Au revoir Man Tine par Mérine Céco

Abstract

dédouanant la mère de toute culpabilité. Thomas, lui, a changé et s’installe avec Pénélope. Même s’il garde ses jouets, il les a remis dans des vitrines. Collector, bien écrit et rondement mené, opère sa propre magie sur les lecteurs qui ont connu les eighties et offre à tous une réflexion profonde sur l’Enfance. Eastern Connecticut State University Michèle Bacholle-Bošković Céco, Mérine. Au revoir Man Tine. Paris: Écriture, 2016. ISBN 978-2-35905-211-4. Pp. 176. 17 a. This author is quickly becoming an up-and-coming representative of a new Martinican créolité. After her first novel, La mazurka perdue des femmes-couresse (2013), she has now written a short story collection, a complex work that demonstrates both intertextuality with Martinican literature and distinctive developments beyond that tradition. The book can be read on several levels. First, as a collection of short stories, it builds on that genre in the Caribbean tradition. In addition, because the short stories are autobiographical, Céco continues the tradition of autobiographical writing so important within French literature (Nathalie Sarraute’s L’enfance,for example) and Martinican letters, bringing to mind collections such as Patrick Chamoiseau’s Une enfance créole or Raphaël Confiant’s Ravines du devant-jour. Furthermore, Au revoir Man Tine takes as direct inspiration one of the classics of Caribbean literature, Joseph Zobel’s La rue Cases-Nègres. The conceit of the collection is that Man Tine, the grandmother of José Hassam, the protagonist of La rue Cases-Nègres, never received a proper goodbye from José after he had gone off to work in the big city. They both represent more than themselves for Céco, however. They represent entire generations—Man Tine a forgotten Martinican past, and José the newer generation that desired the best possible modern French life for their children, who are the current generation of technology-saturated, history-starved young people. Céco seeks to bid goodbye to Man Tine, literally opening her book by saying: “Il est enfin temps de réparer cette trouée de l’Histoire: au revoir Man Tine!” (10), and also by bringing the past and present together throughout the collection. In three parts (“Libellules en pluie,”“Âmes du péyi d’enfance,”and“Autoportraits”), with four short stories in each part, Céco recounts her childhood, adolescence, and ultimately her adulthood and motherhood. Using a distinctive stylistic feature, she often ends her stories with a paragraph or two of reflection on the characters, places, or traditions mentioned therein and what they are like today. For example, in her first story “Une allée de mahoganys,” Céco recounts her school days as the daughter of her own teachers and shows the clash of bringing European Catholic education into contact with rural culture of the Martinican campagne.And at the end, she tells her readers that the allée de mahoganys that led to their school no longer exists, as so much has changed with the changing of time:“L’herbe de Guinée continue de pousser devant les portes closes 266 FRENCH REVIEW 90.4 Reviews 267 des petits camarades qui se sont dispersés dans le monde et que je retrouve, au hasard de Facebook ou Twitter”(26). Her twenty-first-century style and content set her apart in Martinican literature as a writer who appreciates both past and present, unlike the somewhat more nostalgic créolités of Chamoiseau and Confiant. Céco has managed to produce an essential work of Martinican literature by recounting her own experiences situated in the past and present of the island while avoiding the traps of excessive nostalgia and of historical amnesia. Bob Jones University (SC) Jeremy Patterson Darrieussecq, Marie. Être ici est une splendeur: vie de Paula M. Becker. Paris: P.O.L, 2016. ISBN 978-2-8280-3906-9. Pp. 160. 15 a. This book recounts the life and early death of the German painter, Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907), from a perspective that emphasizes the tensions between her personal desires (notably marriage and domestic happiness) and her artistic ambitions. Modersohn-Becker has...