Paul Morand, singulier et pluriel (review)

The 17 studies in this volume, deriving from a conference originally held in 2002, provide a useful survey of relatively recent scholarship devoted to Morand. Focusing on the period 1924–34, Michel Collomb begins by considering why Morand was more successful as a nouvelliste than as a romancier, arguing that the stylistic energy of Morand's writing becomes dissipated in the longer form, that the author fails to develop the potential of many of his characters, and that his antipathy towards psychology results in him paying insufficient attention to his characters' inner world. In contrast, François Ouellet reads Morand's first novel, Lewis et Irène (1924), as a modernist text characterized by fragmentation and an indirect approach to the characters' inner world in which descriptions are used to suggest, rather than to state, psychology: what Collomb sees as a lack of interest in novelistic psychology is recast by Ouellet as a deliberate part of Morand's modernist aesthetic. A notable aspect of Morand's fiction is his fascination with classifications of various kinds; Serge Saulnier historicizes this obsession with boundaries in the context of an anxiety provoked by the Great War: Morand's misogyny, racism, and elitism therefore emerge as symptoms of identitarian insecurity. Gil Charbonnier also draws attention to the significance of the years 1914–18, arguing that Valery Larbaud's Barnabooth provided Morand with an 'ideal' image of Europe that would be shattered by the First World War and that this 'faille primitive' (p. 155) would prove a powerful motor in Morand's desire to write. Luc Fraisse explores in admirable detail the relationship between Morand and Proust, seen particularly in the latter's correspondence and the former's diary, but also in Proust's preface for Morand's 1921 collection of short stories, Tendres Stocks. Fraisse explores the connections between these various texts to argue that the generally light-hearted exchanges between the two men influenced some particularly important moments in A la recherche du temps perdu such as Bergotte's death and the comments on the 'nouvel écrivain' in Du côté des Guermantes. Turning from fiction, Young-Sook Kim's well-argued contribution identifies stylistic features that distinguish Morand's interwar 'portraits de ville'—New York (1929), Londres (1933), and Bucarest (1935)—from other forms of travel writing (especially the guidebook). Alessandro Missir di Lusignano offers some erudite observations on the significance of the Orient for Morand—whether 'l'Europe orientale', 'l'Orient de l'Europe', or 'l'Orient de l'Orient'. Raluca Riquet covers some similar ground, but with a particular focus on Morand's interest in Romania (Morand's wife, Hélène Soutzo, belonged to the Romanian diaspora which played such an important role in Parisian intellectual circles). Jacques Lecarme and Marc Dambre mount spirited defences of Morand's Journal inutile (1968–76), whose posthumous publication in 2001 provoked considerable polemic. Both critics suggest that denunciations of Morand's homophobia, antisemitism and racism have obscured significant engagement with the text, though neither is entirely convincing about why this diary should be considered 'un grand livre' (p. 41) rather than merely an interesting source of reference on Morand and his times.