Rêver le monde écrire le monde: théorie et narrations d'Édouard Glissant (review)

Édouard Glissant, as the authors of this short study take care to point out, is an 'auteur difficile', who demands of his readers not only 'un effort intellectuel' (p. 9), but also a kind of devotion or loyalty, as his works accumulate references to themselves in such a way that the full resonance of the intertexts can only be appreciated if one is familiar with the œuvre as a whole. Biondi and Pessini ultimately show themselves to be able, sensitive and devoted readers of Glissant's work, even if their study lacks a clear, early definition of their precise aims, and rather limps along unconvincingly for much of its first half. The problem, it seems, is that the work was not initially conceived as a coherent unity, but is a collection of essays previously published by the two individual authors. Thus, there is a certain degree of fragmentation, and a general lack of critical direction, even if the three sections — 'Théoriser', 'Raconter les Antilles', and 'Raconter le Monde' — do create some sense of structure. The theory section is perhaps the least convincing, and the analysis here is at its most superficial, offering summary overviews of primary texts that demand the sharpest critical engagement. It is only with the first essay (by Biondi) on Le Quatrième Siècle that the analysis starts to gain some momentum, and that the authors finally come to terms with the 'difficulty' they identify with Glissant. Indeed, the contrast between the earlier and later essays is striking: both authors offer original and penetrating readings into Glissant's fiction in particular. Pessini analyses in depth the figure of the 'quimboiseur' in Le Quatrième Siècle, while Biondi's essay on the 'cri' as a recurrent verbal act in Glissant's work is original and compelling. The movement that the authors describe in Glissant's work begins and is grounded in the Antilles, but gradually looks outwards into the 'Tout-monde', the contemporary globalizing universe on which, the authors believe, Glissant has long cast his 'prophetic' gaze (p. 78). The three essays on Tout-monde find the authors truly hitting their stride, paying particular attention to Glissant's challenge to the western reader to 'se défaire d'habitudes mentales, de réflexes intellectuels très solidement ancrés', and to enter into 'Relation', the non-hierarchical play of differences that is one of Glissant's key concepts (p. 100). The final piece on Glissant's 2003 novel Ormerod is the longest and most persuasive of all the essays. Pessini combines a profound, intimate knowledge of Glissant's overall work as a 'mosaïque variée et complexe' with close reading of this text, in which the reader's acquaintance with the various parts of the mosaic is most tested and where echoes of previous symbols, characters and situations return, creating a new shape from familiar Glissantian obsessions. After something of a false start, the second half of this study offers some original and important analyses of Glissant's work.