Rêver local by Ritt Deitz

Abstract

Reviews 199 American academic who plans to plagiarize Amer’s signature novel based on an African childhood and pass it off as her own autobiography. In the present novel, Constant (now a member herself of the Académie Goncourt) continues to probe the subject of truth and fiction with thoughtfulness enlivened by a generous but sly humor. College of San Mateo (CA) Susan Petit Deitz, Ritt. Rêver local. Madison: Incidence, 2013. ISBN 978-1-481-03402-9. Pp. 120. $9.95. Deitz is executive director of the Professional French Masters Program at University of Wisconsin, Madison. His previous publication, La colonie, ou l’invasion québécoise (2010), was a theatrical script about the state of Wisconsin being liberated from English domination by the province of Quebec. This notion of a Francophone Wisconsin sets the stage for Deitz’s latest book in which the American narrator shares dreams he had in French. Dreaming in a foreign language is often a sign that the learner truly is beginning to comprehend that other language. Yet, he suggests, one should say the same for one’s childhood or locations appearing in dreams. He invites readers to consider his actual dreams, produced during sleep, though they will sometimes be embellished with lies or, conversely, with events that really did happen. With this word of caution, the narrator leads us through a series of French-speaking locales in his dreams, ranging from Milwaukee Street to a Parisian neighborhood, the Grande Bibliothèque du Québec in Montreal, a villa in the South of France, and back to the narrator’s childhood home at 216 Main Street. The early highlight of the text is a discovery along the bike path:“Ce matin, sur la piste cyclable, je suis tombé sur un corps de femme” (19). If we are to believe the narrator, this did happen; he swears on it and invokes witnesses. This story awakens the reader’s curiosity before being plunged into the absurd world of dreams. The dreamer encounters enigmatic characters like the pot-smoking“Roi de la République”fleeing from an all-female librarians’ association in protest to his elimination of funding. This common dream of being chased gives way to the more violent one of a female teacher’s beheading in “L’Algérie.” One could pursue a Freudian analysis of these and other dreams in their depictions of women. But another anxiety-inducing dream of public speaking (“Merci de cet accueil si chaleureux”) allows us to glimpse the narrator’s intent as his academic speech derails before the audience:“Je suis plutôt venu rêver,moi-même,avec et devant vous”(59).This serves to remind the reader to dream along with the dreamer. While some of the topics are frightening,Deitz’s narration keeps from being too morose with a good dose of humor and cameo appearances by James Brown, Bill Cosby, and Alain Robbe-Grillet. Toward the end of the book, a dream character uses the word véluptueux, which the narrator explains in parentheses: “(Il ne parlait pas français, mais s’il me parlait cette langue-là il aurait dit véluptueux au lieu de voluptueux)”(113).The author himself makes a few similar substitutions: péonies for pivoines (34), lumières de soleil for lunettes (38), récuper for récupérer (68), and montrez for montez (97). Were it not for the presence of other typos, these could be chalked up to being part of the bizarre dream experience that Deitz shares. All in all, readers will likely find this short book both amusing and bemusing. Bowling Green State University (OH) Jennifer K. Wolter Delacourt, Grégoire. La première chose qu’on regarde. Paris: Lattès, 2013. ISBN 9782 -7096-4286-6. Pp. 264. 17 a. Ce troisième roman signé Delacourt est une histoire toute légère de coup de foudre qui tourne autour d’une confusion d’identité. Nous avons une narration relatée au passé simple à la troisième personne,focalisée principalement à travers Arthur Dreyfuss, un garagiste de vingt ans qu’on nous décrit comme“Ryan Gosling,mais en mieux”(16). La comparaison n...