Histoire du pastiche: Le Pastiche littéraire français de la Renaissance à nos jours (review)

Paul Aron trawls through the centuries, identifying constants and developments, and those prime cultural phenomena: fads. He moves comfortably between the minnows and the big fish. This comprehensive, largely historical approach has the merit of building up contexts around the more significant writers: Boileau, for instance, the most inveterate pasticheur of his times, which abounded in paraliterary skirmishes. Aron provides a clear chronology of pastiche, which comes from pasticcio: a medley: first used in the context of painting, then of music. He recognizes, of course, that pastiche is as old as the hills, a constant shadow of creativeness. Because many authors retain their childlikeness, Aron frequently stresses the potache (smart-ass schoolboy) aspect of much pastiche and its blood relative, parody. Literature did not wait for the twentieth century to concoct sequels and prequels—continuations or anticipations of famous books by another hand imitating the same style. Pastiche is, however, not merely literary shop-talk, though you have to be saturated in an author to imitate him/her. We are all attracted to taking off. One motive for such mimetic activity is hostility to others’ posturing and showing off, although naturally the pasticheur implicitly proclaims ‘Anch’io son pittore’. Both parody and pastiche are plagiaristic, because they lift material, generally to comic or critical ends. Both also are linked with fakes: a work is fathered illegitimately. Taking off is either dependent (you need a model as springboard), or a step towards independence (taking off from. . .). Proust’s pastiches, inspired by his self-confessed imitative knack in social gatherings, are teasing in intention, neither wholly admiring (pastiche on occasion is an act of love), nor completely satirical. He saw such practices as therapeutic and educational for budding writers: they help them to find their own voice. Pasticheurs beg to be rumbled, because they mutely appeal to an ideally alert audience over the head of the victim. Aron astutely notes the similarity between collections of pastiches in the nineteenth century and the contemporaneous, proliferating sottisiers. Latching on to the stupider moments of leading writers is the name of both games. He misses out, however, the splendid critique by Jules Vallès of the institutionalized plugging of pastiche of famous classical authors as a learning tool in nineteenth-century lycées. He does include the programme of self-pastiche of Lautréamont, for pastiche is not always outward-turned. It was to be expected that Oulipiens like Queneau would want to flex their mental muscles by fabricating pastiches, for it was a key part of their cultivation of inventive recycling. We should listen, all the same, to Céline’s spot-on terms for the parodist/pasticheur (he was a favoured Aunt Sally): ‘Half leech and half tapeworm’ (p. 280). Commonly, like Céline himself, pastiche goes over the top, for good taste is one thing, despite what snobs think, that you cannot copy. There is so much name-dropping in this survey that an index would have been helpful. Aron says that his bibliography can be found in a companion volume of texts featuring pastiche and parody. Aron knows his onions. His book is an excellent example of the best kind of French (or, more exactly, Belgian) literary history: continuously lucid and coherently structured throughout.