Telling Anxiety: Anxious Narration in the Works of Marguerite Duras, Annie Ernaux, Nathalie Sarraute, and Anne Hébert by Jennifer Willging

Abstract

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 anxiety of authorship, Willging concentrates on female authors. Her fourauthors are all themore anxious in that they do not partake of thegeneral postmodern doubt about language's power to make sense inan absurd world, and feel therefore it is their responsibility to reveal reality in their work. Each of her authors is displaced-culturally, socially, or geographically-and has experienced theposition of theOther. Of Marguerite Duras she studies 'Monsieur X. dit iciPierre Rabier', the second text ofLa Douleur (Paris: POL, I985) (pp. 89-I3 5), an autobiographical narrative where Duras tells of her terrifyingcat-and-mouse relationship with Delval (renamed Ra bier), aGestapo agent,while waiting forher husband's return fromDachau. Through a close reading, she identifies two types of narration, which, using Charlotte Delbo's theories (see La Memoire et les jours (Paris: Berg, I985)), she links to two kinds of memory: intellectual and sense. She also confronts the facts inDuras's account with those fromother sources, inparticular Pierre Pean's journalistic investigation, to try and understand the reasons for their divergence (see Pean, Une jeunesse franpaise: Franfois Mitterrand, I934-47 (Paris: Fayard, I994)). Finally she compares Duras's position as narrator in 'Monsieur X' to those of some of her other narrators. Willging singles out La Honte inAnnie Ernaux's many narratives that deal with anxiety.That it tookErnaux over twentyyears tomanage towrite the traumatic scene inwhich shewitnessed, at twelve,her father's attempt on hermother's life isan indi cation of the anxiety itproduced. She was torn between the anxiety of exposing her shame and of not being able to describe the scene truthfully; the fact that the event was lodged inher sense, rather than her intellectual,memory making her task all the more difficult. With Nathalie Sarraute, Willging concentrates on the anxiety of the 'author' in Entre la vie et lamort. This composite 'il' represents awriter who isanguished at the idea of killing the reality that lies outside his text-a reality that appears to him in definite feminine form-by catching it/herinhis text.Like Sarraute herself, the 'il' is prey to contradictory desires, inparticular thatof being famous, but also innovative. Willging studies threenarratives inLes Fous de bassan byAnne Hebert. These are narrated by twomisogynist male narrators, andWillging privileges a gender reading, referring to JuliaKristeva's theory of the semiotic and the symbolic. Both narrators have perpetrated violence on the same twowomen in thepast andWillging interprets their hypersensitivity to sounds as their inability towithstand the presence of the semiotic, especially in female voices, which they feel threatens the symbolic towhich theybelong. As narrators, they are torn between the desire to reveal their secret and conceal it. In summarizing Willging's analysis in each chapter, I have emphasized the parts which relate toher topic,but in fact,although very interesting,her analysis isnot par ticularly focused throughout. Is itbecause her book consists mainly of three articles, MLR, I03.4, 2oo8 I I35 the overall argument being contained in the introduction and transitions? Tellingly the lastpages are rather inconclusive since no thesis has emerged from the individual studies. The proliferation of notes-4I pages of notes for I93 pages of text-can be a source of irritation,especially sincemany are unnecessary. In spite of these criticisms, Telling Anxiety offers perceptive, close readings of theworks of fourmajor women writers and the individual studies are insightfuland clearlywritten. SWANSEAUNIVERSITY CATHERINERODGERS Place Names: A Brief Guide to Travels in theBook. By JEANRICARDOU. Trans. by JORDANSTUMP. (French Literature Series) Champaign, IL, and London: Dalkey Archive Press. 2007. I28 pp. $I2.50. ISBN 978-I-56478-478-O. The names of Borges...