Danièle Sallenave et le don des morts (review)

In this fine addition to Rodopi's series of monographs on contemporary French authors, Bruno Thibault provides an overview of the works and philosophies of Danièle Sallenave (1940-). A native of Angers, normalienne and professor at Nanterre since the early 1970's, Sallenave has produced numerous novels and travel journals, as well as biographical and autobiographical essays, short stories and articles; some of her works have been adapted for the stage (Adieu, 1988, and Viol, 1997) and screen (La Vie fantôme, 1986). She is also an active participant in current social debates, and has spoken and written on matters ranging from feminism, globalization and republican values to the role of intellectuals in a democracy, the formation of a European identity, and political and social issues in Eastern European countries.

Sallenave is an eloquent spokeswoman for the meaning and value of cultural heritage. She asserts that great literary monuments are not intended to inculcate us with a predetermined world-view; instead, truly significant works will never cease to challenge us, and the ongoing process of understanding and even assessing them teaches us to think deeply, effectively, and freely. By assuming our cultural heritage—accepting le don des morts—we escape a reductive understanding of the world that surrounds us, and we can become meaningful participants in the future: "le don des morts nous rend [. . .] à un horizon d'émancipation, de responsabilité et de justice" (147).

Literature (and all art), for Sallenave, has a special capacity for linking the past, present and future, and her ongoing exploration of time and history unites her remarkably diverse corpus. Ruins are especially charged with meaning for her; these traces of bygone civilizations symbolize, in part, the past's continued relevance to the contemporary world. Many of Sallenave's works pertain to the relationship between individuals and their experience of time, and how they assume, or fail to assume, the reality of their historical situation.

Sallenave "insiste sur le fait que la littérature doit penser le réel et que le narrateur du récit doit partager avec le lecteur une expérience humaine authentique" (83); she laments what she sees as the excessive emphasis placed on formal elements of much contemporary literature. She finds the avant-garde's rejection of the great narrative models of the past rapid and even simplistic; she finds it more compelling to ask how this heritage can enrich contemporary works, as they do the literatures of the Antilles and Latin America. Sallenave's corpus testifies to her evolving ideas in the regard. In her first two novels, Paysage de ruines avec personnages (1975) and Le Voyage d'Amsterdam (1977), she challenges the limits of plot and character development, omits punctuation and experiments with alternating typefaces. Les Portes de Gubbio (1980), her third novel, marks her move into realistic writing (and was awarded the Prix Renaudot). When she rewrote Le Voyage d'Amsterdam in a realistic mode and published the new novel, La Vie fantôme, in 1986, it was a critical and popular success.

Sallenave maintains that the literary object will and must offer readers an ethical perspective (not to be confused with a moral or moralizing one): a means of interrogating existence and experience, and the values and mechanisms of society. For Sallenave, authors fulfill an important role by fostering debate; their analyses and commentaries preserve the possibility of social change. Les Portes de Gubbio tells the story of "S.," a composer living in an Eastern European country, who resists writing the facile patriotic music the government demands of him. Les Trois Minutes du diable (1994) is situated during the fall of Russian communism in the early 1990's. Nos Amours de la France (2002) consists of interviews with Périco Légasse and Philippe Petit, about the values of the Republic. Sallenave's travel journals offer a somewhat different perspective on her philosophy of engagement. She records the poverty and despair she sees in India without the mediating techniques—a blurry romanticism...