Monsieur Vénus: A Materialist Novel (review)

In the last twenty years or so, Melanie Hawthorne, Janet Beizer, Maryline Lukacher, Diana Holmes, Dorothy Kelly, and Michael Finn, among others, have made substantial and original contributions to the study of Rachilde's literary work and world. The critics do not always agree on the degree of subversiveness of her novels but their studies have served to give Rachilde her rightful place as a central figure in the literary history of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France. The English translation of Monsieur Vénus (under review here) and a new French edition of this novel (also edited by Hawthorne and Constable) were published as companion volumes in 2004 by the Modern Language Association of America. The critical apparatuses (Introduction, Suggestions for Further Reading, Principal Works by Rachilde, Notes) are the same in both volumes. Perhaps the single most significant feature of these MLA editions of Rachilde's novel is that they restore three censored passages that were part of the first 1884 edition. These passages were omitted from all subsequent editions and translations. As Melanie Hawthorne points out in her Introduction, the restoration of the censored passages allows for an interesting reexamination of the novel's meanings and for some speculation on the reasons or the circumstances behind the original censorship. My review of the Hawthorne/Constable translation will focus on some aspects of their translation choices, on the critical apparatus, and on some new meanings that this translation makes possible.

Hawthorne and Constable used an earlier (1929) translation by Madeleine Boyd as the "starting point" for their translation, "but the present text represents a complete reworking of it" (xli). The brief "Translator's Note" outlines some of the more practical ways in which translation problems were handled. Because one assumes that university students and professors in language studies departments are primarily the target audience ("Anglophone readers," xlii) for this new edition, it would have been most useful for such an audience if the translators had devoted more space to a discussion of theoretical issues and assumptions underlying statements like the following one (which points to the ideological and political dimensions of Rachilde's novel): "The result is a translation that preserves as much as possible the style of the original French, a style that serves as a powerful vehicle of ideological critique" (xli). How do translators preserve "as much as possible" a style of "ideological critique"? Or, to formulate the question differently: did the translators wonder sometimes how their choices would affect Rachilde's enactment of "gender role inversions" (xxix)? Does their translation accentuate Rachilde's tendency to go "beyond the category of gender" (xxix)? In other words, I am expressing my curiosity about a thorny question that probably arises for any translator: how to remain as faithful as possible to the original text ("the present translation remains closer to the French" is Hawthorne and Constable's version of the claim), and, at the same time, espouse a particular political interpretation of the work being translated? In general, it must be said that this new translation reads very well and provides readers with a text that makes lexical and syntactic choices that ring true to the contemporary ear. The following excerpts suggest a tendency to make the translation more explicit than the original: "– Ma foi! Vous savez? On en a partout!" (17) is translated as "Well, you know, people do have hair all over!" (17); "Son roman était simple" (24) becomes "Her narrative was a simple one" (23); "Je commence à croire que nous sommes dans une pièce du Châtelet" (33) becomes "I'm beginning to think that we're in a play from the Châtelet theatre" (33).

The "Introduction" to this translation provides biographical and contextual material that will help readers to understand the place and relative importance of Monsieur Vénus in Rachilde's overall career. Details of the novel's sources...