Brassens: Chansons by Sara Poole (review)

Abstract

MLRy 99.2, 2004 503 not by reiterating previous commentaries but by exploring 'Foucault's own use of particular narrative styles and forms of language' often lost in the English transla? tions (p. 1). Dan Beer's short work is a series of incisive reflections on Foucault's 1976 study La Volonte de savoir, a study Beer believes to be one of the 'most fascinating works by any twentieth-century writer' (p. 16). Such a claim rests on the understand? ing of the complexity of language and the intricate way the narrative is constructed. This fact has not been appreciated, because previous examinations of the work have explored the ideas and meaning, rather than the 'form', of Foucault's narrative. Beer's work is not a systematic commentary, but rather a series of fiveshort inter? ventions into aspects of Foucault's study of sexuality, framing a set of questions or problems around a series of central themes, including ars erotica, confession, psychiatry /psychoanalysis, power, and the individual. In each chapter, Beer takes one of these themes and embellishes it with stylistic insight, historical illumination, and critical comment. He seeks to appreciate Foucault's language by recognizing the limits and awkwardness of Foucault's project, capturing the curiosity and fascination Foucault found in the tensions and limits of his own work (pp. 59, 75, 123-24). In Beer's study we appreciate how Foucault is a strategic writer as well as a strategic thinker. We are introduced to the subtleties of Foucault's text and discover his playfulness , parody, mimicry, satire, and rhetorical force. Beer not only shows the twists and turns within the idea of Thypothese repressive' (p. 31), but also demonstrates how Foucault captures the nature of confession by adopting a 'repetitive' style (p. 56) and how he mixes languages and vocabularies in examining 'le pouvoir' (pp. 80 ff.). Foucault is the master of tensions and inversions to the point of, as Beer notes, being self-consciously trapped inside the narrative, even to the point of 'self-cancellation' (PP-55,94)Beer 's work contains its own elliptical qualities in its representation of Foucault. While he rightlyappreciates the 'contorted layers of possibility' (p. 48) in Foucault's work, Beer's own 'allusions and undercurrents'?though illuminating?are limited in terms of the wider context of Foucault's writing. The selective focus of Beer's study is its success and failure. He does make useful, ifsomewhat limited, reference to other interviews and essays and draws in interesting secondary sources, such as Baudrillard and Eagleton, but a more systematic account would perhaps add more to the text. One instance of Beer's selective association can be found in the discussion of confes? sion, where he draws on Augustine, whom he regards as both 'particularly pertinent' and 'misleading' and an 'exception' (pp. 49-50). Foucault's work on Cassian and an appreciation not only of 'aveu' but also of 'exagoreusis' and 'exomologesis' would have added furtherappreciation of Foucault's disentangling of confessional practice. Beer also makes important acknowledgement of the idea of silence, which again is not limited to La Volontede savoir, but as Francois Ewald has indicated, and others have shown, is key to Foucault's work. Given the complexity and richness of Foucault's writing, as Beer appreciates, there will always be associations?particularly in a small book?that some will feel lacking, but to want more is Beer's sense of Foucault's 'compelling' narrative (p. 71). After Beer we can return to Foucault's texts with a new imagination and a new sensitivity to the force of his style. University of Stirling Jeremy Carrette Brassens: Chansons. By Sara Poole. London: Grant & Cutler. (Critical Guides to French Texts, 125) 2000. 94 pp. ?5-95- ISBN 0-7293-0424-8. In this firstbook-length study of Brassens in English Sara Poole provides a good introduction to his work and a useful starting point for the study of Brassens and 504 Reviews his place in chanson history. She devotes two chapters to major themes in Brassens's ceuvre and uses both close textual analysis and reference to wider critical sources, including articles and interviews, to explore critically the major themes. One...