ORR, MARY. Flaubert’s Tentation: Remapping Nineteenth-Century French Histories of Religion and Science. Oxford: Oxford UP: 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-925858-1. Pp. 368.£ 50.00. If one organizes the criticism of La Tentation according to particular macrostructures, Michel Butor and Michal Peled Ginsburg have done the major work on “parade” or sequential structure. I have argued that a trinitarian construction brings the entire text into a whole. And, like R. B. Leal, Dominique Cardin, and Robert Griffin, though with far more detailed exposition and textual justification, Professor Orr, a well-seasoned Flaubertian, sees La Tentation as a duality that creates a dialogue between science, on the one hand, and faith (or philosophy and religion), on the other. Although I believe Flaubert exploited all three overriding structures, conceptualizing the novel as duality serves Orr well to reveal the depth of Flaubert’s understanding of and allusion to religion and science in the fourth and nineteenth centuries. The vision from the cliff-top in front of Antoine’s door gives her reason to argue that readers must read with a much wider optic than that of realism: acceptable reading must be open to the figurative, the allusive, and the literal. While Orr is by no means the first to delve into the history of the fourthcentury church, she is unusually well versed and able to provide well-organized summaries of that reality. As she points out convincingly, Flaubert wanted to offer a prismatic vision of Antony’s Egypt and nineteenth-century France and Egypt. Not only did Constantine, the two Napoleons, the various Egyptian rulers, and the secular governments of France exhibit similar abuses of power, but the problematic relics, popular miracles of the nineteenth century, and nonconformist cults like the Saint-Simonians make persuasive comparisons with what was occurring in the historical Antony’s (and the fictional Antoine’s) world. As she says, “Surely the significance of Vatican I and the first Council of Nicaea are too similar not to be comparable?” (45), but this is only one of many examples. In the second half of Remapping, Orr turns first to Flaubert’s (and her) impressive knowledge of the fourth century, then to the Bible and saints’ lives, and finally to the books Flaubert read in order to demonstrate that the Antoine of La Tentation alludes especially to Nebuchadnezzar, Jesus, Jerome, and Athanasius, as he figuratively fills out a representation of orthodox faith, while opposing the Queen of Sheba, as the whore of Babylon, and Hilarion, reincarnated as a composite of Arius and, in perhaps the most interesting argument concerned with reason and science, Renan. She then lays down her detailed reasons for claiming that Flaubert alludes to various approaches to nineteenth-century science. Orr shows remarkable insight as she looks carefully at a number of major scientists of the nineteenth century, like Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Lacépède, Lamarck, Laplace, Cuvier, et j’en passe, and museums and institutes like the Jardin des Plantes, the Muséum National, and Napoleon’s Institut d’Égypte that they created, including what we would today recognize as science, as well as the quasi-scientific freaks and monsters of popular appeal. She easily finds many parallels between the science of Flaubert’s day and that of Antoine’s. Given Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt with 167 of the most learned people of France and the many archeological endeavors, no nineteenth-century person could fail to recognize the major links tying the Egyptian past to contemporary France and Egypt. In the end, Orr’s book is not just original, but essential to any reader who wishes to read La Tentation well. While it is impossible to do justice to Orr’s subtle, Reviews 165 learned, and convincing argument in this brief review, Flaubert’s [. . .] Remapping is one of the most important considerations of La Tentation that has appeared in a long, long time. It is, moreover, a model of erudition and critical sensitivity. Once again, Mary Orr sheds new light on Flaubert’s most difficult novel. University of Kansas Allan H. Pasco CLAES, PAUL. La Clef des Illuminations. New York: Rodopi, 2008. ISBN 978-90-4202501 -1. Pp. 359. $104.00. Dans...