Vie de Henry Brulard de Stendhal (review)

Berthier, Philippe. Vie de Henry Brulard de Stendhal. Foliothèque 88. Paris: Gallimard, 2000. Pp. 240. ISBN 2-07-040517-6

A solid reading of a major work that takes into account earlier criticism and multiple approaches, Philippe Berthier's Vie de Henry Brulard de Stendhal admirably fulfills the aims of the Foliothèque series. The volume comprises Berthier's 180-page essay and a 40-page dossier of additional material.

The introduction and each part of the essay unravel a knot of thematic or technical problems that have preoccupied readers of Stendhal's rich and complicated text, published posthumously in 1890. The introduction reviews the factors that led Stendhal to undertake in the 1830s to write the story of his life; his innate autobiographical bent, evidenced in the journal he began in 1801, was reinforced by the July Monarchy's proliferation of autobiographies and goaded by the 1833 publication of an unexpurgated translation of Benvenuto Cellini's Life. In "Beyle / Brulard / Stendhal," Berthier situates Henry Brulard within the influences and conventions of the genre and its earlier practitioners, in particular Augustine, Montaigne, and Rousseau. After recalling the false dating of the initial meditation on Rome, with its stately style, Berthier reminds us that Stendhal intended to suppress that "Chateaubrianesque" opening in favor of one more stylistically typical. More interested in existential intent than narratological technique, Berthier often simply elides the distinction between author, narrator, and hero, as when he defines the use of yet another pseudonym as an aid to sincerity: "Brulard est un mensonge qui assure paradoxalement le triomphe d'une ambition d'authenticité" (43). "Les chantiers de la mémoire" focuses on the process of writing and the form the manuscript took, including its visual elements. Skeptical of the claims commentators have made as to the symbolic value of the intercalated engravings, Berthier does not doubt the importance of the numerous sketches in Stendhal's own hand, the famous croquis: "[I]ls ne commentent pas le corps du souvenir (verbal) par une sorte de redoublement iconique redondant, mais, bien plus essentiellement, ils le constituent tout autant par leurs moyens propres, ils en font partie intégrante et, à leur manière spécifique, fabriquent du sens dans une indéchirable unité avec lui" (53). Images of memory and forgetting to which Stendhal recurs, such as that of the decomposing fresco, merit greater attention than Berthier pays since, he tells us, the manuscript reflects a "laboratoire en pleine activité, qui ne nous passionne autant que parce qu'il nous plonge dans les procédures d'ordinaire clandestines d'une écriture en fusion, non encore solidifiée" (76). "De l'amour" underlines the central role love, including its absent object, in the case of his dead mother, and its unattainable objects, in the case of many of his inamoratas, plays in the imaginary of Henry Brulard; present instead is the figure of Séraphie: "On ne dira jamais assez ce qu'Henry doit à Séraphie. Résumant dans sa figure hostile, persécutrice, tout ce qui est et restera pour lui objet de dégoût, cette chèvre émissaire lui fait gagner un temps énorme en se chargeant de tout le mal du monde, ce qui lui épargne d'avoir à le découvrir difficilement par lui-même" (92). The writer's representation of his detested childhood is the subject of "Politique et religion mêlées," where Berthier shows how Henry's family romance became political theater, the "servage du moi" under his hated father, Chérubin, an allegory of the "impérialisme des Etats" (119). "Que vivre en société, c'est apprendre à mourir" holds that Henry paid the price for this childhood: isolated from other children whom he was not taught to recognize as his equals, he developed the espagnolisme - "protestation de liberté intérieure et surtout de distinction" (131) - associated in the text with his great-aunt, Elisabeth Gagnon.

Berthier writes in "Comment...