The Francophone Caribbean Today: Literature, Language, Culture by Gertrud Aub-Buscher , Beverley Ormerod Noakes (review)

Abstract

794 Reviews well-known predecessor. Indeed, the paired reading of the texts functions mainly to illustrate the development ofthe autobiographical protagonist rather than to advance arguments over narrative form or social and political context. A corollary of this joint perspective is that less space is available to explore the 'contexts' central to Un sac de billes. With a short study of this type, it is inevitable that complex historical issues are presented in sweeping terms. However, a greater investigation of the situation of the Jews in France during the Second World War, particularly French State compli? city in the Holocaust, would have given student readers a better sense of the global mechanisms of extermination into which the two main protagonists are catapulted. As an introductory text, Simons's study provides a fairoverview ofthe two novels but certainly calls upon readers to look furtherafield for contextual sources and readings Cardiff University Claire Gorrara The Francophone Caribbean Today: Literature, Language, Culture. Ed. by Gertrud Aub-Buscher and Beverley Ormerod Noakes. Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago: University ofthe West Indies Press. 2003. xxiv+i9ipp. $25. ISBN 976-640-130-6. This collection of essays is dedicated to the memory of Bridget Jones, the pioneering researcher and teacher of francophone Caribbean literature. The broad scope of the essays?topics range from Creole linguistics, socio-political contexts, and Caribbean childhoods, to exile, film, theatre, and gender issues?reflects Bridget Jones's own diverse interests. The editors' intention is to give an overview of the current state of cultural and intellectual play in the francophone Caribbean; an aim which the con? tributors achieve with varying degrees of success. The firsttwo essays plod rather unspectacularly through the well-worn sociolinguistic terrain of Creole language and culture: the latter are seen as unquestionably 'good things' which must be preserved, though these essays never quite say how, or more importantly, why they should be. The intellectual frailties of these two essays are inadvertently laid bare in Michael Dash's searching piece, which cuts through the sociolinguists' nostalgic attachment to Creole language and culture, and probes fardeeper into the ambivalence expressed in recent French Caribbean thought (especially Glissant) to language as an essen? tial, 'apocalyptic' guarantor of authenticity of identity. Similar intellectual vigour is found in Mary Gallagher's comparative essay on representations of Caribbean child? hoods in Saint-John Perse's 'Eloges' and Chamoiseau's Antan d'enfance. Also, Carol Sanders writes incisively on polyphony in Maryse Conde's La Migration des coeurs, and her Bakhtinian analysis goes beyond the facile gender-conscious celebrations of much Conde criticism. One of the most positive aspects of the collection is the close attention paid to Haitian writing, which is so often sidelined in discussions of the francophone Caribbean. Sam Haigh, for example, writes on Dany Laferriere, and provides a solid contextualization for his work against recent re-evaluations of ex? ile and errance. Anthea Morrison deals with the representation of Haiti in Simone Schwarz-Bart's Ton beau capitaine, though her essay veers rather excessively towards an empty celebratory vision of the Caribbean community as 'vibrant, resilient and creative?need I add Caribbean?' (p. 122). No, the addition was not needed, and only serves to perpetuate all too comforting myths of the suffering but joyously artistic Caribbean. Despite itself, and in an unforeseen way, perhaps this collection does achieve its aims, as it provides a snapshot of the 'creole continuum' of current crit? ical thinking on the francophone Caribbean: at one end persists the self-defeatingly nostalgic, unreflective celebrations of all things Caribbean; at the other, a few cutting- MLR, 99.3, 2004 795 edge researchers revitalize the area as they lay to rest the old myths; while the rest of us hover at various points in between. The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Martin Munro Maryse Conde et le theatre antillais. By Melissa L. McKay. (Francophone Cul? tures and Literatures, 36) New York: Peter Lang. 2002. $48.95. xii + 142 pp. ISBN 0-8204-5262-9. Research in the area of Francophone and Creolophone theatres of the Caribbean is emerging in the English-speaking world, thanks to the ground-breaking work of Bridget Jones...