A Change of Heart by Michel Butor

First published:La Modification, 1957 (English translation, 1959)

Type of work: Phenomenological and psychological realism

Time of work: 1955 or 1956

Locale: The third-class compartment of a train traveling between Paris and Rome

Principal Characters:

• Leon Delmont, a middle-aged Parisian businessman
• Henriette Delmont, his wife and the mother of their four children
• Cecile Darcella, his mistress, now working at an embassy in Rome

The Novel

In A Change of Heart, Michel Butor describes the observations, recollections, thoughts, and fears of Leon Delmont during a twenty-two-hour train ride between Paris and Rome. For several years, Leon has traveled regularly in the first-class section in order to attend meetings at the Rome headquarters of Scabelli, the Italian typewriter company whose Paris office he directs. For the last two years, Leon and Cecile Darcella have been having an affair during his frequent trips to Rome. Leon has finally decided to separate from his wife, Henriette, and to live in Paris with Cecile, for whom he has found a position with a Parisian travel agency. Leon is paying his own fare for this trip to Rome and he plans to inform Cecile of his decisions.

During this lengthy and exhausting trip, Leon cannot fall asleep. He passes the time by imagining possible biographies for the other travelers in his compartment. His thoughts about his fellow passengers lead him to reflect on all of his previous trips between Paris and Rome, whether he was alone or accompanied by Henriette or Cecile. Perhaps unintentionally, Leon begins to consider the profound meaning of his relationships with these two women. Specific scenes observed through his train window remind him of significant but apparently now-forgotten conversations and experiences. A Change of Heart illustrates very effectively the influence of involuntary memory on the human thought processes. Leon comes to realize that his past has formed his present attitudes and feelings in ways that he had never even suspected. By the end of A Change of Heart, Leon has convinced himself that in the years to come he will be much happier with Henriette than he would be with Cecile. Shortly before his train reaches Rome, he reverses his earlier decision. Leon will not see Cecile during this visit to Rome; instead, he plans to end his affair and return to his wife and children in Paris.

The Characters

Readers of A Change of Heart receive the impression that the unidentified narrator has described the thoughts and opinions of the principal characters in a highly subjective manner, and they come to distrust the narrator. In addition, the basic narrative technique in this novel permits and even encourages widely different reactions to the three principal characters. A Change of Heart is a second-person narrative, but readers never know who is addressing whom. The narrator may be an omniscient novelist talking to Leon, Leon’s conscience or subconscious addressing him, or perhaps even Leon himself, who is writing the description of his trip for the reader.

Butor maintains an extraordinary degree of ambiguity throughout A Change of Heart. The opinions of Henriette and Cecile are always presented from the subjective viewpoint of either the narrator or Leon, and readers eventually conclude that neither woman is as self-centered as portrayed. The criticism directed against Henriette and Cecile tells readers nothing about the true feelings of these women but does reveal much about the frustration and sense of inadequacy felt by Leon.

Although Leon enjoys good health and a comfortable life-style, he is very unhappy. Neither his wife nor his mistress can determine how to satisfy his unpredictable emotional needs. Ironically, when Henriette and Cecile finally meet, they quickly become good friends and clearly prefer each other’s company to that of Leon. Henriette is a considerate and patient wife who does not understand Leon’s obvious indifference to their family life. Cecile tries to please Leon both sexually and emotionally. She, however, is confused and hurt by his insensitivity to her feelings. Cecile has rejected Catholicism, and for this reason she does not wish to visit the museum at the Vatican. Nevertheless, she does not object if Leon goes on his own. The result of this arrangement is that Leon complains repeatedly and irrationally that he cannot appreciate the art in the Vatican unless Cecile is at his side. Because of his selfishness, readers feel little sympathy for his emotional problems, which he has created for himself. Leon is also bored with his well-paying position as an office manager. He never wonders, however, whether Henriette and Cecile are satisfied with their jobs. Since Leon is so egotistical, readers do not truly care about the possible causes for his profound unhappiness. At the end of A Change of Heart, Leon affirms that he can love Cecile only in Rome. Were they to live together in Paris, their affair would soon end. Leon may well be sincere, but he is clearly superficial and self-centered. In Leon Delmont, Butor has created a marvelously ambiguous and unsympathetic character.

Critical Context

Like such important contemporary French novelists as Claude Simon, Nathalie Sarraute, and Marguerite Yourcenar, Butor has explored the complex links between narrative techniques and the artistic representation of people’s efforts to discover meaning for the different realities perceived at various times. Unlike most novels, A Change of Heart is written neither from an overtly subjective first-person perspective nor from the objective point of view of an omniscient narrator. The reader’s reactions to this experimental second-person narrative are exceedingly complex. Although forced to view reality as Leon describes it, the reader frequently disagrees with his interpretation of past and present events, realizing that Leon’s vanity causes him to interpret unjustly the innocent actions and comments of Henriette and Cecile. Although not able to identify with Leon’s sentimental problems, the artistry of Butor enables the reader to experience the thought process which leads Leon to “modify” his original decision to separate from Henriette.

Butor wrote A Change of Heart near the beginning of his lengthy literary career, yet this early novel effectively illustrates a theme common to many of his writings. In his works of fiction and in his numerous essays on literary and philosophical topics, Butor has continued to explore techniques for communicating the meaning of perceived reality both to oneself and to others.

Bibliography

Alberes, R. Michel Butor, 1964.

McWilliams, Dean. The Narratives of Michel Butor: The Writer as Janus, 1978.

Mercier, Vivian. The New Novel from Queneau to Pinget, 1971.

Roudiez, Leon S. Michel Butor, 1965.

Spencer, Michael. Michel Butor, 1974.

Sturrock, John. The French New Novel: Claude Simon, Michel Butor, Alain Robbe-Grillet, 1969.