L'Épreuve du lecteur: livres et lectures dans le roman d'ancien régime (review)

362 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 9:3 passion amoureuse est mise à l'épreuve, force est de reconnaître un projet bien orchestré dont émane l'ensemble du roman. L'auteur d'Adèle de Sénange n'est pas à court de discours; elle manie à son aise, aux fins qui l'intéressent, tous ceux qui circulent dans la société aristocratique qui est la sienne. La forme épistolaire choisie ici lui permet d'inclure une variété de propos parmi lesquels Alix Deguise remarque à juste titre le récit de vie, le conte et les portraits mondains sans oublier les allusions aux auteurs classiques comme La Bruyère et Pascal (pp. xix-xxiv). Le seul regret que j'aie à l'issue de cette lecture, c'est de ne pas avoir en main une véritable édition critique des œuvres complètes de Mme de Souza, tâche qui reste à entreprendre. Monique Moser-Verrey Université Laval Jan Herman et Paul Pelckmans, éds. L'Epreuve du lecteur: livres et lectures dans le roman d'ancien régime. Louvain et Paris: Editions Peeters, 1995. 502pp. FFr480. ISBN 90-6831-717-2. This is a volume of proceedings from a conference organized by the Société d'Analyse de la Topique Romanesque (SATOR), held in May 1994. As the general title suggests, all the chronologically arranged papers treat some aspect of the representation of reading in texts from the Middle Ages to the Revolution . The majority of papers, however, deal with aspects of novels from the eighteenth century. There is also a substantial avant- propos by Nicole Boursier , Jan Herman, and Paul Pelckmans, in which they outline the history and objectives of SATOR, as well as proposing various grids for considering the essays that follow. Given the large number of papers, the editors have thoughtfully provided an index of the authors and works analysed, from Abélard to Zannotovitch, which increases the volume's usefulness. Since the mid-1980s, SATOR has organized a series of international conferences , each concentrating on a different literary topos, and each seeking to advance the group's long-term goal of creating a computerized database of topoi and their occurrences in French prose fiction before 1800. As the authors of the avant-propos observe, the project has been richly productive, but also fraught with methodological difficulties, not the least of which is the definition of "topos" itself. Several of the present papers refer to a formulation by Michèle Weil, "configuration récurrente d'information narrative"; Nicole Boursier envisages a database enabling scholars to "saisir les structures de l'imaginaire" (p. 5). How such a thing might be realized is still an issue. Several of the papers (such as that of Michèle Weil on Robert Challe) do provide "fiches" susceptible to database analysis, but the majority of the essays, while frequently illuminating, offer relatively straightforward structuralist, narcological, or simply thematic readings. Judging from the papers of this conference, SATOR appears to be promoting a potentially interesting research tool, but not a distinctive mode of analysis. REVIEWS 363 Of course, it is the variety of approaches in the papers that prevents L'Epreuve du lecteur from proving itself too much of an épreuve to read. The subject of the "scene of reading" is a fascinating one that takes us through epistemology, pedagogy , gender, morality, intertextuality, and literary genre. "Jamais fille chaste n'a lu de romans," claimed Rousseau, managing in one sentence to reverberate in nearly each of the areas I havejust mentioned. The self-reflexive nature of all these representations of reading make the subject a particularly apt one for investigating the status of fiction, the understanding of textual work, at a particular cultural moment. A number of essays group themsleves around various writers or issues: Montesquieu (Marie-Hélène Chabut, Elisabeth Zawisza), Marivaux (Catherine GaIlou ët, Jean-Paul Sanfourche), Prévost (Erik Leborgne, Elisabeth Lavezzi, Paul Pelckmans), Rétif (Pierre Testud, Pierre Hartmann, Jean-Jacques Tatin-Gourier), Laclos (Frédéric Calas, Judith Spencer). A number, including the contributions by Alexandre Stroev and Annie Rivara, examine representations of libraries, a topos which cuts across other categories and writers, as well as playing an important role in numerous...