Ida Porfido (review)

Abstract

which narrateshis bemused childhood discoveryof a cache of forgottenvolumes in the damp attic at Mortefontaine. Acknowledging Michel Zink's article 'Nerval in the Library'(Representations, 56 (1996),pp. 96-105) while crisplyciting Foucaultand Eco, Tyers nominates the libraryas the centraltrope that (alongsidethe prison, the asylum,and the theatre)constitutesthe 'intertextualmatrix'of Nervalianinvention. Tyers'swritingis as lively as it is bedazzling, for, ratheras Nerval embracesallusion and digressionto the point of obfuscation, so she has crammed so much erudition into her shortmonograph that it almostobscuresher ostensibleobject. UNIVERSITY OF KENT ROGER CARDINAL Jules Valleset la mise en scenedu peuple de la Commune. By IDA PORFIDO. (Cultura Straniera,85) Fasano:Schena;Paris:Didier. I998. 264 pp. 30,000 lire. This book studies 'la dialectique du moi et du peuple', a necessarily lopsided exchange, often a dialogue of the deaf, but stilla courageousenterprisefew serious writershave undertaken.The method is lexicometry, and the focus is the People as evokedby Vallesin newspaperarticles(LeCriduPeuple), a play (LaCommune deParis), and a novel (L'Insurge'): three differentgenres,tackledover a period of a dozen or so years. Ida Porfidostartswith a usefuldisquisitionon theterm 'representation':spectacle, mind-set, delegation to others, protest. Valles was a viscerally involved witness, active/passive, of the Paris Commune of I87I. The novel feeds off, renews, and stretchesthejournalism. The play is the odd one out. Not for the firsttime (thinkof Stendhal,Balzac, Flaubert,Zola), an author'sbesttheatreisin hisnovels. In Valles's case, thisis strange,forhe was alwaysstronglydrawnto the theatre,whethertrestle, opera, melodrama, or epic. La Commune deParispresentsthe past as a millstone, but also as a starting-block.It interestedthe BerlinerEnsemble and, afterstreamlining, was firstperformedin Pekingin I983. Itpreservesthe worstdeclamatoryfeaturesof French theatre. Of the novel, contrariwise, Valles had an elastic, nay baggy, conception: a form embracingRousseauesqueconfessions,Suesquepopularfiction, Hugolian epic canvases, and the unpigeonholable Dickens. Porfido traces the multifarious uses of the term 'Peuple' through Michelet and Hugo, before a thoroughgoing analysisof all itsvariant (andwobbly)meanings in Vall&s. Applying the ponderous methods of lexico-statistics, she neverthelesshas the graceful good sense to recognize that whatevermethodological prisonsare erected aroundValles, this born wrigglersidestepsthem all. Indeed, in practice, her instincts as a literary critic enable her to particularize,contextualize, and humanize the brute numbers. All in all, she produces nothing radicallynew by her newfangled methods, but she does nuance the broad impressionismof others less smitten by discourse analysis. L'Insurge is more honest and reliable than the reportage or the play, because in it Valles candidly embodies the ragbag nature of the Commune phenomenon, from its founding hopefulness to its terminal bloody chaos. Valles is especially valuable for his instinctivestresson the preponderantlyverbal nature of the insurrection.If, as it seems, the new name of the academic game is thejustificationof methodology rather than of ideas, then Porfido'sbook, despite much unregenerate backsliding into genuine criticism,is bang up to date. which narrateshis bemused childhood discoveryof a cache of forgottenvolumes in the damp attic at Mortefontaine. Acknowledging Michel Zink's article 'Nerval in the Library'(Representations, 56 (1996),pp. 96-105) while crisplyciting Foucaultand Eco, Tyers nominates the libraryas the centraltrope that (alongsidethe prison, the asylum,and the theatre)constitutesthe 'intertextualmatrix'of Nervalianinvention. Tyers'swritingis as lively as it is bedazzling, for, ratheras Nerval embracesallusion and digressionto the point of obfuscation, so she has crammed so much erudition into her shortmonograph that it almostobscuresher ostensibleobject. UNIVERSITY OF KENT ROGER CARDINAL Jules Valleset la mise en scenedu peuple de la Commune. By IDA PORFIDO. (Cultura Straniera,85) Fasano:Schena;Paris:Didier. I998. 264 pp. 30,000 lire. This book studies 'la dialectique du moi et du peuple', a necessarily lopsided exchange, often a dialogue of the deaf, but stilla courageousenterprisefew serious writershave undertaken.The method is lexicometry, and the focus is the People as evokedby Vallesin newspaperarticles(LeCriduPeuple), a play (LaCommune deParis), and a novel (L'Insurge'): three differentgenres,tackledover a period of a dozen or so years. Ida Porfidostartswith a usefuldisquisitionon theterm 'representation':spectacle, mind-set, delegation to others, protest. Valles was a viscerally involved witness, active/passive, of the Paris Commune of I87I. The novel feeds off, renews, and stretchesthejournalism. The play is the odd one out. Not for the firsttime (thinkof Stendhal,Balzac, Flaubert,Zola), an author'sbesttheatreisin hisnovels. In Valles's case, thisis strange...