Claude Simon - Orion aveugle - 1970

Claude Simon. BLIND ORION

Editions Skira, in the series “The Paths of Creation,” Geneva, 1970, (21.5 x 16.6 cm), 152 pages, cover illustrated with dust jacket.

21 illustrations in black and color, most full-page.

Original edition in very good condition, apart from small signs of wear to the cover and spine, interior excellent.

Orion blind is a novel published on June 30, 1970 by Claude Simon at Albert Skira editions in the collection “The Paths of Creation.” This hybrid text, which sits within the New Novel movement, presents itself as a reflection on the writing process, illustrated by reproductions of works by artists such as Nicolas Poussin, Robert Rauschenberg, and Picasso.

The narrative, structured in intertwined descriptive and narrative fragments, does not follow linear chronology but explores the themes of memory, war, and perception through the motif of the giant blind man in Poussin’s painting.

Although often described as a novel, the work is distinguished by its experimental structure and its absence of a single paragraph, serving as a prefiguration and basis for the novel Les Corps conducteurs published the following year.

The central themes are literary creation, war (World War II, the Spanish Civil War), subjective memory, and the deconstruction of time.

The collection The Paths of Creation, published by Éditions d’Art Albert Skira between 1969 and 1976, represents a unique editorial venture at the crossroads of the arts, literature, and visual thought. Directed by Albert Skira in collaboration with Gaëtan Picon, this collection gathers unpublished works by writers, artists, and major thinkers of the era, invited to explore their own creative path by blending text and image.

The originality of the collection lies in its founding principle: each author is not only invited to write, but also to illustrate their own work, either by creating original images or by selecting existing reproductions. This act of self-illustration transforms the image into a means of expression complementary to the text, sometimes even in tension with it, creating a singular dialogue between the verbal and the visual.

Authors actively participated in the design of the mock-up, in close collaboration with the editorial team, which reinforced the artistic unity of each volume.