Representations spatiales et narration dans les contes et nouvelles de Guy de Maupassant: Une Rhetorique de l'espace geographique (review)

In the tradition of solid French scholarship, Bernard Demont's new book synthesizes theoretical and critical perspectives on the diverse representations of geographic space in Maupassant's short fiction. As such, Demont's impressive research offers the reader an intricate structural analysis coupled with a thematic exploration of the multi-faceted geography of Maupassant's tales. Furthermore, it evaluates space as a narrative device in Contes et Nouvelles that facilitates story telling and triggers writing. Noting Maupassant's strategic use of loci in plot development, the introduction to the work explains that "la façon sélective et ciblée dont le vécu géographique de l'auteur se déverse dans le système de l'intrigue et des personnages nous semble être l'opérateur de l'intensité conférée aux lieux et donc de leur efficacité rhétorique"(30).

Demont's study begins with the exposition of how familiar spaces function as a safety device or a place of stability for key characters in selected short stories. In addition, the first chapter entitled "Les circuits de sécurisation" illustrates the crises and catastrophes that occur when the protagonists are forced out of their security zones by external events or influences.

The second chapter, on the other hand, plays with the constraints of reading. Through a micro-textual look at the opening lines of a number of tales, this section imaginatively named "Les préfigurations spatiales ponctuelles" underscores the role of space in foreshadowing actions and guiding reading. By picking up on the geographic signposts and spatial markers provided in the initial passages of particular texts, Demont's analysis demonstrates how succeeding events in those narratives can be anticipated, and entire plots unraveled.

The remaining bulk of Représentations spatiales et narration dans les contes et nouvelles de Guy de Maupassant is mostly devoted to finding a geometric logic in the corpus of Maupassant's short narratives. Accordingly, chapters III, IV, V, and VI focus on the concentric, symmetric, and bipolar structures in Contes et Nouvelles with the sixth chapter examining exclusively the binary constructions juxtaposing the interior to the exterior. This significant portion of the book sheds light on various "dispositifs spatio-narratifs" – strategies that simultaneously emphasize the thematic and rhetorical use of geography, or to use Demont's definition: "tout ce qui a trait, dans l'organisation du texte, à l'imbrication du système spatial et de celui de l'intrigue" (57).

After a rigorous investigation of the structural and narrative dimensions of space in Maupassant's works, in the seventh chapter the study shifts to the assessment of "lieuité," the particular quality or "valeur synthétique" of a place (375). This part classifies the intrinsic value of geographical locations into the three categories of "génie," "expansion" and "maléfice," and clarifies how "englobant de près les personnages à un moment-clé de leur trajectoire, la lieuité maupassantienne apparaît comme une cellule de sens, mettant en abyme la thématique de chaque récit qu'elle polarise et où elle agit un peu comme une instance de contrôle puisque tout ce qui est vécu ou ressenti s'y rapporte" (460).

The last segment of the book explores geographic distance in Contes et Nouvelles, revealing it to be a locus of dissolution, an affirmation of impotence, and a spatial symbolism of the void which writing attempts to compensate. In the closing passage of chapter VIII, Demont concludes:

Derrière la friction de l'espace ou sa démesure, derrière les fantômes par son interprétation terrifiée, il y a un permanent et obsessionnel constat d'impuissance. La distance est séparation et facteur de disharmonie. Elle est elle-même un vide que l'écriture travaille à recoller.

(494)

Building on existing research and elucidating numerous works...