Jeanine Picard (review)

Abstract

MLR, 96. , 200I MLR, 96. , 200I brings both an up-to-date knowledge of Kristeva's work and a profound understanding of the Frenchlanguage to her revisionaryaccount. She intelligentlyreads Kristeva through French traditions of philosophy and psychoanalysis and argues that such a context has significantinfluentialcharacteristics,not least the belief in language as a potentially revolutionaryforce, and an open fascination with desire and seductionthat English-speakingculturesmay findnarcissisticoruncritical.The issue of Kristeva'sgender politics is an importantcase in point wherewe may tease out differences in cultural ideology. In English, 'feminine' is a term loaded with socially-imposed gender connotations, whereas in French it simply means that which belongs to women. Smith points out that, male or female, we have all at one time belonged to a woman's body, and thereforethe feminine becomes an issuefor subjectivityconstructionacrossthe gender divide:the question of maternityis thus rendered unavoidable in any discussionof the feminine. Equally Kristeva'snotion of maternitymust also be re-readwithin a European Catholic traditionwhere the Madonna has a symbolic and potentially sublimatoryplace. Motherhood in this context is bound up with representationaland spiritualissuesthat move farbeyond the Anglo-American domestic sphere. Seen in the light of linguistic reappraisal, Kristeva'smost contentious issuesgain a new dimension. Although this is only a shortbook, it is packedwith insightsinto Kristeva'swork. Divided intofourchapters,each focusingon a triadofrelatedthemes('Transference, Time and the LiteraryExperience' for example), Smith's analysismoves between admirablylucid theoreticalexposition and textual close readings, some inspiredby Kristeva,some re-readingsof Kristeva'sown literarycriticism.Smithhighlightsthe rich heterogeneity of Kristeva'sliteraryanalysis,where psychoanalysis,biography and more traditionalclose commentary combine in a fertile amalgamation.Whilst this interplay of subjectivity with sophisticated philosophical writing may make puristswince, Smith points out that this is all of a piece with Kristeva'stheoretical stance. Although viewed as the quintessence of Frenchness,Kristevais a Bulgarian in exile, and her thought is structuredby notions of foreignness,alterity,boundarycrossingand transgression.Her concepts of the semiotic and the abjectattestto this, as do her more recent concerns with literary experience and transubstantiation. One of the many strengthsof thisbook istheway Smithidentifiesstructuralpatterns that unite Kristeva's work across her thirty-year career, and in many ways, revolution can be understood as the central concern. Again Smith returns to the originalFrenchto restoreto the concept its implicationsof repeated action, or a reengagement with the past, a turninginside out as well as remembering. Kristeva's revolution, she argues, uses the dissident voices of literature, psychoanalysis and theoretical enquiry to repeatedly explore and articulate the strangeness and the visceral revolt that underlies our psychic life. In its enlightening reappraisalof the structuresand themes that other criticshave too lightly dismissed,this book effects a Kristevanrevolutionof its own. ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE VICTORIA BEST Pierre-Jakez Helias: 'Le Chevald'Orgueil: Memoires d'unBretondupays bigouden'.By JEANINE PICARD. (Glasgow Introductory Guides to French Literature, 44) Glasgow: University of Glasgow French and German Publications. I999. 76 pp. ?4. Helias's Le Cheval d'Orgueil is over 600 pages long in the Plon paperbackedition to which this Glasgow guide refers, and one wonders what kind of reader this formidable tome still attracts in British schools and universities. The final-year brings both an up-to-date knowledge of Kristeva's work and a profound understanding of the Frenchlanguage to her revisionaryaccount. She intelligentlyreads Kristeva through French traditions of philosophy and psychoanalysis and argues that such a context has significantinfluentialcharacteristics,not least the belief in language as a potentially revolutionaryforce, and an open fascination with desire and seductionthat English-speakingculturesmay findnarcissisticoruncritical.The issue of Kristeva'sgender politics is an importantcase in point wherewe may tease out differences in cultural ideology. In English, 'feminine' is a term loaded with socially-imposed gender connotations, whereas in French it simply means that which belongs to women. Smith points out that, male or female, we have all at one time belonged to a woman's body, and thereforethe feminine becomes an issuefor subjectivityconstructionacrossthe gender divide:the question of maternityis thus rendered unavoidable in any discussionof the feminine. Equally Kristeva'snotion of maternitymust also be re-readwithin a European Catholic traditionwhere the Madonna has a symbolic and potentially sublimatoryplace. Motherhood in this context is bound up with representationaland spiritualissuesthat move farbeyond the Anglo-American domestic sphere. Seen in...