| Acknowledgments | |
| Note on Texts and Translations | |
| Introduction | 3 |
| Pt. 1 | Metamorphoses of the Referential Function, 1956-1984 | 23 |
| Ch. 1 | Vertiginous Storytelling: Camus's La Chute, 1956 | 25 |
| Ch. 2 | Reappearing Man in Robbe-Grillet's Topologie d'une cite fantome, 1976 | 44 |
| Ch. 3 | Narrative Leveling and Performative Pathos in Claude Simon's Les Georgiques, 1981 | 55 |
| Ch. 4 | The Self as Referent: Postmodern Autobiographies, 1983-1984 (Robbe-Grillet, Duras, Sarraute) | 69 |
| Pt. 2 | "Pure Fiction" And the Inevitability of Reference | 97 |
| Ch. 5 | Blanchot and Narrative | 104 |
| Ch. 6 | Beckett and the Ethics of Fabulation | 132 |
| Conclusion | 155 |
| Notes | 159 |
| Works Cited | 183 |
| Index | 193 |
