Victor Hugo et le roman architectural by Chantal Brière

Abstract

MLR, I03.3, 2008 859 Mozet insists on Balzac's work as a seamless whole and shows herself as ready to engage with theContes drolatiques, or a play such as La Maratre, aswith theComedie humaine. This inclusiveness is explicitly extended to his premiers romans, though in actual fact they receive littleattention inher volume. The 'deficiency' is made good in a livelyand stimulating collaborative volume in the same series,which, following Jose Luis Diaz's opening remarks,begins with an essay byMozet on Balzac's childhood that,admittedly, represents a reshufflingof index cards used for Balzac et le temps.It is,nevertheless, themerit ofBalzac avant Balzac to rangewidely in relation to the writer's early years. In a number of cases, theworth of thecontribution derives from the presentation of new discoveries. Diaz himself reveals that two of Balzac's early attempts at 'philosophical' writing were conceived as entries forAcademie frantaise essay competitions. Aude Deruelle's acute investigation of Balzac's implicit reflec tion on the challenges of the 'roman historique' inL'Excommunie reveals significant plagiarism of Quentin Durward. With an impressive array of supporting evidence, Marie-Benedicte Diethelm teases out the significance of the young Balzac's evoca tions of a lost paradise. Olivier Bara's expertise in theatre history is displayed to excellent effect in a piece that greatly increases our understanding of the context of Balzac's early theatrical ambitions. His contribution is complemented by Isabelle Michelot's textual study of Balzac's early plays and dramatic fragments,which re vitalizes the subject largely through her cross-genre comparison ofCromwell and Le Negre. The discussions of thepremiers romans themselves are notable chiefly for their concern with pseudonymie or auctorialite, though Claire Barel-Moisan explores the paradoxical effectsproduced by the inclusion of science and scientists.Although these discussions are, once again, characterized by scholarship and argumentation of a high order, one is sometimes left feeling that thematerial fails to yield the rewardsmeri ted by the incisiveness of the investigation. (I would also question Barel-Moisan's contention that the use made ofGall's phrenology in the pseudonymous novels as opposed to theComedie humaine can be understood in termsof an opposition between comic parody and seriousness.) One essay in this group none the less stands out in the volume as a whole by virtue of itsoriginality and wider significance, and that is Christine Marcandier's rich and subtle study ofmetatextuality inLe Centenaire. SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE MICHAEL TILBY Victor Hugo et le roman architectural. By CHANTAL BRIERE. (Romantisme etModer nite, IO2) Paris: Champion. 2007. 665 pp. I120. ISBN 978-2-7453-I436-9. JeanMallion's Victor Hugo et l'art architectural (Paris: Presses universitaires fran Saises, I962) provides a still relevant testimony toHugo's lifelong fascination with architecture. Chantal Briere supplements thiswork with a closer look at theHugolian novel. Following Mallion's biographical model, Briere begins with the view Hugo would have had of the Musee des Petits-Augustins fromhis childhood studywindow (p. 39). She then pursues his growing interest in architecture's symbolism through Bug-Jargal, Han d'Islande, and Le Dernier Your d'un condamne (pp. I05-22). These earlyworks were published in the context of a steady increase in the publication of archaeological and architectural reviews and a renewal of thepublic's taste forhistoric buildings. Hugo joined this readership, systematically transcribing and transforming primary sources on thehistory ofParis. Thus, as Edmond Huguet ('Quelques sources deNotre-Dame deParis', Revue d'histoire litterairede la France, 3 (190 ),44-79, 425 55, 622-49) and Mallion have demonstrated, many sites and monuments inNotre Dame deParis amount tovariations on seventeenth-century textsby Jacques Du Breul and Henri Sauval (pp. 74-78). Briere, however, uses Albert W. Halsall's Victor Hugo 86o Reviews et l'art de convaincre (Montreal: Editions de Balzac, I995) to recast these borrowings as an attempt to retrieve thememory of an edifice through apomnemoneusis: the prac ticeof using citations toconfirm authenticity in literarydescription (p. i65). Memory becomes a key issue forBriere as she demonstrates how intertextualityworks between the laternovels. In 'Personnages et edificesmeles' she underlines themonstrosity of architectural metaphor by reading L'Homme qui rit in the lightof Les Travailleurs de lamer: Corleone-lodge exhibits the splendour of an undersea...