Écrits by Odilon Redon, Claire Moran

Abstract

MLR, IOI .4, 2oo6 I13I In addition to those mentioned above, there are chapters or substantial sections on Voyage au centre de la terre, Le Village aerien, Les Indes noires, and the short story 'M. Re-Dieze etMlle Mi-Bemol'. Where Chelebourg perhaps loses an opportunity in this pertinent and important discussion is in the relatively small amount of space devoted to ways in which scientific facts and theories are themselves fictionalized, poeticized, or integrated wholesale into Vernian narrative. Many have said thatVerne is at his most effective and his most fascinating when his work ismost 'factual' (Perec, among others, claimed to have been mesmerized by the poetry of Verne's lists).While Chelebourg does offer some perceptive insights into Verne's incorporation or rejec tion of contemporary science in Voyage au centre de la terre (discussed in the first and best chapter of this book), his overall stance, increasingly and a little simplis tically, emphasizes the novelist's rejection of science, or rather his scepticism about it.Yet, as Chelebourg points out in an excellent conclusion, this consistent and stu died distance vis-a-vis the scientific doxa iswhat gives Verne's writing its particular flavour-humorous, melancholic, and, despite everything, deeply serious. UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL TIMOTHY UNWIN Ecrits. By ODILON REDON. Ed. by CLAIREMORAN. (MHRA Critical Texts, i) Lon don: Modern Humanities Research Association. 2005. ix+ I4I PP- ?I 2.99. ISBN 0-947623-63-9. The life and work of the artist Odilon Redon (I840-19I6) could be described, after almost a century since his death, as a small art-historical industry that testifies to the sustained interest in the idealist, anti-naturalistic 'movement' of Symbolism in general and toRedon's now well-established position as perhaps themost productive and significant artist working within this rubric. In 2005 Redon has been the recipient of a career survey at theMuseum of Modern Art, New York ('Beyond the Visible: The Art of Odilon Redon'), a new contextual study (Barbara Larson, The Dark Side ofNature: Science, Society, and theFantastic in theWork of Odilon Redon (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press)), and a prominent place in the huge thematic exhibition 'Melancolie' (Paris, Grand Palais). These contributions add to the impor tant literature on the artist by scholars such as Ted Gott, Douglas Druick, Dario Gamboni, Stephen Eisenman, and Richard Hobbs. However, themost interesting recent insight into Redon and his work emerges from this slender edition of his own early writings, carefully edited and presented by Claire Moran. The ten texts are transcriptions from the originals made by Redon's first bio grapher, Andre Mellerio, and held today in theMellerio-RedonPapers at the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, Art Institute of Chicago. The meticulous copies by Mellerio of such invaluable items asRedon' s sales books, correspondence, and autobiographical and fictional manuscripts have enabled researchers to overcome the difficulties posed by the incomplete publication or unavailability of his writings, letters, and other pri mary sources. A facsimile publication would have enhanced the particularities of the manuscripts, but Moran preserves Mellerio's notations (including what colour of ink was used and queries about words) and indicates Redon's own corrections to his texts in the footnotes, comprising mostly one-word alterations or eliminations. Several texts are evidently autobiographical, while others might be called 'essais litteraires', 'con tes', or 'histoires' and several appear unfinished. Kept together in agroup byMellerio, the ten texts were apparently intended for a book that Redon never completed. This edition thus begins thework of correcting the problematic and over-edited selection of texts that posthumously appeared with the erroneous title A soi-meme (I 922; original title De soi-meme). Moran explains the problems of publishing Redon's writings and goes on to provide a useful survey of the key themes and literary features of the texts. 1132 Reviews The texts themselves evocatively demonstrate Redon's lifelong preoccupation with the interior life of aman 'seul[] aumilieu de tous' (p. 92) and themystery of the imagi nation, the world of dreams, and the motivations and indecisions of the soul. Struc tured through narratives of encounter with strange worlds and beings (the Basque country and its beautiful, noble women; the exotic 'fakir', or...