Victor Hugo 5: autour des 'Orientales' by Claude Millet (review)

Abstract

782 Reviews and some comment on the relationship of La Chartreuse de Parme to the picaresque tradition, with its adventures, duels, and love affairs.Are the perspectives in Stendhal 's novels all enigmatic and unreliable? Ann Jefferson's well-written and original study makes a stimulating contribution to the debate. University of Bristol Richard Bolster L'Annee balzacienne, 2002. Ed. by Michel Lichtle. (Troisieme Serie, 3) Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 2003. 432 pp. ?43. ISBN 2-13-053342-6. Despite Andre Vanoncini's claim that '[l]e texte balzacien ne se prete que tres conditionnellement aux demarches et instruments de la critique genetique' because the Balzac text is born of 'un processus createur qui ne distingue guere entre gestation et ecriture' (p. 279), this volume illustrates the opposite?that the interplay between gestation and writing is one of the main axes of Balzac genetic criticism?and, in? deed, of Balzac tout court. Thus, aftertwo useful and interesting pieces by Catherine Gaviglio and Stephane Vachon on Spoelberch de Lovenjoul as the first,if perhaps unwitting, Balzac geneticist, five articles use the genetic perspective to demonstrate the diachronic dynamic ofthe Balzacian mosaic. If, forRoger Pierrot, this dynamic is difficultto reproduce in any 'definitive' Balzac edition, one ingredient in such an edi? tion has, according to Segolene Le Men on Les Francaispeintspar eux-memes,to be its illustrations, since these form an integral part of its 'genese croisee' with the Comedie humaine(p. 100). AfterMichel Lichtle's impressive literarydetective work on Taffaire Peytel', Gisele Seginger shows how changing emphases in the retitling and composi? tion of Le Contratde mariage reflect?and generate?changing views ofthe law, mar? riage, and the aristocracy, while, on La Torpille, Mireille Labouret explains how the different(inverted) chronologies of composition and plot inflecta kaleidoscope of re? current themes, including prostitution and suicide. In the finalexplicitly genetic piece by Max Andreoli, the link between the Balzacian message and the Balzacian method is even tighter, for Andreoli demonstrates how Balzac selects and shapes the mosaic of his sources?here Daillant de la Touche's Abrege for Becker's pronouncements in Seraphita?to provide, like genetic criticism itself,an original, unified system. Opening a second section, entitled 'Lectures et points de vue', Michael Tilby exposes an even more complex genetic mosaic and a second piece of erudite, wideranging detective work, involving Maturin, Latouche, and Le Dernier Chouan. If other critics offermore conventional thematic studies?Colin Smethurst on voyages of desire, Andre Vanoncini on decreasingly diabolicalpacts, and, suggestively, Patrick Berthier on the combination of the political and the passionate in the spirituality of Michel Chrestien?the collection closes with two very different,original contribu? tions: in an exciting article Brigitte Grente-Mera shows how objects such as the fan in Le Cousin Pons materialize both causality and choice, energy and extinction, and Veronique Monteilhet indicates how the cinematic adaptations of Balzac during the Occupation, such as Baroncelli's admired La Duchesse de Langeais, combine muchneeded escapism with political engagement and resistance. Through its combination of genetics and thematics this volume does, then, deliver a satisfyingly rounded yet also refreshinglylabile Balzac. University of Bradford Owen Heathcote Victor Hugo 5: autour des 'Orientales'. Ed. by Claude Millet. Paris and Caen: Lettres Modernes Minard. 2002. 218 pp. ?22. ISBN 2-256-91040-7. Claude Millet has put together a pleasingly symmetrical and compelling set of articles on Hugo's dazzling early collection Les Orientales. The essays are paired, two each MLRy 99.3, 2004 783 on literary/generic elements of the recueil, the evolution from Odes et ballades to Les Orientales, and the reception of the work at differentperiods. In an annexe, Jean-Marc Hovasse, who has earlier examined the reactions of the Parnassians to Les Orientales, documents the relationship between Hugo and Verlaine. Franck Laurent mirrors our current fascination with frontiers and no man's land in his examination of the appar? ent East/West divide in the collection; he suggests that other oppositionsmay be more significant, such as that of Peuples/Rois. Jean-Pierre Vidal brings out the transgeneric nature ofthe collection; he warns against reading Les Orientales as an epic in the light of Hugo's later works, but emphasizes the...