MLR, 99.3, 2004 785 the Magasinpittoresque that Charton imported, but also many of the techniques used to produce it and even the text and images it published. Aurenche is careful to indi? cate that such borrowings were not slavish: she notes a marked tendency to rewrite Anglo-Saxon originals for the then less well-educated French mass market by giving them a more pedagogical tone and by excising some of the more erudite allusions. They did, however, remain true to a progressive scientific, technological, and political ethos. While the author has a number of similarly pertinent points to make about the content ofthe publications, this is not the strongest aspect of her study. In particular, the images used might have benefited from a more extensive and systematic analysis than is undertaken here: they were, afterall, central to the success of the Magasin and its emulators, and as the author demonstrates, they provoked controversy among con? temporaries concerned at the 'industrialization' of culture. Much therefore remains to be said about Charton's important publications, but this informative text will prove an invaluable if sometimes unwieldy companion to future analyses of their content. University of Leeds Paul Rowe Jules Verne 8: humour,ironie,fantaisie. Ed. by Christian Chelebourg. Paris and Caen: Lettres Modernes Minard. 2003. 236 pp. ?21. ISBN 2-256-91054-7. The firstseven of the valued Minard Jules Verne series appeared between 1978 and 1994, so it was high time that the eighth volume saw the light of day. The ten essays here offer a brisk and lively account of Jules Verne's humour (only one essay, an analysis of Le Chdteau des Carpathes by Noel Mauberret, deals explicitly with the topic of fantasy promised in the volume title; one other, Volker Dehs's discussion of caricatures in the Amiens press, deals interestingly with humour about Verne). In an introductory overview, Chelebourg points out that Verne's humour both links his fiction with its theatrical origins and creates a 'distance feconde' (p. 15) in which re? flection on or ofthe text becomes possible. Much more than the stock of reusable gags it is sometimes seen as, humour is fundamental to Verne's approach and offersus an essential vantage point from which to understand him. A number of essays (notably Patrick Avrane's analysis of Verne's 'mots d'esprit', or Alain Froidefond's discussion of humour and fable) stress the psychological mechanisms of humour, drawing upon Freud; others concentrate on its literary dimensions and reflect productively on its various categories (wit, wordplay, irony,parody). Daniel Compere sees Jules Verne's irony as the locus of tension, distance, and indeterminacy, allowing the text to speak through a network of differentvoices of varying intensity.When directed at the story? telling process itself,he observes, it is particularly effective,since it both undermines the realist project and offersinsights into the making of the text. Similar points are made elsewhere in a number ofessays that offersuggestive readings pf individual texts. Notable, in this respect, is Jean-Michel Racault's discussion of L'Ecole des Robinsons, which shows not only that in that text Jules Verne is parodying the genre of the castaway novel, but also that there is parody of some of his own earlier texts (especially LTle mysterieuse).There is also much useful discussion in this volume of Jules Verne's early theatrical works, a number of which have been re-edited over the last decade. These are the subject of an interesting concluding discussion by Chelebourg, who, re? turning to the link between humour and repression, sees signs that Jules Verne is wary of love and sexuality, and maintains that excessive wordplay masks a fear that Tideal amoureux se brise sur les realites de la vie conjugale' (p. 192). There is much more work to be done here, but this collection conveys something of the flavour and the importance of Verne's humour, and is a useful and worthy addition to the series. The 786 Reviews volume concludes with an important bibliographical update covering the extensive work (much of itof an editorial nature) that has been carried out over the last ten years. University of Bristol Timothy Unwin Proust: la traduction...
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