편, 글쓰기 문법을 단순화해서라기보다 단순한 어휘를 사용하여 화

계를 달리함으로써 인기를 얻는 데에 성공했다는 것을 확인하게 해주었다.

목차

1. 이름 붙일 수 없는 것

2. ‘e=mc2’

3. 다른 장르, 다른 문체?

4. 문장 길이

5. 명사와 형용사

6. 화계 분석

7. 어휘 빈도

8. 결론

참고문헌

투고일자 : 2014. 09. 01.

심사기간 : 2014. 09. 02-30.

게재확정일 : 2014. 10. 20.

교신저자 : 쟝피에르 두메루. 130-791 서울 동대문구 이문로 107 한국외국어대학교 프랑스어과

Tel : +82-02-2173-3168 HP : +82-10-6479-4882

Fax : +82-2-2173-3387 E-Mail : [email protected]

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J-P Doumeyrou stylistic road

From Claude Klotz to Patrick Cauvin1) : an author’s stylistic road to success

‘… from this, I’ll get the idea that I couldn’t write like

this anymore nowadays…’

(Klotz/Cauvin, Foreword to the 1997 edition of ‘Les

Innommables’)

If there is such a thing as a recipe for success, one

must admit that it may be one of the better kept

secrets. It may nevertheless be possible to wonder

whether, in many cases, this hoped-for success isn’t

conditioned by the artist submitting himself to, or at

least adopting, a new state of mind. To which extent

is a creator aware of this slide to a maturity where

he can find himself, where style and audiences meet

and allow each other to grow? Did Picasso coldly,

a priori, pick Cubism as his style, the one which

will ensure the public’s approbation he had been

looking for ?

Was there a particular moment when this

particularly obscure writer, Claude Klotz, sat down

in front of his typewriter and decided to become

1) If both incarnations of this writer are known to French

readers, the latter quasi-universally, a quick note may

be necessary for readership from the English-speaking

world. Claude Klotz spent years publishing, under that

name, relatively unremarked books, then abruptly

changed genre and maybe style, enjoying quasi

instantaneous success in terms of sales under his new

pseudonym Patrick Cauvin. Not unlike Erich Segal’s

positioning (as seen from a Marketing, Readership or

Literary style) for ‘Love Story’, Cauvin’s easy-reading

Romances ended up on most coffee-tables in France,

some of them even so popular as to be immediately

made into film. (George Roy Hill’s 1979 ‘A Little

Romance’, with Laurence Olivier, and where Diane

Lane made her cinematographic debut, is an adaptation

of the novel : ‘e=mc2’ studied in the present work.

Claude Klotz/Patrick Cauvin died in 2010, aged 77.

Patrick Cauvin, archetype of the famous and popular

author? If there was, what may the modalities of his

decision have been?

The present work does not aim at denying any

talent on the part of the man/author Klotz, nor even

his persona Cauvin, on the contrary, but it seems

obvious that the sudden and marked changes which

one could observe when passing from one (Klotz)

to the other (Cauvin) are meaningful in regard to

the way an author has re-directed and perhaps

deliberately limited himself and his style to better fit

the mold of his successful alter-ego. Accordingly, the

extreme difference in genres, styles and notoriety2)

between Klotz and his later incarnation Cauvin make

the situation an ideal case for observation.

We’ll begin by remarking that we will study here

a contrast between on the one hand what can be

considered as a summit of the Klotz style, before his

leap to fame, that is to say the prehistoric novel : ‘Les

Innommables’, and on the other hand the immense

success that was ‘e=mc2 , mon amour’3). We are

here in a search for significant differences, and do

not wish to study the switch from Klotz to Cauvin

under a historiographical light. Thus, such works as

‘Paris-Vampire’ or ‘L’Amour Aveugle’4) will not be

included : although chronologically between the

two works we will base our analysis upon, they may

be considered as intermediate forms on an

evolutionary scale, when we, and it’s not a

coincidence, wish to compare ‘Les Innommables’’s

2) At least until Cauvin’s success inevitably lead to a

rediscovery of Klotz’s previous works.

3) ‘ E=mc 2, my love’, adapted for screen as ‘Little

Romance’, as mentioned above.

4) ‘Blind Love’

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL WONKWANG CULTURE 2014:4(1):1~16

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Neanderthal to the Homo very Sapiens that ‘e=mc2 ‘

is.

