The Imaginary Caribbean and Caribbean Imaginary by Michèle Praeger (review)

138Women in French Studies Praeger, Michèle. The Imaginary Caribbean and Caribbean Imaginary. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2003. Pp 211. ISBN 0-8032-3739-1. $45.00. In this engaging exploration ofthe complex question ofCaribbean identity , Praeger makes a persuasive argument for rethinking the relationship between the "imaginary" and the "real." She aptly maintains that the dichotomy between Imaginary and Symbolic that is a feature ofmany Western discourses perpetuates the erasure of those whose "reality" has long been defined for them through the lens of externally imposed ideologies. Praeger grounds her project on the idea ofa diverse and fluid Caribbean Imaginary that challenges the binaries of past/present, history/fiction, real/possible. Furthermore, this Imaginary may be inventing (realizing) what it imagines: "The 'true' people of the Caribbean are yet to come, and they will be, and perhaps already are, the figments ofa Caribbean Imaginary that is still in a state offormative flux" (2). Praeger's very topic thus challenges any metadiscursive attempt to contain it, and she does an admirable job of negotiating the complexities of her own critical position. Taking a fluid, multi-faceted and imaginative approach to her material, she avoids claiming authority to speak for and in the place of the Caribbean subject(s) ofher study. Instead she facilitates encounters among some of the most important francophone Caribbean writers of the twentieth century and lets them speak for and among themselves. She also scrutinizes many of the prevailing psychoanalytic, historiographie and anthropological discourses that have claimed to define and explain Caribbean identity. By bringing these discourses into "dialogic confrontations" with the works of selected Caribbean writers, she exposes their blind spots and biases and suggests how they might engage more productively with their Caribbean subjects . This dialogic approach is characteristic of the book as a whole, with each chapter constructed as a kind of "oblique and complex answer" to the one before. Praeger'sjudicious adaptation ofcritical discourses is noteworthy. Bringing psychoanalytic and feminist perspectives into dialogue with literary texts, she opens up these approaches to challenges and revisions and at the same time uses them to tease out and draw attention to "textual perplexities" which, for her, in turn suggest different ways of interpreting Caribbean identity. Praeger also makes a compelling argument for giving literature a privileged role in the work of understanding how cultural identities are imagined and constructed. Her readings and analyses clearly illustrate the value of using both literary and theoretical texts to explore interactions between the self and the world. The most clearly focused chapters are the two addressing the theories of créolité and creolization in the works of Chamoiseau, Confiant, Condé and Glissant. Praeger's detailed account ofthe changing contours ofthese movements is nuanced and informative. She also quite appropriately gives Glissant— and his vast, variable, rhizomatic Caribbean—privilege of place. In fact, Book Reviews139 Praeger's appreciation for the difficulty of Glissant's thought and for its dynamic potential to keep transcending its own conceptual borders reveals her sensitivity to the dangers of theoretical insularity and reductiveness. Among this book's other strengths I would include its attention to questions of gender . Cogent analyses of works by Condé and Lacrosil reveal how sexuality and feminine desire have gone unrecognized and unarticulated in accounts of Caribbean history and cultures. Praeger usefully highlights the complex interrelationships ofgender, race and class. Finally, a substantive bibliography, a functional index, and the inclusion of the original French for key citations all add to the usefulness of this volume. If I have one quibble with Praeger it is that her broadly defined conceptual framework does not accurately correspond to what she does in the book, and this lack of clarity makes the book's introduction somewhat fragmented and impressionistic. The title and some generalizing language in the early chapters foster an expectation of a more inclusive and exhaustive exploration , perhaps more fully engaged with anglophone and hispanophone Caribbean thinkers like Anderson, Walcott, Bénitez-Rojo, Gilroy, Brathwaite, and James. Certainly the broad influence of Fanon, Césaire, the créolistes and Glissantjustifies Praeger's regional focus, but she might have acknowledged that her venture into the Caribbean Imaginary and her engagement with...