A Palimpsestuous Novel: Claire Legendre's La Méthode Stanislavski

Abstract

Claire Legendre's La Méthode Stanislavski (2006) is a complex web, if not play, with a broad variety of autobiographical and intertextual elements. Beyond sending its readers on a literary and autobiographical scavenger hunt, as well as being a riveting crime fiction, this palimpsestuous novel proposes an ambitious reflection on the essential dynamic nature of artistic creativity. Drawing on the typologies established by Gérard Genette in Palimpsestes and Seuils, as well as on Philippe Gasparini's Est-il je?, this article demonstrates how Legendre's multilayered narrative generates a metadiscursive reflection on hypertextuality and on first-person writing. La Méthode Stanislavski becomes first a literary and intermedial palimpsest since it makes references to numerous cultural items, such as cinema or classic French literature, and partially rewrites Constantin Stanislavski's La Formation de l'acteur. The latter work becomes both a literal and allegorical hypotext that enables Legendre to question the purposes of hypertextuality itself but also to posit a literary aesthetics that crosses borders between genres and the arts. Yet, La Méthode Stanislavski also constitutes an autobiographical palimpsest. In addition to featuring autobiographical elements that may be verified through a variety of paratexts, Hervé Guibert's novel L'Incognito also becomes an allegorical hypotext in Legendre's novel. As with Stanislavski's book, reworking Guibert's novel generates a metadiscursive reflection on first-person writing and, especially, on the problematic notions of truth and authenticity as applied to the genre.