Écrivains franco-russes ed. by Murielle Lucie Clément

Abstract

the protagonists. Adnen Jdey discusses this same novel in terms of temporality, probing the nature of waiting. For the woman in love, such as Vera, waiting can be seen as both an interior esthetic and as a suspension of time. Arnaud Vareille studies sound in order to explain how acoustics metaphorically influence the development of the hero and his choice to become a writer in Confession d’un portedrapeau déchu. Ewa Malgorzata Wierzbowska and Murielle Lucie Clément consider the musicality of Makine’s novels. Wierzbowska discusses the rhythmic nature of the prose in La terre et le ciel de Jacques Dorme; whereas Clément addresses the importance of feminine voices and song in Au temps du fleuve Amour. Maria Margherita Mattioda’s article explores the opposite of sound and music by pointing out the importance of silence in Le crime d’Olga Arbelina and La femme qui attendait. Mattioda posits that the reticence and silence of Olga and Vera contribute not only to the poetics of the prose, but also to defining these women for other protagonists in the novels. Thierry Laurent and Agata Sylwestrzak-Wszelaki consider the historical and geographical contexts of Makine’s novels. Laurent assesses the history of Russia moving from the Stalinist period of the Soviet Union through the democratization of the 1990s. Sylwestrzak-Wszelaki continues this discussion with the assessment of France and Russia as chronotopes in the lives of Makine’s heroes. The relative importance of one or the other country grows or diminishes within the spatiotemporal context. In articles by Stéphanie Bellemare-Page and Juliette Pétion, literary texts and genre are the focus of study. Bellemare-Page analyzes metatextuality in Makine’s novels and Pétion scrutinizes the inaccuracy of assigning the term autobiography to Le testament français. The final three articles examine Makine’s most controversial novel, Le crime d’Olga Arbélina. Tomasz Swoboda, Olga Wronska, and Ali Chibani address the incest and murder in the novel from psychological, judicial, and medical perspectives. The variety of approaches taken in this collection will, as Clément states in her introduction, open “des pistes inédites de recherche future” (7) in the study of Makine and his work. University of Wisconsin, La Crosse Leslee Poulton CLÉMENT, MURIELLE LUCIE, éd. Écrivains franco-russes. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008. ISBN 978-90-420-2426-7236. Pp. 236. $63. Much has been written on African and Caribbean Francophone literature, yet little critical attention has been given to the rich literary production of Eastern European Francophone writers. In this collection of essays—one of the first of its kind—editor Murielle Lucie Clément successfully represents the extensive history of Franco-Russian literary traditions. Clément has written extensively on Andreï Makine, which perhaps inspired her to edit this survey of writers with Russian origins who chose to write in French, having immigrated to France under diverse circumstances relating largely to political, social, and religious persecution . Although Franco-Russian relations originate in the eleventh century, the authors of this volume concentrate on Franco-Russian literature dating from the nineteenth century to the present. Clément and her colleagues treat a diverse range of texts from children’s literature, travel literature, and fiction to science fiction from Henri Troyat, Vladimir Nabokov, Nathalie Sarraute, Irène Némirovsky, Andreï Makine, Zinaïda Volkonskaïa, la comtesse de Ségur, Pierre de Tchihatchef, 352 FRENCH REVIEW 85.2 Serge Charchoune, Michel Matveev, Elsa Triolet, Joseph Kessel, Arthur Adamov, Romain Gary, Alain Bosquet, Piotr Rawicz, Luba Jurgenson, and Iegor Gran. Naming plays a significant role in the works of these writers who struggle to establish émigré identity. Some assume pseudonyms and heteronyms, such as Vladimir Nabokov who first wrote under the name of Sirine, or Michel Matveev and Romain Gary who employed heteronyms. Still others changed their names in an attempt to assimilate within the French social order, such as Henri Troyat (Lev Tarassoff) and Romain Gary (Roman Kacew). The instability of naming as a means by which to indicate identity is reflective of these authors’ own deracination , as Rafaelle Zanotti suggests in her insightful discussion on naming and émigr é identity in relation to the author of...