Pour le Sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature ed. by Roxanna Curto and Rebecca Wines

Abstract

Reviewed by: Pour le Sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature ed. by Roxanna Curto and Rebecca Wines Jodie Barker Curto, Roxanna and Rebecca Wines, eds. Pour le Sport: Physical Culture in French and Francophone Literature. Liverpool UP, 2021. ISBN 978-1-80085-689-9. Pp 332. When choosing this book to review over the summer, I believed that I would be embarking upon a reading voyage full of fun and amusement, as the title might imply. While these characteristics do make appearances throughout the edited volume, the work as a whole presents the nuanced—and often thorny—circumstances and perspectives that sport and physical culture highlight in the literatures and cultures of the French-speaking world. The volume opens with a thorough introduction that outlines its organization and explains the content of each essay, which is particularly useful considering the large scope and diversity of its essays. According to the editors, the essays are ordered "more or less chronologically" and while their theoretical tone is at times heavy, the observational quality that many of them embrace as part of their style is a welcome point de repère for the reader. For scholars working in early time periods whose physical culture is often overshadowed by contemporary sport phenomena, Part I, "Physical Activities and Games Prior to the Twentieth Century," will be of particular interest. Each of the three chapters performs unique and insightful readings of physical culture that include jeu de paume, mountaineering, and trictrac in works by Chrétien de Troyes, Montaigne, and Mérimée. In the four parts that follow, the essays explore sports including rugby, running, boxing, cycling, and, as one might expect, soccer as seen in literature and in contemporary culture. One of the volume's most important contributions is its exposure of the common themes that arise regardless of the century or sport, such as the relationship between sport and power, between sport and social class, between sport and race, and also between sport and gender, which is demonstrated in Cynthia Laborde's engaging analysis of Le petit Nicolas. Yet it is the relationship between sport and violence that is perhaps not only the most fascinating, but also the most disturbing and urgent issue, which the volume brings to light. With a work that encompasses so much, then, what could be missing? Sports like fencing, pétanque, and sailing, which one could assume as inexorably linked to some French-language cultures, do not make an appearance in the volume. This, however, is not necessarily evidence of an oversight or inherent lack. Rather, it reveals further opportunities to explore physical culture in French-speaking countries in scholarly contexts, or even just pour le sport. [End Page 272] Jodie Barker University of Nevada, Reno Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French