In Search of Shelter, Subjectivity and Spaces of Loss in the Fiction of Paule Constant by Margot Miller (review)

Book Reviews153 mentoring future women artists such as Clara. Mentoring is learned and one acquires the talent and the taste for it by being first mentored—in Bianca's time, the mentor was a man—before becoming a woman mentor in one's own right. The reader needs to perform occasional mental acrobatics, for instance when Lewis refers to George Eliot long before she will discuss Eliot in detail in Chapter Four. On another occasion, one is surprised by the intrusion ( 1 89) of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky, two names from a very distant and different culture. These small surprises aside, Staël and Sand scholars will find much to celebrate in reading the book. Graduate students in comparative literature and women's studies, and feminists of all colors will welcome this panorama of the myth of female genius that flourished in spite of "the interdiction against woman as creator from Western mythology to Judeo-Christian iconography to psychoanalytic theory" (2). Aleksandra GruzinskaArizona State University Margot Miller. In Search of Shelter. Subjectivity and Spaces of Loss in the Fiction of Paule Constant. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford: Lexington Books, 2003. Pp 175. ISBN: 0-7391-0776-3. (Paper) $24.95. Paule Constant is known to feminists and women's studies circles. The warm penetrating study achieved by Margot Miller reflects her collective reception. Miller begins with the theme of"Relationship" (3), giving a close analysis of Constant's relationship to writing and how she defined the coherence of the characters she creates in terms of "the link between psychological (cognitive) theory and the emotional coherence of fictional characters and their stories through their internal, spatial poetics, the stories of movement and stasis" (9). That project is carried to a point but could certainly be developed as much as the true kernel of Miller's analysis which is psychological (Karen Horney) and feminist (following Constant's references to Le Deuxième Sexe). As Beauvoir's view ofwomen is anything but blindly sympathetic, Constant focuses on "a denunciation of the condition of women" (46) as well as on women's complicity, brutality and their conniving with the oppressive forces that generally alienate them. Women's behaviors are exposed without tenderness. "Constant is aware of her writing ... as an offer of uncomfortable truths to her readers . . ." (154). Yet her total lack of sympathy and warmth in the characters she creates in Confidence pour confidence for instance, may lessen the impact of her message because the characters do not offer a drawing blend of attraction and revulsion as they would in real life. They fit a theoretical mode expertly highlighted by Miller, who draws here on Bachelard, Horney, Beauvoir, and Cixous. Hence the challenge that no woman could read Constant's Goncourt-winning Confidence without recognizing themselves in one ofthe women might be overconfident on two accounts: the power of denial; and the hermeticism that somehow defines the subjective imprisonment ofAurore Amer (1 1 8-19), an alter ego of Constant herself. 154Women in French Studies Chapter One sorts out "submission" to powerful people in order to gain their protection, from "submission as a pursuit ofsainthood" (8). The former is considered a very costly survival strategy, especially when it becomes the latter and thus no longer serves to ensure the life of the submissive. Rather, it becomes self-centered in a project of auto-glorification divorced from powerful people, yet upholding their principles in exalted fashion, in pure ideals which, once applied to oneself, are self-sacrificial. The pursuit of sainthood as self-sacrifice comes from a murderous drive turned against oneself. Chapter Two focuses on the emotions of vanity, perfectionism and spite in Constant's female and male characters (9). Though this chapter highlights Honeyman's psychological profile, which states narcissism as a positive component of one's personality, Miller introduces her chapter with Beauvoir's contempt for the impotent feminine narcissistic stance which defeats any self-constructive gesture by women (47). It also contains a reflection on women and their bodies in academia, from the woman's body as scholarly topic to personal grooming and its ideology with respect to female professors and authors (66-79). Gloria Patters, "processed...