This book was the first theoretical text from a member of the school of the "new novel", with Alain Robbe-Grillet is the other writer lighthouse. It therefore has two advantages: it is a historical break in the history of the novel criticism; and a literary point of view, it renews the critical approach of the great novelists. N. Sarraute leans effect on both Dostoyevsky on Kafka, Proust as Virginia Woolf.