Samuel Beckett mis à nu par ses auteurs, même: essai sur le théâtre de Samuel Beckett by Gérard Piacentini

Abstract

MLR, I03.4, 2oo8 I I33 Bell provides here a very readable and useful guide fornew readers aswell asmaterial of real interest for the seasoned Sarrautean. There is an extensive bibliography. SWANSEA UNIVERSITY VALERIE MINOGUE Samuel Beckett mis afnupar ses auteurs,meme: essai sur le th&Mtre de Samuel Beckett. By GERARD PIACENTINI. Preface byARMANDDELCAMPE. Saint-Genouph: Nizet. 2oo6. I58 pp. Ei8. ISBN 978-2-7078-I289-6. One of the great achievements and paradoxes of Beckett's En attendant Godot is, despite its dynamic of sparsity, itsboundless hospitality to interpreters. For some, including the author of this study, thepriority is to find thekey(s) toBeckett's vision, and, along theway, to discard false keys. InDuchamp's La Mari&e mise i nu par ses celibataires,meme, towhich the titleof this study alludes, thebride's nuditymust be assembled by theviewer. This study does not stripBeckett bare, but, rather,proposes some removable drapery. For Gerard Piacentini, Beckett's eschewals of disguised 'meaning' constitute just somany feints,to cover up theperception thatBeckett 's'est donne comme but de representer le monde' (p. 69). The theatricaloutput which forms its focus is three plays-En attendant Godot, Fin de partie, and Oh lesbeaux jours which are considered not consecutively, but bymeans of little interweaving riffs. These build into foursections aligned with theatricalmoments: 'Pendant que les spectateurs s'installent', 'Dans lescoulisses', 'L'ecrivain monte sur scene', and 'Baisser de rideau'. At theoutset, some founding insights are stated, the firstbeing thatBeckett's writing must be viewed in a historicized perspective. According to Piacentini, no one has yet noticed that the first two plays are ametaphor of the decline of French art and thought over the past two centuries. Beckett's writing is said to be ludic in so far as it contains a network of references permitting such connections to be made. In addition, he asserts that,while Godot isentirely determined by culture, Fin de partie contains traces of autobiography, giving way to an Oh lesbeaux jourswhich contains an autobiographical portrait of Beckett and his wife, Suzanne. Within an approach which places a premium on establishing linkages with a chosen external 'reality' or context, it isunsurprising, then, that the I998 Beckett a la lettre(Hubert de Phalese, Beckett a la lettre: 'En attendant Godot', 'Fin de partie' (Paris: Nizet, I998)), which used computer analysis to telling effect to traceword frequencies and patternings within the firsttwo plays, receives exclamatory dissent here. Rather, the characters and transactions of all three plays are drawn into a series of affiliations drawing on economic, cultural, and philosophical models. Hence, En attendant Godot is said to show thedecline of thought and art, from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, in the faceof thepursuit ofmoney.Within this model, Vladimir and Estragon dramatize the abjection of poetry and philosophy in the face ofGodot, the incarnation ofwealth. The decline ofHamm, inFin departie, sets the seal on thedisappearance of thegreat intellectual and cultural heritage of thepast. Later, Oh lesbeaux jourswill foreground, viaWinnie, a societywhere a sense of transcendence has disappeared, and where all that remains is to accomplish thehumdrum routines of the day. In what becomes a series of sometimes rather jerkymeditations, othermore specific associations are set up: Vladimir with Descartes, Estragon with Leibniz, Hamm with Aristotle, etc. In enumerating Beckett's astonishing range of reading, Piacentini sets up the image of theBeckettian ceuvre as an iceberg, itsvast erudition lurkingbelow the surface. In the case ofGodot, this study asserts the overriding influence of Flaubert's La Tentation deSaint Antoine, Balzac's Le Faiseur, andMusset's Croisilles. Bowing out of exegesis, Beckett encouraged the relinquishment ofparadigms ofwhat hiswork is 'about'. This II34 Reviews study declines thatchallenge, and offersa route-map. The proposed itinerarycontains several points of interest,but of course many readerswill continue towander off-piste. UNIVERSITY OF READING MARY BRYDEN Telling Anxiety: Anxious Narration in the Works of Marguerite Duras, Annie Ernaux, Nathalie Sarraute, and Anne Hebert. By JENNIFER WILLGING. Toronto and London: University ofToronto Press. 2007. 26i pp. $6o. ISBN 978-o-8020 9276-2. In her introduction Jennifer Willging clearly sets out her object of study: 'theconflu ence of anxiety, desire, and narration' (p. 5). Since women aremore prone to anxiety thanmen and when theywrite suffer more from the...