Understanding Eugène Ionesco by Nancy Lane (review)

Book Reviews term value of plays: "In the end the best play about Vietnam will probably turn out to have been written by Sophocles" (196). Delaney's collection enables the reader to put such remarks in the context of both the interview situation and the larger debates about theater's social value that have occurred in the past three decades. Perhaps Stoppard's oft-quoted description of art as the "moral matrix, the moral sensibility from which we make OUf judgments about the world" from his 1974 interview "Ambushes for the Audience" allows for an easier transition to more overtly "political" interpretations of Stoppard as playwright. With Night and Day, the interviews take a new lone, lauding Stoppard for his newly commined stance as well as his involvement with writers such as Vaclav Havel. The image of Stoppard as the protector of style and intellectual writing in an era of shoddily written polemical plays gives way, luckily, to praise of works such as Professional Foul and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. The continued celebration of Stoppard's genius is apparent in later works, as interviewers carefully detail what might be called Stoppard's awakening awareness of the pressures of feminism and cultural difference. One reviewer marvels that Stoppard can write about love in The Real Thing; another is interested in the interest in colonial India of his 1991 radio play In the Native State. Praise of his heroines such as Annie, Hapgood, and what one reviewer calls "the deliciously promiscuous" FJora Crewe (253) seem to follow along these lines. Interest in ferreting out the mysteries of the playwright's craft and genius lessens; the fQcus shifts to how the already famous playwright changes with the time. In this collection, we develop a fuller sense of the playwright as he becomes a cultural mirror of the shift in our preoccupations. JOSEPHINE LEE, UNIVERSITY OF MJNNESOTA NANCY LANE. Understanding Eugene lonesco. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press '994· Pp. 242. $34·95· Nancy Lane's book, Understanding Eugene lonesco, is part of a series entitled Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature, edited by James Hardin and published at University of South Carolina Press. At latest count, twenty-one books are in print, covering major authors from Italo Calvino to Jean-Paul Sartre. The editor's preface describes the target readership as general - undergraduate and graduate students as well as non-academics. The series aims to provide an introduction to its authors. rather than extensive analysis (ix). Lane's contribution to the series meets these criteria very well. She opens with a chronology, which covers the major biographical events in lonesco's life as well as his literary career, and closes with a good select bibliography, which is organized into such user-friendly categories as works by the author, general and comparative books, cullections , and articles on specific works. Lane is clearly well aware of her readership. She maintains a nicely straightforward prose, free of jargon and easy to follow. The introduction to the book begins with an overview of Ionesco's biography, the Book Reviews 237 history of his plays and other writings, and their critical reception. Lane explains the major topics that appear throughout lonesco's career - the struggle with language, hatred of authority, and defense of the individual- and testifies to the value of his theater as a source of memorable experiences. The introduction then goes over in some detail the major topics, and plots three phases to laneseo's career: the anti-theater of the early plays such as The Bald Soprano; the more coherent and humanized project of The Chairs and the Berenger cycle; and the later dream work which includes A Hell of a Mess! and Journeys Among the Dead. The rest of the book then follows the design laid out in the introduction. It moves chronologically through the three phases. and in each phase discusses the applicable topics. This sort of structure logically organizes the book and makes it easy to follow. II works especially well for the reader who is looking for an introductory reading on a particular play or group of plays. However, it does become repetitious for someone who is reading...