Balzac, romancier du regard by Takao Kashiwagi (review)

Abstract

MLRy 99. i, 2004 203 comparing the status and the meaning of Balzac's 'hors-textes'?such as the prefaces and the correspondence?with Balzac's intratextual pronouncements as author, with those of his delegated narrators, and with his characters' polylogic discussions about the status of art, literature, and 'reality'. For according to Rossum-Guyon, there is a constant interplay between the textual and the metatextual, which may, depending on the context and situation, be self-reinforcing or self-contradictory: poiesis can, for example, reinforce and yet subvert mimesis (pp. 53, 99); like so many successful or budding writers in the Comedie humaine, Lucien de Rubempre is, paradoxically, 'finalement sacrifie au mouvement de l'ceuvre' (p. 159). This ambivalent interplay between text and metatext, between textual invocations to art and 'actual' novels, has implications forvan Rossum-Guyon's second question about Balzac's hermeneu? tics: what are the implications of an art which sacrifices its own writers?such as Lucien, but also Lousteau and d'Arthez, and Camille Maupin?for its reader's nar? rative pleasure? And what are the ethical implications of Balzac constantly addressing unidealized readers 'qu'il convient par consequent de seduire et d'interesser par tous lesmoyens' (p. 127)? In thus moving from an investigation of Balzac's enonciation into one of ethics and meanings, van Rossum-Guyon follows Balzac's own text, where, she argues, Taction produite par le discours inaugure une serie d'actions qui constitue la suite de leur histoire' (p. 169). At the same time, she takes what could have been a narrow formal analysis into challenging new critical territory. University of Bradford Owen Heathcote Balzac, romancier du regard. By Takao Kashiwagi. Tours: Nizet. 2002. 166 pp. ?20. ISBN 2-7078-1268-4. The power of observation was an integral part of Balzac's character. As a young man, he would emerge from his garret in the Rue Lesdiguieres to wander the streets of Paris, committing to memory the faces, clothing, and conversations of the city's inhabitants, and making mental notes on the buildings in which they lived. This insatiable curiosity was the source of the 'second sight' that he used for constructing his fictional universe, and that he described in the short story Facino Cane: 'Chez moi l'observation etait deja devenue intuitive [. . .]; elle me donnait la faculte de vivre de la vie de l'individu sur laquelle elle s'exercait' (in Honore de Balzac, La Comedie humaine, ed. by Pierre-Georges Castex, 12 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 197681 ), vi, 1019). In this volume of twelve essays Takao Kashiwagi analyses the role of observation ('le regard') in a selection of works from La Comedie humaine. Any attempt to explain Balzac's interest in this subject, or his approach to it, is hampered by the absence of an introduction. Kashiwagi does succeed, however, in balancing his discussion of celebrated texts such as Le Pere Goriot and Le Lys dans la vallee with less familiar works such as Albert Savarus, La Maison du chat-qui-pelote, and Le Bal de Sceaux. In 'Qu'est-ce qu'ils ont vu du haut de Paris?', he contrasts the careers of Lucien de Rubempre and Eugene de Rastignac. Both characters are shown on the hillside at Pere Lachaise, but while Lucien gives Paris only a cursory glance, Rastignac fixes his stare on the heaving metropolis, and prepares to launch his famous 'A nous deux maintenant!' Kashiwagi argues that Lucien fails because he is unable to break the maternal bond with the provinces, whereas Rastignac succeeds because he resolves to conquer the woman that is curled up along the bank of the Seine. This gender-based approach is reflected in 'Une lecture du Lys dans la vallee', in which the focus is on patterns of observational exchange between the protagonists, from Felix de Vandenesse, whose desire for Mme de Mortsauf is ignited at the Due d'Angouleme's ball, to Natalie de Manerville, who 'watches' the action from a 204 Reviews distance. Here, Kashiwagi settles his own gaze on the theme of love, and extends the traditional parallel with Sainte-Beuve's Volupte to Raphael's Three Graces, casting Mme de Mortsauf as Chastity, Lady Arabelle Dudley...