'Adonis' suivi de 'Zoflora' et de documents inédits by Jean-Baptiste Picquenard, Chris Bongie

Abstract

MLR, I03. I, 2oo8 239 thedrably oppressive Grenoble of his childhood after thedeath ofhis beloved mother and the liveliness ofMilan, where the adult Stendhal experiences the love thatdefies description-and brings Brulard to an abrupt end-is a poignant reminder of an af fectivecircularity that reunites thegrownman with his formerself.The contrapuntal relationship between Stendhal's inner lifeand thewider world of society and politics isunderlined, too, so thathis account of the revolutionary years of his childhood can be seen as a 'way of understanding his relationswith his family and its social milieu' (p. 64). Above all, though, Bell's admirable studymakes itclear thatStendhal's ret rospective 'Qu'ai-je donc ete?' finds itsbest response in the present tense: 'j'ecris, je me console, je suis heureux' (p. 8 i). UNIVERSITY OF BATH PETERWAGSTAFF Adonis' suivi de 'Zoflora' etde documents inedits. By JEAN-BAPTISTE PICQUENARD. Ed. by CHRIS BONGIE. Paris: L'Harmattan. 2oo6. 264 pp. E26. ISBN 978-2-296 00929-5. In Silencing thePast (Boston: Beacon, 1995) Michel-Rolphe Trouillot has argued persuasively that theHaitian Revolution was silenced from the outset as much by thosewho feared itsexplosive impact as by progressive thinkers at the time. Without a conceptual frameof reference theevents that tookplace inSaint Domingue between I79 I and I804 remained incomprehensible. Inventing a narrative for this revolution has been important inCaribbean literaturebut italso challenged writers inFrance in the nineteenth century. Perhaps thebest-known narrative of the revolution was Bug Jargal (i 826) byVictor Hugo, who neverwitnessed theevents first hand. Chris Bongie has now made available the novels that influenced Hugo, Jean Baptiste Piquenard's Adonis ( 798) and Zoflora (i 8oo). The author of the very firstnarratives of theHaitian Revolution arrived in Saint Domingue in 179 I.Bongie's carefully researched introduction states thatPicquenard took a strong position against the local royalistwhite population in their resistance to abolition and launched a stridently anti-royalist newspaper with the telling title L'Ami de L'Egalite. During his stay he was the secretary toGovernor Sonthonax but in I793 he was mysteriously imprisoned and deported from the colony.The following year Sonthonax proclaimed the abolition of slavery.Disciple ofBernardin de Saint Pierre, Picquenard performed his own silencing of theHaitian Revolution by turning away from actual historical events to locate the 'happily ever after' ending of both these fables ofEnlightenment ideals in timeless pastoral settings. Picquenard's alter egos in these tales are the selflesswhite philanthropists d'Herou ville and Justin.The often tediously sentimental andmoralizing narratives pair them with theunfailingly faithful,noble blacks Adonis and Zoflora. The protagonists and their families eventually escape thehorrors of history and plantation slavery todwell forever, in the case ofAdonis, as a 'black and white French family' (p. 8 i) in a pastoral New World setting, and in the case ofZoflora in a quiet corner of France 'farfrom noise and intrigue' (p. 226). This idealization of fraternalRepublican ideals coexists in the narrativewith an almost voyeuristic concentration on the spectacle of physical abuse and eroticized whippings. As Marcus Wood astutely points out in Slavery, Empathy and Pornography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002): 'The spectacle of extreme physical suffering is theultimate testof the sentimental imagination, but also shades very easily into pornographic fantasy' (p. I03). Ultimately, Picquenard's narratives are as interesting for what theyomit as they are forwhat they include. NEW YORK UNIVERSITY J.MICHAEL DASH ...