chosisme

Thus, in books termed chosiste (literally “thing-ist”), they make the furniture of a room more important than its human incumbents. This may be seen as a transitory protest against the long predominance of character in the novel, but, even on the popular level, there have been indications that readers…

…with the French antinovel are chosisme and tropisme. The first, with which Robbe-Grillet is chiefly associated, relates to the novelist’s concern with things in themselves, not things as human symbols or metaphors. The second, which provided a title for Nathalie Sarraute’s early novel, denotes the response of the human mind…