A World Apart: Female Adolescence in the French Novel 1870–1930 by Beth W. Gale

Abstract

GALE, BETH W. A World Apart: Female Adolescence in the French Novel 1870–1930. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2010. ISBN 978-0-8387-5730-7. Pp. 231. $58. This richly documented study examines the representation of female adolescence in the French novel through a variety of lenses: historical, political, sociological , and of course, literary. The period studied encompasses the birth of the modern concept of adolescence and the fascinating debate surrounding the education of France’s young women, resulting not only in a series of educational reforms but also in an explosion of French literary interest in female adolescence. Although many of the novels discussed are little known to the modern reader (brief plot summaries have been added in a useful appendix), Gale demonstrates how for both male and female authors “adolescent heroines provide a medium for the expression of fears and of enthusiasm about various aspects of social change, particularly with regard to gender roles” (18). This study is divided into three chapters, each beginning with an introduction characterizing the two decades that it covers. Linking the chapters is a discussion of themes common to all periods and central to the study of female adolescence such as the body, the mind, education, and love/sexuality. The shortest of the chapters, chapter 1, “The Decadent Vision (1870–1890),” explores some of the earliest novels of female adolescence, written by the Frères Goncourt, Émile Zola, and Rachilde. As Gale demonstrates, the novels of this period do not necessarily document the new educational options for women, but rather reflect the increased attention directed at this newly created social group of jeunes filles. Most compelling is the relationship Gale explores between the literary depiction of female adolescence and the decadent movement in vogue at the time. Absent or problematic parents, sterility, illness, and even death limit opportunities and constrict the lives of the female characters. Gale interprets these novels as a possible “warning of the girl’s precarious societal and literary position at the end of the nineteenth century” (58) and a call for increased access to a larger social and literary space. The novels published during the period covered in chapter 2, “Shifting Spaces (1890–1910),” reflect the improving position of young women in France and offer a more hopeful portrayal of the female adolescent. The fin-de-siècle and Belle Époque fiction studied here considers new spaces of adolescence (such as the school) as in Colette’s Claudine à l’école (1900). Gale’s analysis reveals significant distinctions between books written by women (Colette, Marcelle Tinayre, Anna de Noailles) and those produced by men (Marcel Prévost, Romain Rolland) and describes the novels as illustrating the “tension between the psychological and social reality of adolescent characters” (121). In her third and final chapter, “Beneath the Surface (1910–1930),” Gale examines how the forces that fueled psychoanalysis and surrealism affected novelistic portrayals of young women and notes that the increased focus on female subjectivity allowed women writers to stake a broader claim to the territory of female adolescence. The characters in novels by Marguerite Audoux, Camille Pert, and Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, for example, “take more risks, demand more, and have more freedom and an increased sense of control over their lives. They also reveal a strong sense of self, reflected in their ways of observing and thinking about the world” (179). As in the previous chapters, these fictions of female adolescence are linked to the sociopolitical climate of the time, and in this case, the themes of body awareness and love and sexuality are explored in relation to 948 FRENCH REVIEW 85.5 the impact of World War I on women’s condition and gender relations. Gale’s interesting and well laid-out study fills a void created by earlier studies of the French novel of adolescence of this period that focus solely on the male experience and will be particularly useful to those working in the fields of youth culture , gender studies, and French cultural history. University of South Carolina Daniela Di Cecco GIACOMOTTO-CHARRA, VIOLAINE. La forme des choses: poésies et savoirs dans La Sepmaine de Du Bartas. Toulouse: PU du Mirail, 2009. ISBN 978-2-8107-0048-6...