André Dhôtel, entre archaïsme et modernité by Christine Dupouy (review)

If writers could be assigned specific symbols to typify their creative approaches, André Dhôtel’s would probably be a star. To read Dhôtel, writes Christine Dupouy in her Introduction, is to abandon a linear process in favour of star–shaped configurations in his works, which fire the imagination in different directions simultaneously. Indeed, revelation and illumination recur as qualities in his œuvre that the contributors to this volume generally much admire. In Part I, ‘Eléments fondateurs’, Danielle Leclair shows the unity of Dhôtel’s ‘French’ and ‘Greek’ novels in their portrayal of the close relationship between the inhabitants of a place and their natural surroundings. Roland Frankart’s introduction to the author Germaine Beaumont as ‘Présidente du jury’ that awarded Dhôtel the Prix Femina (1955) for his novel Le Pays où l’on n’arrive jamais is followed by Hélène Fau’s contribution on Beaumont and Dhôtel as ‘compatriotes d’un pays imaginaire’ (p. 57). In Part II, ‘Questions de genres’, Danielle Henky studies the problematic distinction between Dhôtel’s works for children and those written for adults. His work for and about children is compared explicitly with that of Henri Bosco, Alain–Fournier, and Saint–Exupéry, and implicitly with that of Anouilh, Aymé, Brasillach, Cocteau, Colette, and Giraudoux. Jacques Baudou questions the generic classification of two works, L'Île aux oiseaux de fer (1956) and Les Voyages fantastiques de Julien Grainebis (1957), examining them in turn as science fiction, fables, and ‘transfictions’ (p. 92). Brigitte Buffard–Moret, focusing on Dhôtel as a poet and creator of ‘petites merveilles “inclassables”, où la poésie naît “comme ça”’ (p. 113), identifies a common feature in his work, namely the irrational in the midst of the rational and ‘l’intrusion de l’irrégulier dans le régulier’ (p. 112). René Godenne shows how Dhôtel’s nouvelles liberate the imagination, reaching out from the fireside, where such traditional tales were often told, in all directions to the unknown outside world. Part III focuses on the twin themes of archaism and modernity in Dhôtel’s work. The importance of land is the subject of Philippe Blondeau’s chapter, ‘Terre, terroir, territoire’, which identifies the fusion of the universal and the regional as ‘une dialectique du proche et du lointain’ (p. 144). Isabelle Dangy examines the ‘décousu’ in Dhôtel’s writing, arguing convincingly that certain aspects of his style and narrative are postmodern; Evelyne Thoizet deals with the nature and function of rumour, and Françoise Felce examines Dhôtel’s childhood–inspired ‘view of the world from the pavement’. The final part is devoted to studies of specific works, including Le Ciel du faubourg, Pays natal, L’Enfant qui disait n’importe quoi, Saint Benôıt Joseph Labre, Lumineux rentre chez lui, and Rhétorique fabuleuse. For those to whom Dhôtel’s work is unknown, the first section of this book will no doubt be the most instructive. The following three parts, being generally more detailed and more focused analyses of various aspects of his work, are clearly aimed at a specialist readership. Overall, this informed and informative volume makes a timely contribution to a relatively neglected twentieth–century French writer.