Transfigurations of the Maghreb: Feminism, Decolonization, and Literature by Winnifred Woodhull (review)

L ’E s pr it C r éa te u r of the eighteenth-century representatives she wishes to include in her conspectus (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Montesquieu), it is nonetheless a boon when the likes of Flaubert and E. M. Forster (not to mention twentieth-century writers) are examined. For, concerned not to stress the dominance of a monolithic imperialism, she is able to underline the incongruity in modern times between European views of Islam and Western ideas about the Far East, emphasizing instead the heterogeneity of different orientalisms and specific examples of resistance to those views. With the establishment of such parameters, the author, in a brilliant first chapter, sets out the temporal and spatial limits to orientalism. Here, she is truly original, since few, if any, of her predecessors have noted, as she, that one should properly speak of “ orientalisms” in the plural or that many of today’s critical approaches to such a problem, conceived in response to current preoccupations and demands, are singularly inept, if not inexact. As phrased on p. 9: To the degree that dissent­ ing positions and practices are implicated in the very formations they address and oppose, the articulations of resistance and opposition by emergent or subaltern positions are not in themselves necessarily powerful or transforming. But... every position and practice shifts the conditions and alters the criteria, arguments, and rhetorical terms of enunciation and formation in the discourse. In this sense, power is not static, nor does it inhere in an agency or a position or practice in itself; rather it is found in the spatial and relational nonequiva­ lences of the discursive terrain. After such an inspired beginning, it is somewhat disappointing to see the author labor­ ing to dissect Flaubert’s orientalism, not only in Salammbô, but in l’Education senti­ mentale and in Madame Bovary, when further investigation of his correspondence, especially the letters from North Africa and comparison with Maxime du Camp’s account of the same experience might have been more fruitful, serving the author’s purpose better. Fortunately, she regains control in chapter five and concludes with a flourish of apposite­ ness when modern “ interpreters” are effectively dealt with, thanks to her theoretical acumen and genuine perceptions, making this book a very necessary adjunct to future studies of those different Orients latent within us all. Ba s il G u y University o f California, Berkeley Winnifred Woodhull, T r a n s f i g u r a t i o n s o f t h e M a g h r e b : F em in ism , D e c o l o n iz a t io n , a n d L i t e r a t u r e . Minneapolis & London: The University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Pp. xxiv + 223. The literature, culture and politics of the Maghreb has generated increasing inter­ national interest in recent years. The causes of this relatively sudden attention may include the debates revived by the commemoration of the Algerian War on its 30th anniversary in 1992, the heightened media attention given to the situation of Maghreb immigrants in France, the increasing visibility of Maghreb authors and their translation into other languages, and, finally, the general focus on the Arab world because of the Palestinian situation and the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. Transformations o f the Maghreb is a timely and provocative study of the intersection of literature, politics and culture concerning the Maghreb. It is also an ambitious one; the author states that she wants to examine the various manifestations of Maghreb culture from both sides of the Mediterranean, her purpose being to trace the formations and deformations of the myths and representations that have become grafted upon a dense and elusive reality. 120 S u m m e r 1994 B o o k R ev iew s Ms. Woodhull’s approach is somewhat unorthodox but nonetheless effective. Instead o f beginning with an historical background on the Maghreb and its literature, she engages the reader immediately in an examination of current literary and critical texts to correlate their production and reception with past and present political realities. While necessarily...