Claude Klotz (he published under his own name at

the start of his literary career), born in 1932, started

as a writer when he was a teacher. His first book

‘Les Classes’5), was released in 1968. In great part

inspired by the author’s experience as a conscript

during the Algerian War, it takes place in a military

setting. Next will be ‘Sbang-sbang’, a Western in

Marseille, in which he’ll invoke many of his later

reocurring themes and artifacts (amongst which

his numerous references to American Cinema),

the ‘Et les cris de la F e6)), where intemporality is

confronted to everyday life.

This is then, in 1971, that Cauvin publishes ‘Les

Innommables’, a prehistoric novel. Wild and primal,

it enjoys a freedom of style and tone that neither

Klotz nor Cauvin will ever allow himself again.

Follows then a period that one may assimilate to

the learning of trade of writer, during which, for half

a decade, Klotz concentrates on the thirteen volumes

of a crime series, mostly forgotten nowadays. There

is no doubt that output quantity alone, whatever the

literary qualities of this series, provides the author

with an experience that one can assume precious to

the honing of his writer’s skills. Can’t we imagine

Klotz, the man, leaned over his typewriter, slaving

over his Noir fiction, while his mind wanders in

search of other territories, other styles, and of

course, other genres?

It is indeed in 1974, in the deepest of his Crime

5) ‘Les Classes’ designates the instruction period for

new recruits in a situation of military conscription.

The expression ‘faire ses classes’ also carries strong

connotations of the fact of proving oneself, as well as

of becoming experienced.

6) ‘... and the screams of the fairy’

Fiction period, that Klotz brings to the publisher

Jean-Claude Latt s the manuscript of his ‘L’Amour

aveugle’, that will soon become the formidable

success that we know. It is this publisher who

advises Klotz to publish such books, so different

from what he was used to writing, under a new

pseudonym, thus giving birth to the writer Patrick

Cauvin.

The reception is overwhelming and a second book

short follows : ‘Monsieur Papa’, almost immediately

ported to the big screen. At least for the time being,

Klotz disappear, ceding his place to Cauvin.

It is carried on the wings of this new-found

popularity that Cauvin can now allow himself to

write ‘e=mc2, mon amour’, the theme of which (the

improbable love story between two intellectually

gifted teen-agers) may only seem on the surface

risky to offer a wide and popular audience. It is,

nevertheless, and once again, an immense success.

Les Innommables7)

‘Les Innommables’ is a prehistoric novel. However

still situated within the limits of a genre that has not

really known any definitive slump since the XIXth

century, (and it is probable that Klotz’s creative

bone was stimulated by one or the other of those

serious opuses)8), the aim with ‘Les Innommables’

certainly is not to educate the reader, and there

won’t be found any of the concern for scientific

accuracy that can be found in Rosny’s work, or

7) The expression ‘innomables’ carries in French a

flurry of negative, or at least unbecomingly rough,

connotations. The adjective innommable is often used

to describe what should not be spoken of, what is to

vile to be uttered or described.

8) One can think, for example, of Rosny a n ’s ‘La Guerre

du Feu’.

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even the seriousness of Lecurieux’s ‘Rahan’9), which

(coincidentally?) made its debuts the year previous

to the writing of Klotz’s novel.

‘Les Innommables’ is first and foremost humour,

and if one can not plainly ascertain its parodic

intention10), its jubilantly extravagance obviously

precludes any serious intention.

To illustrate it, suffice it to quote the foreword,

where the author, as will do, a quarter of a centuy

later, the scenarists of RRRrrrr!!!11), specifies that,

language having not been invented yet, characters

couldn’t possibly have had names, and then

proceeds to arbitrarily, and by convention, name

them Karl, Fran oise, or Jean-Pierre… Even before

the start, the novel is solidly situated in the realm of

fantasy.

In the 170 pages of his work, the author guides us

from antediluvian plains to glaucous marshes, in the

footsteps of its heroes’ two tribes, who inevitably

will be the sources of many an advance in the (pre-

?)history of mankind, such as bipedal locomotion,

speech, or… Tango, to end in a flourish with the first

love poem. The style is a deliberate mix of archaism

and pseudo-scientific complexity, all bathed in an

9) Lecurieux and Ch ret (drawings)’s comic book series

‘Rahan’ was met with enormous success in France,

making it know by virtually every French person. It

tells the adventures of the eponymous Rahan, ‘the Son

of the Wild Ages’, a prehistoric man. Realistic in style,

it is not, as opposed to Ast rix, for example, a comical

series, and is not totally disconnected from scientific

accuracy.

