Une poétique de l'énigme: le récit herméneutique balzacien (review)

The present volume offers a convincing and extremely thorough appraisal of the representation of mystery in the work of Balzac. As the author observes in her introduction, 'le récit à enigme est l'une des formes de prédilection du roman balzacien'. From the espionage attempted by Marie de Verneuil in Les Chouans, to the terrible secret that lurks in the sealed closet of 'La Grande Bretèche', mysteries abound in La Comédie humaine, engaging both novelist and reader in a hermeneutic quest for fictional truth. Tracing the evolution of the récit à énigme from its origins in classical tragedy to the gothic novels of Maturin and Radcliffe, this study probes the multiplicity of textual strategies with which Balzac exploited the potential of the mystery form. Lies and lapses of memory, as well as plotting, spying and romantic betrayal, all have a part in concealing and revealing secrets. To hold the key to a secret, we are told, is to wield power, and there are few more powerful than the fictional lawyer Derville, an expert déchiffreur and first-hand witness to the moral depravity that lies hidden inside some of the most fashionable houses in Paris. For Massol, however, it is the desire inspired by mystery that truly defines Balzac's notion of the enigmatic. His is a narrative voice that delights in tantalizing the reader with the promise of enlightenment and, ultimately, resolution. In the opening pages of La Peau de chagrin, selective focalization, and a desire to uncover the identity of the young man who has gambled away his last coin, thus serve to convince the reader of the need for an omniscient narrator. The real originality of Massol's thesis nevertheless lies elsewhere, most notably in her assertion that Balzac's ludic enterprise generates as many mysteries as it solves. This much is clear, she argues, in the case of Maître Cornélius (1832), in which the theft of the eponymous usurer's gold is attributed to his own somnambulism, a medical riddle to which not even the Balzacian Sphinx has the answer. Elsewhere, the proliferation of mysteries throughout La Comédie humaine is situated firmly within its historical context, revealing Balzac as a novelist who played self-consciously on the class ambiguities of the post-Napoleonic period, and the wider 'unreadability' of a rapidly changing society. Equally welcome are the sustained discussions of sometimes neglected works including Albert Savarus, Modeste Mignon and L'Envers de l'histoire contemporaine. There is some disappointment in finding repeated reference to well-known episodes from the Balzacian universe (why Rastignac's peering through Goriot's keyhole should be mentioned on three separate occasions, with scant analytical variation on each, is a minor mystery in itself), but this is hardly sufficient to undermine the very favourable impression created by this substantial reference work.