Artaud and the Gnostic Drama (review)

Book Reviews reader, Breton prefers the margins, the space where the reader might make his or her annotations —highlights his ambivalence as author or "authority" versus reader. Breton, however , cannot resist "the grip of the octopus," the name of his favorite film, as he tells us in Nadja, of a Chinese man followed by himself and by himself, etc., as he enters President Wilson's office—an apt metaphor for self-aggrandizement that books make possible for the author. It is surprising that Motte doesn't make reference to Breton's game of hide and seek or the game of the name in Nadja. The peek-a-boo aspect of this work is what makes it compelling . It leaves a space for the reader to discover aspects o f the author obscure to himself. There is also an important error that the author should correct in a réédition: Breton revised Nadja in 1962, not in 1966. The revised edition that Motte refers to was published in 1964. These criticisms should not take away from the fact that this is an engaging book leaving wide margins for the reader to wrangle and play with the author. It should be added that two of the chapters of Playtexts, "Speculative Belletto" and "Carnal Reyes," were first published in slightly different form in L'Esprit Créateur. Barbara Lekatsas Hofstra University Jane Goodall. Artaud and the Gnostic Drama. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp. 230. In Artaud and the Gnostic Drama, Jane Goodall uncovers parallels between Gnostic doctrine and the work of Antonin Artaud. Her hypothesis is clearly stated in the context of a comprehensive presentation of the main articulations of Gnosticism. According to her, "Artaud shares with the Gnostics a conviction that the world of forms is a false creation, that is, continues to be governed and directed through the work of evil, and that he is trapped in it" (17). She draws upon Artaud's early poems and his "correspondance avec Jacques Rivière" to establish the grounds of her hypothesis. Her argument unfolds through a chronological study of Artaud's reflection on literary creation and more precisely on the impossibility of expression due to the inadequacy of words. Her study offers a muchneeded evaluation of Artaud's neglected writings from his years of "incarceration" until his death. Goodall's thorough research and erudition do not, however, reconcile fundamental differences existing between Artaud and the Gnostics. The heterogeneity of Artaud's work sometimes makes it difficult to view it as gnostic or to tie it to any particular genre or system of thought. While the Gnostics do not question the entire creation, Artaud does. The Gnostics believe tfiat God in His absoluteness is indifferent to our world, the creator of which was not God, but a demiurge, whom Goodall characterizes as "an excessive manifestation of form" (10). Our world resulted from the "materializations of the passions arising from lack: anguish, terror, bewilderment [...] and ignorance [...]" (11). But according to Artaud, there is no demiurge who prevails, but a God that controls the entire creation, including our unconscious, and prevents the thinking mind from surpassing Him, from usurping His power. To reject creation as it exists implies finding an original way to build and attain a new cosmogony, which cannot be the task of a preconceived initiatory esoterism . Contrary to the Gnostics, there is no such thing as a false creation for Artaud—a creation that, if "erased," would reveal the true creation of God far removed from the world of matter. VOL. XXXVI, NO. 4 101 L'Esprit Créateur Artaud's thought cannot be circumscribed by a specific religious or esoteric belief, for his lucidity led him too far to accept any such given system. He wrote in the 1940s: "toutes les lois cosmiques sont des conventions" (XIX, 69). He declared numerous times his autonomy vis-à -vis all systems: "J'ai mon idée à moi de la naissance, de la vie, de la mort, de la réalité, et je n'admets pas qu'on m'en impose ou m'en suggère aucune.. ." (Ephémère 6). His own system presents a mixture of Judeo-Christianism and Oriental and Amerindian philosophies...