10) Here again, as opposed to Ast rix, where the historical

setting and the numerous plays with anachronism

makes it evident that the goal is to satirize

contemporary France and French people through the

adventures of Gauls.

11) This 2004 comedy takes place in the Stone Age (l’ge

de Pierre, in French). Accordingly, all protagonists in

this movie are called Pierre.

Hugolian grandiloquence reserved to epics which

sing of the destiny of the world.

Overornate neologisms borne from fantasy12)

cladistics rub shoulders with abrupt short-cuts13)

belonging more to a everyday trivial and sometimes

familiar level, the inadequacy working as comic

relief amongst other means.

What could be called the anascientism of the

book, by analogy with the concept of anachronism,

conditions the possibility of humor, at the same time

as it is, through the jubilation of iconoclasty, the

pleasure of the writer to feel free and his claim to the

right to describe the world as he feels it and not as

it can factually and conceptually be observed. One

could assert that this is part of what a writer’s duty.

Some examples of this anascientism can be found in

the second eyelid or the retractile head sported by

some of those proto-humans, or the way an aging

character complains that fishing has become so

much more difficult since ‘… little fish (now) have

legs…’.14)

This utterly personal approach also is served by a

style abundant in terms that would not be found in a

less primal literature : ‘Immobiles, leurs faces chell o

-acheul ennes tourn es vers la tourbe infinie, ils se

tenaient accroupis en leurs c nes de terre,...’15)

The book as a whole deliberately paints a picture

of original chaos, a primordial despair from whence

12) (because fantasized)

13) This is a habit that will never live neither Klotz nor his

Cauvin incarnation.

14) This is at the same time an evolutionary incongruity

(fish species do not ‘grow’ legs in the space of a

human lifetime, even an epic one), and a play on

what arguably is the most famous French nursery

rhyme, in which ‘… small boats have legs…’.

15) ‘Immobile, their chelleo-acheulan faces turned

towards the infinite peat, they remained squatting

upon their mud cones’


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is born everything that is human, but where one

already dies of nostalgia. Beyond this feeling of

distantiation from the meaning of existence, or the

notion of Life in general, Klotz still manages to instill

the idea according to which bipedal locomotion

(that is to say the human condition) ‘is a dynamic

equilibrium’, a state of permanent unbalance and

fall.

E=mc2

By contrast, the innocuous story of these two

intellectually gifted teen-agers may seem tame,

without any social commentary other than the one,

under-exploited, about the difference in status

between the two protagonists’ families. Daniel’s

father is a blue-collar worker from a disadvantaged

suburb, Lauren’s is an industrialist. Both kids are

fourteen, and I’Qs least ten times that. They meet

and fall in love, but is such a romance possible in

a n age so remote from Shakespeare’s? Together

they watch the world up to a last stand of love

and intelligence, doomed from the start to a heart-

breaking final good-bye.

Where Les Innommables was inevitably told by an

omniscient narrator, e=mc2 switches, every other

chapter, from Daniel’s voice to Lauren’s. Their two

styles are obviously distinguishable, with the boy

claiming his lower-class roots, often through a direct

and swaggering tone, and Lauren, although also

lively and direct, speaks in an overtly more educated

register, going so far as playfully use an alexandrine

or two when her mood allows it.

The genre’s quasi compulsory codes replace the

chaotically initiatory ride with the theme of the flight

of two oppressed lovers, inevitably helped by the

classical character of the eccentric and understanding

old man.

Different genres. Different styles?

One could argue that switching from pre-historic

Fantasy16) fiction to modern Romance can but allow,

through a wider accessibility, for a facilitation of

popularity.

Accordingly, the two, or even three (Innommables,

Daniel, Lauren) styles may seem to the reader totally

distinct. Heavy exuberance on the one hand, on the

other (the others?) modern simplicity.

