Le genre policier dans tous ses états: d’Arsène Lupin à Navarro by Marc Lits

Abstract

of sentences over words; sentences as action; the importance of natural, spoken, musical speech, free of the constraints of traditional rhyme and meter; the superiority of prose over poetry; a canon that includes Rabelais, Pascal, Bossuet, Balzac, Chateaubriand, Michelet, Rimbaud, and Aragon, but vehemently excludes Racine, Voltaire, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Valéry, and other representatives of “l’esprit français,” which Claudel equated with “sec, paillard, méchant, cynique, vaniteux, histrionique” (136). On first reading, the structure of this volume can be disconcerting: the narrative momentum of the first section is interrupted by a 300-page description of Claudel’s linguistic theories before Kaës reunites theory and practice in her analysis of the Soulier de Satin. For Claudel, as for all great writers, practice is more interesting than theory, and ironies abound in their juxtaposition . Ambassador Claudel, speaking in Japan in 1922, felt obliged to extol French clarté, even as he was quietly composing vitriolic parodies of that notion. In 1925 he railed against critics who prefaced their reviews with claims of incomprehension : “Je suis étonné qu’un critique ose écrire aux premières pages d’une longue étude: ‘Je ne comprends pas’. S’il ne comprend pas, il n’a qu’à se taire.” (21–22). Yet, thirty years later, this same Claudel, now a member of the French Academy, would come full circle, claiming not to understand younger poets and bemoaning their “désordre, obscurité et ‘mauvais français’” (10). Kaës guides us through the interwar period and shows how Claudel’s spirited combat against the perceived “bêtise,” “méchanceté,” “incomprehension,” and “mauvaise foi” (58) of his critics prompted him to elaborate a theory of language that is interesting in itself and even more as a code the writer could, and did, contravene at will. Princeton University (NJ) Carol Rigolot LITS, MARC. Le genre policier dans tous ses états: d’Arsène Lupin à Navarro. Limoges: PU de Limoges, 2011. ISBN 978-02-84287-531-2. Pp. 190. 22 a. We find in this collection fourteen of the author’s articles (or portions thereof ) originally published or presented between 1993 and 2007 but reworked somewhat around the theme expressed in the title. The main text is divided into three parts: 1) “Les limites du roman policier: un genre œdipien aux frontières du réel;” 2) “D’Arsène Lupin au polar rwandais: auteurs et détectives en quête de reconnaissance;” 3) “Le genre policier à l’écran: du roman au cinéma et à la télévision.” This last, which deals with the increasingly transsemiotic nature of the roman policier, will not be addressed here in any depth because, though it is engaging for anyone interested in studies in media, popular culture, translation (page to screen or fait divers to fiction), mystery, or police drama, it strays afield of French literary criticism proper. The three parts each contain several unnumbered chapters, each with subdivisions of its own. Lits’s thesis is that the genre policier, “un genre toujours méprisé” (14), is most often relegated to the status of paralittérature and constitutes a sort of “antichambre de la littérature, une espèce d’ébauche de ce que pourrait arriver à créer un écrivain dans sa maturité” (121). He uses the title of Baudelaire’s translation of Poe’s story Murder[s] in the Rue Morgue, considered by many the ‘nouvelle fondatrice’ of the genre, as a type of paradigm (or perhaps mnemonic) for defining the roman Reviews 1265 policier: Double (dualities: crime/investigation, hero/criminal, and a “doublure” of the hero) Assassinat (the “contenu thématique”) dans la rue (the “dimension sociologique ”) Morgue (“la part d’imaginaire”) (20–23). For Lits, “le genre se présente comme une forme narrative reprenant les principes de l’énigme et de la devinette [des] récits les plus anciens de l’humanit é. Il ne fait que reproduire une démarche inscrite au cœur de l’humanité” (23). The texte policier is but a palimpsest to be decoded, and so reading it becomes an essentially hermeneutic act (24). For the author, the genre is proteiform (28) and evolves for its survival. One such change involves publishers’ developing...