Michon lu et relu (review)

This volume of essays has two aims: first, to bring together studies written over recent years by established and new critics of Pierre Michon's work, and secondly, to bear witness to the general consensus concerning his œuvre's place among classics of modern French literature. Reverence is refreshingly counterbalanced with humour with the inclusion at the beginning of the book of a non-critical text entitled 'Waiting for P.M.' (Marie-Hélène Lafon), evoking the fascination for Michon. While most of the essays consider the author's work to date, giving substantial weight to his critical book Le Roi vient quand il veut (2007) and to his latest narrative Les Onze (2009), some of them focus entirely on Michon's inaugural Vies minuscules (1984), adding fresh perspectives to the substantial existing criticism surrounding this work. The latter category includes an insightful study by Cécile Guinand of iconographical references in Vies minuscules, accompanied by illustrations of all the visual references mentioned; it also includes Véronique Léonard-Roques's analysis of Hamlet's ghostly presence in this book. Another group of essays reflects on binary oppositions, a constant feature of Michon's works: Natacha Allet examines the coexistence of scepticism and belief, or of stupor and fascination, as fundamental to Michon's vision of art; Christine Jérusalem distinguishes two diametrically opposed representations of melancholy; Agnès Castiglione's perceptive study of the amphibious nature of Michon's landscapes reflects a vision of reality as neither solid nor liquid but fugitive, and of artistic creation as a dynamic means of participating in a world that is constantly being reconfigured. A third category of essays considers Michon's stance as a writer in the postmodern era. Alexandre Bleau focuses on how Michon's dual literary heritage, halfway between the 'death' of the author at the end of the 1960s and his resurgence in the 1980s, continues to shape his work. Such considerations are also relevant to Véronique Léonard-Roques, whose study of references to Hamlet in Vies minuscules elucidates how this Shakespearean figure voices the frustrations crippling postmodern writers. While these and other essays are well worth reading, the most remarkable contribution to the volume as a whole is Dominique Viart's essay on Les Onze. His study skilfully takes apart and analyses the different strands in what is perhaps Michon's most intricate text to date, a portrait of the Reign of Terror interlacing political, social, literary, historiographical, and aesthetic perspectives. Viart investigates the workings of what he describes as a duet between the eponymous painting, which is used to tell a story, and a narrative, which instead paints a picture. Equally interesting is his examination of Les Onze as an exercise in historiography. Viart considers the place attributed to the historian Michelet, distinguishing between what has been borrowed and what has been fabricated, and provides a cogent interpretation of the reasoning behind the mingling of history with painting. What emerges is a thorough reading of Les Onze that does justice both to the interplay of text, image, fact, and fiction, and to Michon's thorough appreciation and understanding of historiography.