We will try to ascertain to which degree these

styles effectively differ, aiming to verify whether,

together with the changes in genre and theme, these

differences may have had a part in the difference in

popularity which the two books enjoyed, and thus

investigate whether they may have originated in

a deliberate choice by the author, to mutate Klotz

the free, the personal, into a benign but successful

Cauvin.

We will first look at the sentence length, as it may

be construed as an indicator of a supposedly

arduous style, ine the case of ‘Les Innommables’,

and a more accessible one for ‘e=mc2’.

We’ll next count nouns and adject ives

respectively, particularly the number of adjectives

used coinjointedly with nouns, since a greater

number of adjectives (over-)determining a noun

could also be taken as a sign of a difficult style.

We’ll then study the nature of those nouns and

adjectives, particularly their register. We’ll try to

situate them on a frequency scale, from common

everyday words to hardly ever used ones.

16) When first released, ‘Les Innommables’ was sold

amongst science-fiction titles.

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Sentence length

A measure has been made of the length of

each sentence in a sample (pp. 13 to 28 for Les

Innommables, 7 to 15 for e=mc2 Daniel, and 17 to

26 for e=mc2 Lauren).

Here are the results :

Range :

Innommables : from 2 to 60 words

Emc Daniel : from 1 to 75

Emc Lauren : from 2 to 58

Mean :

Innommables : 19.46

Emc Daniel : 20.12

Emc Lauren : 22.01

Variance :

Innommables : 154.25

(Standard Deviation : 12.42)

Emc Daniel : 278.67 (Standard Deviation : 16.69)

Emc Lauren : 206.88 (Standard Deviation : 14.38)

Median :

Innommables : 31

Emc Daniel : 38

Emc Lauren : 30

Mode :

Innommables : 12 (9,16,22)

Emc Daniel : 1 (Bingo!17)) (7,34)

Emc Lauren : 17 (6,9,22...)

Box plot (quartile Median, see figure below) :

Innommables : 2, 8-9, 17, 29-28, 60

17) The one word exclamation : ‘Bingo!’ is one of Daniel’s

favorite utterances.

Emc Daniel : 1, 6-7, 18-19, 33-34, 75

Emc Lauren : 2, 8-9, 16-17, 25-26, 58

Sentences in Les Innommables range from a

length of 2 words to 60, those in e=mc2 range from

1 to 75 for Daniel, and from 2 to 58 for Lauren.

This constitutes a first surprise. Indeed, the

prevailing feeling when reading Les Innommables

is one of over-complicated sentences, when e=mc2

feels simpler. Contrarily, we can see that the style

where the sentence range is the widest, as well as

the one using the longest sentences is the one of

which could have been a priori thought that it would

be the simplest : the less educated Daniel, whose

sentences are of a wider range than the erudite

Lauren or the Les Innommables’ pedantic narrator,

the ranges being quite similar for the latter two.

This simple difference in range doesn’t seem an

accidental occurence, since 4 of Daniel’s sentences

are equal or superior in length to any of those of the

other two styles.

Of note is Daniel’s over-use of the one word

sentence ‘Bingo !, which is a mark of both his

personal and literary style.

If the range of the sentences length is somewhat

surprising, the mean length distribution is more

conform to what could be expected, ranging from

19.46 words for Les Innommables to 22.01 for

Lauren (and her Alexandrines…?). Although a

superior mean could have been guessed a priori for

Les Innommables, the thre means stay very close

to each-other, probably without really significant

difference.

The sentence length’s variance is the greatest for

Daniel, perhaps simply reflecting his wider range.

Once again, a low variance for Les Innommables


8

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may signal an internally more homogeneous style,

clustered around sentences which, as we have seen,

are somewhat surprisingly short.

The highest Median is of course Daniel’s.

The sentence length mode is both in accordance

with the aforementioned results and even more

unexpected. Once again, Les Innommables do not

stand up with a superior length, on the contrary

: Lauren’s is largely higher. The anomaly is here

Daniel’s surprising mode : 1 ! It is obviously due to

his ‘Bingo !’, repeated ten times in the chapter.

The most astounding result probably is the

distribution of the sentence length’s distributions,

especially with, as shown in the figures above,

their moving average. Les Innommables displays a

‘perfect’, a normal curve, such as can be expected.

