The Target : Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jasper Johns

"The Target" is an interarts study of Pop art and metafiction.

It highlights the relationship between Alain Robbe-Grillet, an internationally acclaimed French new novelist and cinematographer, and Jasper Johns, an internationally renowned artist.

Robbe-Grillet wrote "The Target," an introduction to the catalog for the Johns 1978 exhibition in Paris - an introduction in the guise of fiction - that was generated by the works in the show.

Fifty-six of the works illustrate the translation of Robbe-Grillet's narrative.

Eight additional illustrations in color accompany the essay that analyzes Johns's targets and numbers and Robbe-Grillet's "target." The accompanying essay addresses topics such as self-reflexivity, topologies, chaos theory, and the social function of art.

The book shows how Johns's targets and Robbe-Grillet's writing subvert social codes and the observer's expectations in order to produce new and unexpected perceptions of reality.

Illustrated. Ben Stoltzfus is a retired professor of Comparative Literature and Creative Writing from the University of California, Riverside.