The Simplest of Signs: Victor Hugo and the Language of Images in France 1850–1950 (review)

To date the role interplay between art and literature in Hugo's work has been surprisingly under-discussed. Raser's book provides a lucid and thoughtful reading of the artistic signs within Hugo's oeuvre, reading them in the light of the work of Ruskin, Pierre Leroux and Barthes. This technique allows us not only to understand Hugo's symbols according to the theories of his own day (and Raser usefully reminds us of Hugo's enormous influence on nineteenth-century art critics), but also to see just how innovative a thinker Hugo was, as Barthes's own preoccupation with messages without codes provide an immensely enriching perspective on Hugo's elliptic style. The first chapter looks at simple signs in Hugo — dates, words, names and facts. Hugo's famous practice of altering the dates on his manuscripts in a bid to rewrite the past is given a persuasive Bloomian reading by Raser as evidence of Hugo's 'belatedness'. Instead of abolishing a specific predecessor, however, Hugo is abolishing history to create his own chronology, as these altered dates serve as a catalyst for narrative transformations that are fiction. Chapter Two focuses on Hugo's textual systems and is the chapter that offers the most in terms of close reading and subtle analysis of Hugo's texts. Particularly rewarding was the discussion of Le Dernier Jour d'un condamné, where Raser convincingly relates the account to the Autrefois/Aujourd'hui pattern of dichotomy to be found in Notre-Dame de Paris and Les Contemplations, and shows how it illustrates Kant's third Critique. I also found Raser's discussion of the interplay between the description of Frollo in his study in Notre-Dame de Paris and Rembrandt's painting of Faust in his Study immensely rich and absorbing. Chapter Three looks at literary accounts of the visual arts and presumably its aim is to situate Hugo as a crucial figure in this history. Much of this chapter is fascinating — I especially enjoyed Raser's subtle discussion of Tintoretto and Sartre. If I had a quibble about this section, it is that it occasionally loses Hugo from sight — there were moments when I needed reminding of the pertinence of this chapter to the project as a whole. A further gripe about the book as a whole is that it would have been interesting to include a section on Hugo as artist himself. Overall, however, these are small points and should not detract from the very real achievements of this original and absorbing book.