MLR, I03.3, 2oo8 865 between I953 and I986, but it goes little beyond Hubert, and without her verve. Throughout, Stephanie Caron's analysis struggles too little tobringmeaningfulness to Mansour's relationship to surrealism, toAndre Breton, to themany writers whose works she cites as influential,and topoetry ingeneral. Nor do historical, literary,and political contexts for Mansour's work intrude to shed lighton thedifficultyofwriting poetry inpost-war Europe, though thiswould seem all themore called for in the case of JoyceMansour, awoman poet fluent inFrench, born inEngland and of Egyptian descent. Rather, Reinventer le lyrismecloaks Mansour and her poetry in a vaguely male French surrealism, without exploring the potential ruptures and confluences between pre- and post-war surrealism. Part IofReinventer le lyrismeevokes the 'visceral' (p. 26) qualities ofMansour's earlyworks: Cris ( 953) and Dechirures (I 955), which are said tobe affective responses freed from the control of reason, though one is left wishing forconsideration of these early collections in the context of pre- and post-war poetic texts (not only those of surrealism) thatgrapple with theapparent impossibility ofpoetry's freedom from the politics of reason, technique, and technology. If, as Caron suggests, Cris expresses an internal strugglewith how 'to say an emotion' (p. 34), what remains unexplored is how Mansour's work might cast itsown particular shadow on hers and previous generations of poets facedwith the same challenge. Rather, the study inserts Mansour somewhat arbitrarily into a long lineage of French writers fromCharles d'Orleans, Villon, and La Fontaine toBaudelaire, Mallarme, Lautreamont, and Rimbaud. Part ii focuses onMansour's Rapaces (I960), Carre blanc (I965), and Ca (1970). Here too it isnot clear how briefmention ofmultiple contemporary theorists (Michel Foucault, Michael Riffaterre,Michel Collot, Philippe Lejeune, Laurent Jenny, to name a few) relates to Mansour's poetry. Part iiibegins by suggesting that Mansour's laterwork, Iles Flottantes (I973) inparticular, engages Roger Caillois's reflectionon 'lyricalobjectivity' (p. 269). One would have hoped for furtherconsideration of this most extraordinary of thinkers,whose own most uncommon relation to surrealism might have engaged Mansour's. Rather, her late texts are again unpersuasively linked toanother long listof authors: Char,Michaux, Gide, Jean Jouve, even Byron and Zola. No doubt, the references are there; lacking is consideration of the spark thatmight have compelled Mansour to engage theirworks. Part iII closes with an overview of Mansour's final writings, many of themon thevisual artof a number ofFrench artists. Here too one is left wishing foranalysis of the energy that must have driven or drawn Mansour to theplastic arts, away frompoetry or towards another formof poetry. For anyone curious about Mansour's poetry, Reinventer le lyrismeoffers an ex tensive bibliography, but it leaves one wondering: What if,asHubert put forward a half a century ago now,Mansour's poetry were to have been read as demanding less 'courage toplunge into the abyss than to extract life fromdeath, torpor and absence' by way of 'aesthetic discoveries achieved through structure and not blindly groped foramidst lyrical storms' ('Three Women Poets', p. 48)? WELLESLEY COLLEGE JAMES PETTERSON La Chute des temps/Time-Fall. By BERNARDNOiEL. Trans. by ANDREW ROTHWELL. Halifax, NS: VVV Editions. 2006. i8 Ipp. Can$ I5.ISBN 978-o-9732098-8-4. Bernard Noel is amajor writer whose work includes poetry, discursive and fictional prose, and theatre,but very littlehas been translated into English before. This vo lume is thereforeawelcome addition toVVV's listof contemporary poetic writing in parallel translation. In his introduction Andrew Rothwell explains succinctly Noel's relationship to his cultural context and influences,which includes affinitieswith Dada, as well as 866 Reviews the rejection of literarymovements and stated doctrines. Noel's poetry interrogates identity,time, and thepower and failings of language. Itsmaterialism emerges from his intense engagement with the physical, and his insistence on the bodily basis of thought as he explores mental space and processes. La Chute des temps(I983) and L'Ete languemorte (I982), included here along with the short text 'encore', are among Noel's most significantworks, exemplifying his poetic preoccupations and individual style. The long texts are divided into three cantos and, in La Chute des temps, two intercalated 'counter-cantos'. The short, unpunctuated lines lead to frequent instances of enjambment that contribute both...