Elinor S. Miller (review)

Abstract

MLR, 100.3, 2005 833 Camus, focusing on Camus's reception in countries of the former Eastern bloc. Isabelle Cielens examines 'la reception de Camus en Lettonie', assessing the author's changing fortunes from the days of Soviet occupation to Latvia's independence in 1991 and beyond. Andor Horvath chronicles Camus's reception in Hungary, while Jana Patockova examines the reception of Camus's (theatrical) work in the former Czechoslovakia. Two further studies complete the volume. Samantha Novello exa? mines the intertextual links between the unattributed notes jotted down in Camus's private notebook in 1947 in preparation for Les Justes and L'Homme revolte and the Russian writer Nicolas Berdiaev's Les Sources et le sens du communisme russe. From this close textual scrutiny Novello deduces the influence Berdiaev had on Camus's understanding of nihilism, totalitarianism, and (Soviet) Marxism. Finally, Frantz Favre consolidates and develops his earlier studies on the parallels between Camus and Nietzsche and provides a useful inventory of works on and by Nietzsche found in Camus's library. By highlighting Camus's annotations on Nietzsche's writings, Favre attests to 'les constantes de sa sensibilite' (p. 198) in relation to the author of Will to Power. In the last analysis, then, this latest contribution to the now wellestablished Serie Albert Camus provides a wide-ranging and scholarly collection of articles testifying to the healthy state of Camus scholarship at the start of the new millennium. University of Central Lancashire Mark Orme Prisms and Rainbows: Michel Butor's Collaborations withJacques Monory, Jiri Koldr and Pierre Alechinsky. By Elinor S. Miller. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2003. 239 pp.; 74 b/w illustr. $65; ?44.50. ISBN 0-8386-3919-4. As the sole full-length study devoted exclusively to Butor's collaborative work with visual artists, Prisms and Rainbows is a very welcome publication. Although Jacques La Mothe's 1999 study L'Architexture du reve (Amsterdam: Rodopi) analysed the relationship between the Matiere de reves cycle and the collaborative works in which it originated, the number, diversity, and inaccessibility of the collaborations have inhibited exploration of the field. In confining her analysis to a selection of Butor's collaborations with three very differentartists (Monory, Kolaf, Alechinsky), Elinor S. Miller has circumscribed a manageable corpus. Miller's overall thesis?that these works are underpinned by the recurrence of certain political issues?gives prominence to a hitherto neglected dimension of Butor's work and helps bridge the gap between his public declarations about the state of the world and critical understand? ing of his creative work, although the term 'political' must be understood broadly as referringto his preoccupation with questions such as imperialism, racism, capitalism, consumerism, exploitation, and the environment. However, the study is also attentive to the humour in these works: Butor tends to be presented as a very earnest and cere? bral writer and Miller's analysis of the playful and comic in his texts is refreshing. Although she has focused on the more accessible collaborations, the selected works are not well known and the study serves an important function of familiarization. Con? sequently, much space is devoted to description of the works. However, Miller also isolates the dominant formal features of Butor's texts (attention to rhythm, interest in typography, polyphony) and highlights the parallels between the writer's technical procedures and those ofthe visual artists. The book is lavishly illustrated, its 74 black and white illustrations constituting in themselves a rich research resource. Fuller contextualization of the selected collaborations within the history of the livre d'artiste and within Butor's oeuvre as a whole would have been useful: in particular, more 834 Reviews extensive analysis ofthe links between Bicentenaire Kit and Butor's other 'American' texts or between the Liechtenstein postcards and 6 810 000 litres d'eau par seconde, Description de San Marco, or Intervalle would undoubtedly have yielded illuminating results. Furthermore, although the link which Miller establishes between Bicentenaire Kit and home assembly kits is convincing, she does not address the issue ofthe work's artistic ancestry (e.g. Duchamp's Boite verte). Finally, the occasional authorial asides fitsomewhat uncomfortably within an academic study, though the...