The highest point is around a length of ten words,

then the curve regularly decreases. Lauren’s and

even more Daniel’s are more surprising. In Lauren’

s case, after a normal summit around the value of

8, a plateau appears around 20, after which the

frequencies increase again around the values of 50

! A quick verification shows that it is not due to the

Poetic attempts by the young woman, which do not

go beyond two verses.

The very same phenomenon (plateau around the

middle of the length range, then final increase) can

also be found in Daniel’s style, the main difference

being the anomalous frequency value for the length

1, that even a mobile average can’t erase.

A comparison of the Box plots (by quartile) for

the sentence lengths confirms the absence of a

fundamental difference between the three styles, at

least as far as sentence length is concerned. They are

quite similar, Daniel’s sentence distribution being

simply pushed towards a greater length, without the

structure being really upset. However, the similarity

between Lauren’s and Les Innommables’ Box Plots


10

figures is striking, confirming the fact that a it is not

in the sentences lengths that a possible difference

between the three, that is to say a clue for Cauvin’s

success over Klotz, is to be found.

Nouns and Adjectives

The second phase was to look at the adjectives

and the nouns, and especially at groups formed with

one or several adjectives adjoined to a noun.

Have been counted, for each style (Les

Innommables, Daniel, Lauren), in the same samples

:

The proportion of nouns in relation to the total

number of words.

The proportion of adjectives in relation to the total

number of words.

The proportion of nouns joined with adjectives in

relation to the total number of nouns.

The proportion of nouns joined with one adjective

in relation to the total number of nouns.

The proportion of nouns joined with two

adjectives in relation to the total number of nouns.

The proportion of nouns joined with three


The proportion of nouns joined with four


(There is no occurrence of a noun joined with more

than four adjectives in the sample.)

Here are the results.

Les InnommablesNouns/words : 21.18%

Adjectives/words : 5.82%

Nouns with adjectives : 24.27%

Same, case with one adjective : 21.22%

Cases with two adjectives : 2.8%

Cases with three adjectives : 0.25%

Cases with four adjectives : 0%

Emc DanielNouns/words : 12.71%





Cases with three adjectives : 0%

Cases with four adjectives : 0%

Emc LaurenNouns/words : 15.32%





Cases with three adjectives : 0.49%

Cases with four adjectives : 0.25%

Here again, strange similarities appear between

the styles of the australopithecines and of the

modern young woman. Once again, it’s Daniel who’

s different, as the proportion of nouns and adjectives

relative to the total number of words are somewhat

close for the first two, and markedly different for the

young man, who uses almost twice as few nouns

as Klotz in Les Innommables, and two to three

times fewer adjectives than his two co-subjects. He

might (although we’ll see in the last part that it is

not significantly true), have a preference for adverbs

and verbs, thus lowering his ratio of nouns and

adjectives.

This difference is the first one noticed so far.

Le t us a l so remark tha t , a l though Les

Innommables’ style, replete with descriptions, epic

11


or related to the world of the senses, could have let

an abundance of adjectives be expected, it is on the

contrary through the number of nouns that it signals

its originality. One could maybe ascribe this to a

certain materiality, where it is important to name

all physical things in that primal world, as well as

the frank desire by Klotz to sprinkle his style with a

debauchery of pseudo-scientific terms.

Looking at the proportion of nouns joined

with adjectives in relation to the total number of

nouns, this similarity between the two extremes

in evolution that are Les Innommables and Lauren

appears stronger than ever, since here, it’s Lauren

who seems to make the greatest, or at least the most

frequent, use of groups where nouns and adjectives

can be found together. In more than one in four

cases, the noun is used in conjunction with one or

several adjectives, making it a higher proportion

than which can be found in Les Innommables.

Daniel pales in comparison, with a proportion twice

as low.

Furthermore, Daniel does not go beyond two

adjectives for a noun. There are no occurrence

where a noun is joined with three or more

adjectives, contrarily to Les Innommables and

especially Lauren, the latter not only using as many

as four adjectives in conjunction with a noun,

but also displaying a higher average number of

adjectives per noun. It is not really rare (4.2%) to

encounter in her prose a group with two adjectives,

and her proportion of three-adjective groups is not

significantly different than Daniel’s proportion of

two-adjective ones.

