Julien Gracq 4: Références et présences littéraires by Patrick Marot

Abstract

I I44 Reviews upon publication. Reference ismade, where appropriate, to Beauvoir's earlier essays and fiction, and existentialist concepts inform many of the analyses. The latter en compass: conflicting political ideologies (William L. McBride); changing notions of solidarity (Sally J. Scholz); the importance of 'situation' to discussions of the indi vidual's decision-making processes (Sonia Kruks); the implications of truth-telling, in particular the ethico-political responsibility of the committed intellectual (Ursula Tidd); using The Mandarins to explore modes of living in the context of political commitment (Karen Vintges); the role of intellectuals and their involvement in po litics (Gail Weiss); ethical absolutes, with particular reference to the characters of Anne and Paule (Shannon M. Mussett); the master-slave dialectic reviewed in the context of themany triadic structures in the novel (JenMcWeeny); comparative read ings of Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre on subjectivity (Thomas W. Busch), and Kundera, Beauvoir, and Algren on relationship dynamics (Eleanore Holveck); the nature of artistic creation and its challenges (Peg Brand). The volume is successful in highlighting the pertinence to contemporary concerns of debates dating back to the post- and cold-war period. Overall, it is awelcome addition to the corpus of critical material on Beauvoir, of use and interest to those working in the crossovers between philosophy and literature, aswell as to Beauvoir specialists generally. UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH SUSAN BAINBRIGGE Julien Gracq 4: references et presences litteraires. Ed. by PATRICKMAROT. (Revue des Lettres Modernes) Paris and Caen: Lettres Modernes Minard. 2004. 280 pp. E23. ISBN 2-256-9Io73-3. One striking, and sometimes irritating, feature of Julien Gracq is his passionate at tachment to a certain type of literature, to the exclusion of other art forms. His aristocratic disdain for the vulgarities of everyday life in a decadent civilization led him to pay little attention to cinema and music (except in the rather literary case of Wagner). His partiality does not stop there: as the editor of this volume points out, antiquity and theMiddle Ages seldom provide literary references inGracq's work, except in the form of myths such as the Grail. The essays gathered here perform the valuable role of not only listing the literary allusions found in his work-this has already been done in the Pleiade edition (2 vols, Paris: Gallimard, I989-95)-but placing them in the dynamic of a body of work. Thus, Sylvie Vignes situates Rim baud inGracq's literary preferences, the latter being in dialogue with an inevitably partial, subjective version of the young poete maudit, while Juliette Cerf discusses the dynamic of attraction and repulsion inGracq's relationship with Breton and Surre alism in general. In this collection there are also more targeted analyses of individual works, illustrating the intertextual networking to be found inAu chauteaud'A rgol and Un beau tenebreux. There are, however, some aspects of the volume which are unsatis fying. Atsuko Nagai offers very intelligent and welcome reflections on the work of themuch-neglected Jules Monnerot, but does not really show the Antillean sociolo gist's links with Gracq. Michel Murat is excellent as ever in his discussion of Gracq's Autour des sept collines, but to conclude that Gracq's early geographical scholarship emphasizes the importance of 'sedimentation', both architectural and textual, misses the author-geographer's fascination with conflict and growing hostility to the con temporary world, preoccupations which help explain his 'logique des pr6ferences'. UNIVERSITYOF ST ANDREWS GAVIN BOWD ...