1004 Reviews Awakening Spaces: French Caribbean Popular Songs, Music, and Culture. By Brenda F. Berrian. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 2000. xiv + 287 pp. ISBN 0-226-04456-4. Much of the critical attention on French Caribbean culture has focused on the rich literary domain and, with a few notable exceptions (Jacqueline Rosemain's work on biguine, jazz, and dance, for example), has generally neglected the dynamic musical scene. Brenda F. Berrian's book is an attempt to fillin this gap in critical understand? ing. Her approach is figured around seven areas of 'empowerment and identity', which she terms 'awakening spaces', and which relate to themes of childhood and exile, gen? der,cultural politics, Creole language, public performance, urban music, and the drum as a symbol of resistance. Beginning in the late 1960s, the author looks at the group Malavoi's attempts to infuse contemporary Martinican music with traditional ele? ments, and then charts Kassav's rise to pre-eminence in the zouk scene. There are in? teresting discussions ofwomen's attempts to make impressions in the male-dominated world of zouk, and of the work of socially conscious musicians such as Eugene Mona, Poglo, Kali, and Djo Dezormo, who address political and environmental questions in their music. As the author shows, this is not a closed musical world, but is open to 'diasporic ' influences, mainly fromNorth America (jazz, rap, soul, and funk), but also from Jamaica and Africa. The final chapter focuses on the importance of the drum as a historically subversive instrument. Repressed by colonial authorities, and subsequently neglected by the bourgeois urban elite as a sign ofpoverty and backwardness, the drum has survived and re-emerged as part of the more general revalorization of all things 'Creole'. The author uses extensive interview material and the songs themselves as her primary resource. Indeed, these are more or less her only resource, as she chooses not to delve into the wealth of highly relevant social and cultural criticism which exists on the departementsd'outre mer,nor to develop in any sustained way an ethnomusicological theoretical framework. This is unfortunate, as her discussions would have gained a sharper analytical edge if more extensive, convincing links had been made to other studies of French Caribbean culture. For instance, the ideas of Bernabe, Chamoiseau, and Confiant could have been applied to the language question, much as Glissant's concepts of detour, opacity, and resistance could have supplied an illuminating theo? retical reference in which to analyse the drum in colonial and postcolonial culture. As it is, the sporadic attempts to invoke theories (there are fleetingmentions of de Certeau, Fanon, Walcott, Lamming, and Morrison, among others) are never developed, and seem gratuitous. This book excels in retelling the fascinating history of music in Martinique and Guadeloupe, and in sketching compelling portraits of the various charac? ters on the scene, while leaving much scope forfuture,theoretically engaged analyses. University of the West Indies Martin Munro Tous Azimuts, n: Les Usages du genre. Ed. by Charles Forsdick. Glasgow: Uni? versity of Glasgow French and German Publications. 2002. iv+141 pp. ?8. ISBN0-85261-761-5. This is a collection ofconference papers given by current or recent postgraduates from United Kingdom institutions. These papers are 'tous azimuts': wide-ranging, or all over the place? Mainly the former. Notoriously, creative writers are foreveroutpacing their critical retinue, or playing leapfrog with us. Academic or freelance critics have to remind themselves periodically that the fine words of classification, one of their means of control, though possessing undeniable usefulness, butter no parsnips. The canon, obviously, is the ultimate taxonomic scheme of the whole critical caboodle. Genre clearly involves conformism, in which writers run true to type, and become MLRy 98.4, 2003 1005 chips offold blocks. Most ofthe contributors, and I superglossingthem, want to stress the unstable nature (or in today's parlance, the indeterminacy) of all classification. Genre seems to be an unusual instance of a term and concept that have got more pre? cise, at least in intention, over the centuries, though we should remember the slipperiness of all rhetorical nomenclature. Perhaps we are more pedantic than our ancestors. Alexander Regier, concentrating on More's Utopia...