Female Journeys: Autobiographical Expressions by French and Italian Women by Claire Marrone (review)

Book Reviews143 Marrone, Claire. FemaleJourneys:AutobiographicalExpressions by French and Italian Women. Westport: Greenwood, 2000. Pp 200. ISBN 0-31330727 -X. $59.95. Women's autobiographical writings raise issues ofthe self, ofagency, often in terms ofconstructing an identity. Frequently these works must write against the conventions ofmale autobiography. In Female Journeys, Claire Marrone undertakes a study ofFrench and Italian women's autobiographical texts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Some ofthe authors she treats may be quite familiar, such asAnnieArnaux or SibellaAlerammo, yet one ofthe strengths of Marrone's study is that it also includes some less familiar names, placing them in key moments ofthe development ofwomen's writing. Marrone examines these texts in the context ofajourney, not unlike the bildungsroman. Across a wide range ofautobiographical genres, from letters to memoirs to novels, and an equally wide range ofsocial groups, she highlights a common trait that may be seen as an "awakening" that engenders a departure. The conceptual framework she establishes allows for the division ofher study into three sections: «Leaving the Country,» «Leaving the Family,» and «Leaving the Mother.» Marrone looks first at two nineteenth century writers, Princess Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso and Céleste Mogador. Although from entirely different social strata, their experiences reveal much about women's activism and the fight for socialjustice in the nineteenth century. These works show women who ventured far beyond the traditional geographic boundaries. Belgiojoso's Souvenirs d'exil (1850) combines two sub-genre ofautobiography, letters and travel narrative , written during her voyage to the Middle East, and Emina (1856) takes the form of a novel. In these texts Belgiojoso reflects upon the social constraints upon women in different cultures through autobiography and fiction. Céleste Mogadorjourneys from prostitute at sixteen to countess and writer, and geographically from France to Australia. Marrone establishes a two-part structure forMogador's Mémoires (1854): youth, disillusion, andthe break with hermother, followed by her development and the "Cinderella" love story, where she is saved by a "Prince Charming." In Mogador's life, nonetheless, the scenario was real, and where she tells the reader from first-hand knowledge ofthe life ofa prostitute , we also see how social taboos can be overcome to a certain extent. Her Un deuil au bout du monde (1 877), continues the autobiography, in a manner that Marrone compares to the kunstlerroman. "Leavingthe Family" pairs two importanttexts inthe history ofItalianwomen writers and their construction of the self, Sibilla Aleramo's Una donna (1906) and Oriana Fallaci's Lettera a un bambino mai nato (1975). Both texts confront the status ofwoman as mother, withAlerammo's bildungcharacterizedbybreaking with the familybut maintaining that status. Fallaci's innovative structure, ofmonologue and dialogue with the unborn child, signals a rupture with that status. Marrone points up, too, that Fallaci's text clearly places itself beyond the individual , leading to a collective vision offemale experience. The final section centers on the mother-daughter relationship. Marie Cardinal's now classic Les Mots pour le dire (1975) traces the journey from mental illness to writer. In 144Women in French Studies Ernaux's Unefemme (1987) andJe ne suispas sortie de ma nuit (1997), Marrone examines the problematic writing and rewriting ofthe self. Female Journeys creates a framework in which to examine disparate forms of women's life writing and places them in the context of current theoretical perspectives. The extensive bibliography will prove useful to anyone working in the areas of life writing and feminist criticism and the index is particularly comprehensive . The primary strengths ofMarrone's study include the bringing to the fore the works of Belgiojoso and Mogador and placing them in a continuum of women's writing. At times, however, the discussion in the briefcritical introduction seems unfocussed and parts two and three ofthe study go over much more familiar ground in too much detail. Nonetheless, Female Journeys takes us further along the road to understanding the wide variety of women's experiences and their struggle to find" the words to say it." Edith J. BenkovSan Diego State University Petit, Susan. Françoise Mallet-Joris. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001. Collection Monographique Rodopi XXXVII. Pp 158. ISBN: 90-420-1216-1. $23.00. In her knowledgeable critical study of Françoise...