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Reviewed by:
  • Claude Simon 6: La Réception critique by Ralph Sarkonak
  • Jean H. Duffy
Claude Simon 6: La Réception critique. Textes réunis et présentés par Ralph Sarkonak. (Revue des lettres modernes). Caen: Lettres modernes Minard, 2011. 299 pp.

This is the latest volume in the important Claude Simon series launched by Ralph Sarkonak in 1993. Like preceding numbers, it is a composite volume consisting of a ‘lead’ thematic section, a section devoted to more general articles, and a reviews section. Following Sarkonak’s useful contextualizing introduction, the principal themed section consists of five articles, each of which provides an overview of research conducted in a particular geographical location or subfield of Simonian research. Opening with a reminder of the prominence of Flanders in Simon’s work, Sjef Houppermans’s timely analysis of the reception of his fiction in the Netherlands surveys, in turn, Dutch translations of his novels (and examines some of the issues posed by translation), the obituaries that appeared in NRC and De Volkskrant in 2005, and the important contribution made by critics in the Netherlands to research on the nouveau roman and, specifically, on Simon. Ilias Yocaris offers a tightly focused review of the critical impact and legacy of Jean [End Page 589] Ricardou and ‘textualisme’ (p. 54), arguing that, notwithstanding the reductionism of Ricardou’s methodology, his work remains a landmark in Simonian scholarship. In a wide-ranging and equally tightly focused complementary study, Jean-Yves Laurichesse traces the long, troubled, but ever-interesting history of the discussion of the ‘referent’ within Simon’s public statements and in Simonian criticism. Elzbieta Grodek explores the novelist’s engagement, both as practitioner and commentator, with the other arts (in particular the visual, but also music), and surveys the substantial subfield of Simonian scholarship devoted to word and image and the range of methodologies and theoretical positions adopted. In a contribution addressing the future directions that research might take, Jacques Isoléry proposes a methodology based on the notion of the interpretative schematism. The second section comprises two critical essays. The first — a stimulating and lucidly argued analysis by Leon Sachs of the role played by the ‘leçon de choses’ in Simon’s 1975 novel of the same title — examines the ostensible tension within the text between references to an educational method that insisted on the observation of the ‘real’, and a post-structuralist conception of literature that rejected the idea of a ‘natural’ link between word and thing; beyond that apparent tension, a dynamic relationship is discovered between form and history that has its roots in Republican pedagogy and Michel Bréal’s development of the concept of polysemy. The second essay — an engaging analysis of Le Jardin des plantes by Llewellyn Brown — examines the explicit and implicit presence in the novel of the motif of the phallus and its status as a structuring pivot, a ‘principe organisateur’ (p. 239) representing at once ‘l’Un et son autre: masculin et féminin’ and foregrounding a structure based on homonymy that reveals ‘l’équivoque fondamentale affectant tout langage’ (p. 255). The collection concludes with six review articles covering ten works, including Simon’s posthumously published Archipel et Nord. With its combination of stocktaking surveys, substantial reviews, and original research, the volume makes a valuable contribution to scholarship on Simon.

Jean H. Duffy
University of Edinburgh
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