We may simplify these results in a somewhat

abrupt, but enlightening way. Daniel uses a rather

poor tongue, at least as far as nouns and adjectives

are concerned. (One could object that the possible

richness of his style may be expressed through

other means, like for example the use of verbs

and adverbs, but this is not part of our immediate

scope.) Once again, Les Innommables’ and Lauren’

s style seem rather close, this time concerning

adjectives and nouns, as they were about the length

of the sentences. Is it a certain lyricism on the art

of the young lady, with her use of groups joining

a noun with several adjectives, and some sort of a

epico-materialist style for Les Innommables, with the

overbearing importance of nouns?

This persistent similarity between two styles

(Les Innommables and Lauren) which could

have been a priori expected to be as different as

their evolutionary status is, brings us to direct our

investigation more towards the meaning of the

words used. If grammatically, Les Innommables

and Lauren do not show much chiasm between

them (still leaving Daniel by the wayside), a look

at the registers used may shed some light on what

differentiates them.

Word register analysis

To do so, a sample for each of the three styles

has been compared to the frequency of their words

as measured in the literary corpus of the Lexique

2 database. This database, developed by the Paris

Descartes University, indicates for each word of the

database its frequency in the corpus. The lower the

figure, the rarer the word. The word ‘Chapeau’18),

for example, returns a value of 42.48, whereas

‘Chaperon’19) has a value of 1.03.

For each sample, nouns, verbs, adjectives and

18) ‘Hat’.

19) ‘Chaperone’.


12

adverbs have been considered. Values have been

added, and a global frequency, corresponding to

the total sum of values divided by the total number

of words in the sample, has been established.

Moreover, average frequencies have been calculated

by type of word, that is for example, the total sum

of frequency values for nouns, divided by the total

number of nouns in the sample, and so on for

each of the four types of words in each of the three

samples.

Here are the results.

Vocabulary frequency

InnommablesFrequency of analysed words/total number of

words in the sample : 112.42

Average frequency for nouns : 131.641

Average frequency for verbs : 406.785

Average frequency for adjectives : 73.496

Average frequency for adverbs : 37.61

Emc DanielFrequency of analysed words/total number of






Emc LaurenFrequency of analysed words/total number of






Here at last clearly appears a difference, not

only between Daniel on the one hand, and both

Lauren and Les innommables on the other, but

this time between Lauren and Les Innommables

themselves. Indeed, Daniel’s global frequency is at

335.16, Lauren’s at 277.46 and Les Innommables

at 112.42. Words used in Les Innommables are, so

to speak, almost three times rare in literature than

those used by Daniel, and he and Lauren are in

that regard closer to each-other that they are to Les

Innommables. If the global banality of the words

used in the prehistoric novel are set as a base 100,

the words used by Lauren are at banality = 247, and

for Daniel, banality = 298. The difference is this time

more than noticeable.

Examining each type of word is even more telling.

The frequency of the nouns used is not very

dissimilar between the three : 131, 181, 146. By

contrast, the choice of verbs shows a striking

division : 407 (Les I.), 1674 (D.), 1487 (L.) The

two teen-agers make use of vivid sets of relatively

usual verbs, of similar frequency, wheras Les

Innommables’ verbs are almost four times less

frequent !

Conversely, Lauren’s adjectives are the rarest, but

her adverbs are the most common. One can but

smile thinking of the stereotype according to which

young girls are fond of banal adverbs punctuating

their every sentence, at the same time that a

feminine sensitivity makes her style bloom with

carefully selected adjectives.

Conclusions

The three above approaches, sentence length,

proportions of nouns and adjective, and word

register may lead to the following conclusions.

13


There indeed is a difference in the styles of Les

Innommables’ Klotz and e=mc2’s Cauvin, be it

through Daniel the blue-collar or Lauren the rich

girl. This difference, however, will not be found

in syntax, as shown by the fact that there is no

significant difference between Les Innommables

on the one hand and e=mc2 on the other hand

egarding sentence length, as a certain heaviness

in style felt by the reader of the Cro-Magnon epic

could have led to think. Neither would such a

difference be found in the use, or abuse, of nouns

and adjectives, which may also have been felt by a

reader of Les Innommables. The numerical analysis

shows that it is an illusion.

On the contrary, on these first two aspects,

Les Innommables’ style is rather reasonable and

homogenous, however barbaric and wild the feeling

it provokes. Furthermore, on these two points,

sentence length and noun-adjective groups, it is

even closer to the ultra-civilized Lauren than to the

benign Daniel.

