MLR, 101.4, 2oo6 1137 illustrated by the author, which has often been seen as amix of post-juvenilia and an attempt to take the Symbolist cult of difficulty to excessive new heights. Fell presents itmore as aproduct of the period when Jarry, yet to adopt themask of Ubu, was sub ject to abroad range of artistic influences thatwere asmuch visual as literary, and more importantly, where no firm boundaries were accepted. Thus concepts emerge of the written word as aunit of image and pattern, and not merely of sound ormeaning, and of a radial rather than linear text, which give this collection a fresh and worthy place in a lineage running between Mallarme and Apollinaire. These concepts are also capably identified within Jarry's own enigmatic statements about his purpose and technique. Fell provides a richer, more personalized account of Jarry's links with artists than any previous critic. The connections with the Nabis, the School of Pont-Aven, and Henri Rousseau are well known, but this book pursues them at a pictorial as well as textual level in amost productive manner, and the author also continues her pre vious quest for Beardsley's 'lost portrait' of Jarry and/or his creation Dr Faustroll. Jarry's own talent forwoodcuts is shown as providing a link to his previously little acknowledged innovations in the art of the book, prominent in but not confined to his collaboration with Remy de Gourmont on the review L'Ymagier, and his own short-lived Perhinderion. Pere Ubu also finds a place, both as a visual construct influenced by primitive eth nic arts and as a puppet; the sections on the marionette aesthetic in Symbolism and the puppet theatres of the time have an interest stretching well beyond Jarry, as well as exploring his own skills as a puppeteer. Similarly, discussion of Jarry's references to dance represents quite fresh ground, and also manages to stir interest inMessaline, perhaps Jarry's most straightforward-and hence leastmemorable-novel. This does not set out to be a general study of Jarry, or indeed to pursue a single thesis. Nevertheless, it succeeds admirably in rounding out his portrait as an active, diverse member of the lively artistic culture of the belle epoque, and in reminding us that Jarry was an entertainer as well as a visionary. The work is rigorous and scrupulously referenced, with an erudite and very readable style, and iswarmly re commended not only to readers of Jarry, but also to anyone with an interest in the literature or art of the period. UNIVERSITY OF WALES, BANGOR BEN FISHER Forged Genealogies: Saint-John Perse's Conversations with Culture. By CAROLRIGO LOT. (North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 27I) ChapelHill:UniversityofNorthCarolinaPress. 2001. 264pp. $34.95. ISBN o 8078-9275-0. Carol Rigolot starts from the premiss that 'reading Perse's [sic] poems is not unlike eavesdropping on a telephone conversation where only one side is audible' (p. I3). She offers a patiently accumulated and coherent series of investigations into the inter texts of each collection, navigating prudently between the polarities established by the earliest critics: 'une poesie encyclopedique' (Caillois) and 'une poesie cecumenique' (Henry). The multiple resonances of the title-word 'forged' are fully recognized: 'forger, frayer, fabriquer, inventer, faire and contrefaire' (p. 14). As to genealogies, they are both familial and literary, 'elective affinities' traced through the ceuvre. Even rejected affinities (Segalen, for example) are pertinently noted. Dominant voices are heard in successive (groups of) poems, some of them persistent or recurrent (Chateaubriand, Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Claudel, Valery), others occasional and/or sloughed off in the evolving creative process (Loti, Defoe, Verne), but all against a background murmur from Scripture, Homer, Virgil, Dante . . . (Curious II38 Reviews that the poet's claim that 'IIn'y a pas de grands poetes mediterraneens', quoted on page 213, should pass without comment.) Specific intertextualities lead to 'adialogue with destiny' (p. 202), an imbrication of multifarious readings and the poet's renewed postulation of ars longa, vita brevis, inwhich the transmission of genius is entirely distinct from that of genes. The individual readings are sensitive, scrupulous, and generally persuasive, even if other, unmentioned echoes kept reverberating in my...