A Constant Journey: The Fiction of Monique Wittig by Erika Ostrovsky (review)

B o o k Rev iew s work as both subject and object. (2) “ Emprises” investigates persistent theoretical obses­ sions—Mallarmé’s “ Hérodiade” (as proper name and as evolving form), and Breton’s use of automatic writing. (3) Section three, “ Intensités,” deals with inspiration at its limits, by reconsidering the way in which poetry tests the notion of limit in the works which call into question its very possibility: Artaud, Michaux, Bataille, and Char. (4) “ Indices,” the final section, describes a return to faith in language, the pole of “ raison.” Ponge’s notion of the poet’s workshop or “ fabrique,” Jean Tortel’s use of reversals, and Philippe Jaccottet’s quest for that which is worthy of admiration, are examples of poetry which goes beyond the intellectual, beyond method, to create a poetic world. Steinmetz is himself the author of several volumes of poetry, N i même (1986), D ’hier (1989). This convincing critical volume displays joy and care (and faith) in the use of language, which explains Steinmetz’s positive attitude to the works of his friends Tortel (an important and sometimes neglected poet) and Jaccottet. A d e l a id e M. R u s so Louisiana State University Erika Ostrovsky. A C o n s t a n t J o u r n e y : T h e F ic t io n o f M o n iq u e W it t ig . Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 199. $24.95. This first book-length study of one of the most radical experimentalists in fiction today will be appreciated by those who have read the work of Monique Wittig and will surely encourage others to begin reading her. At the very outset, Ostrovsky distinguishes her study from virtually everything else that has been written on Wittig up to this time. Though she understands the significant political dimensions of W ittig’s writing, she insists on evaluat­ ing this literature not as propaganda but as art. She relies on Wittig’s own claims in essays that the writing of the minority artist must strive towards universality if it is to have any political impact on the dominant culture it challenges. Ostrovsky seems to have assigned herself the task of making it clear to the reading public that Wittig is not a minor experi­ mentalist and lesbian activist but a major writer of world literature. Sometimes I question Ostrovsky’s understanding of what Wittig means by insisting on universality in fiction (I don’t think she has the old humanist concept of the universal in mind), but the attention to aesthetic detail in this study makes clear that W ittig’s writing is brilliantly crafted and irreducible to any simple didactic purpose. Ostrovsky convincingly argues that W ittig’s artistic achievement compares favorably with that of some of the greatest artists of this cen­ tury, such as Proust, Beckett, and Genet. Wittig’s writing, according to Ostrovsky, is simple in purpose and complex in execu­ tion. It can be summed up by a single word, renversement. In each work, from L ’Opoponax to Virgile, non, Wittig tries to reverse or overthrow not only the traditions of patriarchal writing she has inherited but also the traditions of women’s writing including her own. Each fiction tries to surpass the one that preceded it, either by innovations in style and language-use or by transformations of subject matter. Ostrovsky does a superb job of specifying the nature of each one of these literary experiments and their intertextual rela­ tionship to one another. Her intimate knowledge of French literature enables her to recog­ nize direct and indirect references to the classical and modern texts that Wittig borrows from. She carefully explains W ittig’s often extremely subtle word-play and experiments with French grammar. Despite her avoidance of an exclusively political reading of Wittig, Ostrovsky’s clearly feminist perspective critically delineates W ittig’s challenge to tradi­ tional representations of sexual difference. Still, she insists that it is the style that deter­ mines the final value of W ittig’s work. My only criticism of Ostrovsky’s book would be V...