Figures du mensonge littéraire: Études sur la littérature du vingtième siècle (review)

This is a collection of essays on writers of the first half of the 20th century, spanning Giono, Genet, Proust, Aragon, Duras, Jabès and Sarraute. The declared objective is a study of lying, le mensonge, in its varieties. It is made clear that a classically Lacanian psychoanalytic approach will be used. This invokes a degree of tension in the project, as it is at first uncertain to what extent all aspects of lying will, or should, be scrutinized through this lens. A summary closing the introduction gives one to think that very many will eventually feature, and that the approach will be synthetic and uniform. The chapters are more or less independent, as there is little cross-reference; and so what seemed to be a central project is as much an introduction to Brown's technique as to the work itself. Many individual readings are detailed, involved and sensible to a Lacanian audience. Readings of maternal allegiances in Proust are especially interesting. For applications or elaborations of Lacanian concepts as applied to literature, the work is an excellent collection. Regrettably there is no index. As a critical enquiry into Lacan, however, the work does not seem to use its materials to relate the theory to elements that might seem to problematize it. It lacks an unequivocal account of the meaning of certain terms, starting with the central one, le mensonge. Terms are used sometimes technically, sometimes playfully, to confusing effect. Discussions of actual lies, as with Duras's L'Amante anglaise, work well; others concerning the mensonge romanesque sometimes need more clarity. Analogies between reality and truth are evoked but not worked through entirely. Readers interested in ethical aspects of the examined texts will find plenty of examples to work with, but an unstable theoretical interface. 'Sans qu'il s'agisse, en littérature, d'une intention malveillante ou intéressée, il importe d'examiner comment s'inscrit, dans un dire, le sujet parlant' (p. 37): should we be so quick to leave suspicion aside with, say, Genet? Elsewhere the subordination of material to framework seems unshakeable. Formulae such as 'l'inentamable de la jouissance féminine' (p. 268), here applied matter-of-factly to Duras, seem to depend on a particular point of view. There is a promising observation regarding Lol V. Stein and the phallic (p.306); but no discussion of how Duras might inform our general understanding of the term. The conclusion says that 'la dimension de la fausseté se montre consubstantielle à la création littéraire en tant qu'élaboration qui se contient en partie seulement dans le domaine signifiant . . . les mots mentent dans la mesure même où ils signifient'—a characterization at once specific, open-ended, and puzzlingly restrained with regard to some of the work's earlier topics. Brown's work is more about subjectivity, hybridity and imperfection than lies per se; and in this context there needs to be a dedicated account of such concepts.