Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio, and Print by Kate Griffiths, Andrew Watts

Abstract

a scattered, indeed shattered, family”(109). Freadman then turns to the last two works published by Colette, who was by then in her seventies, L’étoile Vesper (1945) and Le fanal bleu (1949); fragmented, apparently meandering, diary-like in certain respects, they amount to “reflections upon the reduction of vitality and the shrinking social, spatial, and temporal horizons of old age”(111). In lieu of a conventional conclusion, and faithful to the underlying model of the sonata form, Freadman ends with a substantial “Recapitulation,” focused on La naissance du jour (1928), which epitomizes both the generic indeterminacy of Colette’s work in general and her characteristic manner of piecing together a multiform record of her life experience. Freadman’s book is clearly organized, with English translations following original French quotations, notes at the end of each chapter, bibliography, and index. Given the free-flowing analysis and essay-like treatment in general, this is an approach that will be appreciated most by those already familiar with a substantial part of Colette’s extensive corpus; for such readers, Freadman’s rapidly-moving treatment and often ludic touch should provide a good measure of enjoyment. University of Kansas John T. Booker Griffiths,Kate, and Andrew Watts. Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio, and Print. Cardiff: UP of Wales, 2013. ISBN 9780 -7083-2594-0. Pp. 235. $150. The translation of literary works to other media involves looking back, reclaiming, and updating. For this reason, it may be tempting to view adaptation as a phenomenon anchored in a present that seeks to revive the past.Yet, as Griffiths and Watts skillfully demonstrate, adaptation is a cultural phenomenon built into the very concept of literary production in nineteenth-century France. Organized around case studies of six novelists, the volume pairs each canonical writer with an adaptive medium his works have inspired: Zola (radio), Balzac (silent film), Flaubert (contemporary fiction), Hugo (musical and dramatic theater), Maupassant (television), and Verne (sound cinema). A thorough overview at the beginning of each chapter provides theoretical and historic context, with information on reception of the works in their time and now, and a synopsis of the almost countless ways in which they have been re-created. The sheer number of potential works to study is daunting.Watts points out in the second chapter that eighty-two silent film adaptations were made or planned between 1906 and 1927; Griffiths opens chapter five by invoking the forty-six (and counting) adaptations of Maupassant to television. Although individual chapters and accompanying bibliographies successfully stand alone, the unifying argument, original approach, and clear structure make for a smooth, cohesive read of the whole book. Building on the premise that literary texts and their multiple adaptations inform one another reciprocally, the authors achieve the dual goal of identifying adaptive strategies particular to each case 270 FRENCH REVIEW 88.4 Reviews 271 study, then suggesting “how, in their affinities with specific media, such adaptations help us better to read the theories, form, and content of the authors in question”(10). Specific strategies of adaptation, or “key themes of adaptive process” (11), unfold in dialogue with literary style and content. As a result, the analysis of the literary texts themselves is just as original and compelling as the investigation of their contingent adaptations. From voice in Zola, to Balzac’s pillaging and plundering, temporality in Flaubert, the anxiety of excess in Hugo, Maupassant’s claustrophobic aesthetics, and haunting and ghostliness in Verne—each literary attribute discloses an adaptive process, and each adaptive process illuminates literary aesthetics. Griffiths and Watts consider adaptation across languages and genres, showing that“different media adapt differently”(9). One of the book’s many strengths lies in a truly multimedia approach to adaptation. This comprehensive approach leads the authors to uncover a rich array of important but largely neglected primary material. Carefully crafted, deeply researched, and engagingly written, this book offers fresh readings of well-known works while bringing to the fore adaptations that have not already received much (if any) critical attention. In both content and approach, the scope and depth of this book offer something new for scholars and teachers already well versed in adaptation, as well...