The difference, for there is one, is to be looked for

in the meaning of the words, not just their type, or

even, surprisingly, their layout.

Are Les Innommables’ words sophisticated or just

strange? They are at least markedly rare than those

found in Daniel’s as well as Lauren’s styles.

Verbs in particular, illustrate this difference, which

should not surprise in an action (be it pre-historic)

novel, where, in spite of the omniscient point

of view, inner dialogues are limited, somewhat

impeding any expression of feelings or opinions

through which adjectives might have been favored,

and where it is the actions of these human-to-be

protagonists is in the process of building the Human

Condition. Those Men are but verb, and strange

verb at that.

Lauren’s signature is more a careful choice of

rare and delicate adjectives, this is her lyricism and

femininity speaking.

Daniel, the poor boy, isn’t distinguishable through

any particular feature, except the length of his

sentences and his exclamation : ‘Bingo !’.

This choice of different styles has been willingly

made, of course. Klotz simplified his register to

become Cauvin, and he knows it. Was he simply

influenced by the rules of the Pre-historic novel

genre, or has he knowingly simplified his speech

so as to become popular? Is it just a normal fact of

life that two teen-agers speak more naturaly than an

omniscient narrator from the beginnings of Time?

To answer with any degree of certitude, it may be

necessary to apply a similar method to the one we

have here, to various pre-Cauvin works.

One may nevertheless legitimately remain

suspicious that the decision was willful, aiming at

popularity and success. For that goal, an author’s

deliberate lowering of his skills…

A goal, in that case, that was perfectly reached.

We will end by mentioning this fact that seems

to us extremely significant : it is not by a mere

simplification of the from, the structures of the

sentences, that the Cauvin’s style became popular,

but by a simplification in the register of the words

used, that is to say of the sign itself. What if it were

the same in other fields?

What if Picasso’s secret was in this simplification

of the sign, the symbol? Instead of a rather uneasily

accessible Cubism, what if the key to his accessibility

to (and thus a condition to his approbation by) the

widest audience was painting simpler forms, not

changing the laws (Cubism) of their layout and their


14

presence?

What if Bizet had composed nothing but Carmen?

What if it were the essence of our modern era?

References and bibliography

1. A quick biography : http://blogs.rue89.nouvelobs.com/cabinet-de-lecture/2010/08/18/deces-de-lecrivain-claude-klotz-

alias-patrick-cauvin-162969

2. Essential Klotz bibliography : «Les classes», C.Bourgeois publisher, 1968, ASIN : B0014UU9RE, “Sbang-Sbang”,

C.Bourgeois publisher, 1969, ASIN: B0014UWB02, “Les Innommables”, ditions J’ai Lu, 1979 (with illustrations by

Gourmelin) ISBN-13: 978-2277119678

3. Essential Patrick Cauvin bibliography : “L’Amour Aveugle”, J-Cl. Latt s publisher, 1974, ISBN-13: 978-2702840870,

“Monsieur Papa”, Latt s publisher, 1976, ASIN: B0035ITXHK, “E=mc2, mon amour” Latt s publisher, 1977, ASIN:

B0000E87RT

4. Klotz before Cauvin, a quick general overview : 1968, first published book : ‘Les Classes’

1969 ‘Sbang-sbang’

1970 ‘Et les cris de la F e’

1971 ‘Les Innommables’

1973 Co-authoring of Francis Joffo’s ‘Un sac de billes’

The ‘Reinier’ series of Noir Crime Stories, which will be ported to television :(T1 1971 Micro mic-mac), (T2 1971

Casse cash), (T3 1971 Alpha Berreta), (T4 1971 Jap job), (T5 1972 Dolly dollar), (T6 1972 Bing banque), (T7 1973

Cosmos cross), (T8 1973 Tchin tchin queen), (T9 1973 Flic flash), (T10 1974 A e-heil), (T11 1975 Putsch punch),

(T12 1975 Karat caramel), (T13 1975 Dingo dague)

1974 Paris-Vampire (Dracula p re et fils).

5. For more information on Universit Ren Descartes’ lexical database ‘Lexique 2’, see : http://www.lexique.org/

Documents

From Klotz to Cauvin : an author's stylistic road to success