The Two Faces of Ionesco by Rosette C. Lamont and Melvin J. Friedman (review)

Reviews 261 and Peter Nichols reveals the hope of the comic spirit, enables us to hear more clearly its quiet voice. Perhaps Heilman has not in essentials reached far beyond Meredith (though he disposes of Bergson and enlarges upon Olson), but by his vast critical exploration of Western drama he enables us the better to understand comedy and its civilizing force in human society. He has not (God forbid) defined the genre in any empirical sense, nor would he; for it is an art form, each play unique, a piece of art, and he would not by definition destroy art. By his perceptive work he has thus made more clear the way to an art of life beyond tragedy, serene if not always secure. THOMAS B. STROUP The University of Kentucky Rosette C. Lamont and Melvin J. Friedman. The Two Faces of Ionesco. Troy, New York: Whitston Publishing Company, 1978. Pp. xxiii + 283. $15.00. The two faces of Ionesco, we are told in the preface to this stimu­ lating collection of essays, are those of the enfant terrible, descendant of Dada and the Marx brothers on the one hand (or face), and of the philosopher-king on the other. It is the latter which dominates the volume, although it is, of course, impossible to write of Ionesco without treating his comic absurdity. Indeed, one of the most compelling essays in the book, Roy Arthur Swanson’s “Ionesco’s Classical Absurdity,” convinc­ ingly argues that Ionesco writes true tragicomedy, defining this as a blend of tragic with comic in which the elements are indistinguishable as separate constituents. Professors Lamont and Friedman, whose names appear as authors of the volume, are, of course, its editors, and they have done a con­ scientious job, at least insofar as editing the scholarly work is concerned and in bringing together an impressive collection of studies focussing largely on Ionesco’s later work, a stress which is natural given the number of studies already devoted to his earlier plays. One might wish the editors had been as assiduous in their reading of the proofs as in their preparation of the manuscript, for an extraordinary number of typos escaped their attention, at least one every four or five pages. In the fifteen pieces depicting the “two faces of Ionesco,” many minds look at this major playwright of the “Absurd” from many perspec­ tives and over a period of many years. Almost beginning, and almost closing, the volume are two essays by Ionesco himself, translated (as is the rest of the original French material) by Prof. Lamont. The first, “Why do I Write? a Summing Up,” comes from a 1976 lecture, and develops some of the ideas contained in earlier Ionesco essays. His obses­ sion with a nostalgia for the lost paradise of childhood helps us to understand his love of Bauldelaire and Proust, the latter an author whose work Ionesco plans to adapt in some way to the theatre. His final piece, 262 Comparative Drama more a note than an essay, “Towards a Dream Theatre,” serves as an introduction to Prof. Lamont’s closing essay on Ionesco’s late play, L ’Homme aux valises. She penetratingly analyses this tragic piece, and with great sensitivity identifies the archetypal “man with the suitcases” as twentieth-century man, both “inveterate tourist” and “wandering Jew”: “With the Holocaust, and its succeeding mass decimations and expatriations, the Jew has become the Symbol of universal persecution, the essence of human suffering.” An indication of the breadth of ground covered by the volume may be seen in the contrast of this moving interpretation with Bruce Morrissette ’s brilliant exposition of “A ‘Lost’ Play by Ionesco: La Nièce-épouse.” With clarity, precision, and economy, Prof. Morrissette describes the surface and suggests the subtext of an early short piece (1953) still unpublished. Quoting sections of the dialogue, he convinces us that La Nièce-épouse is indeed “a brilliant improvisation by a relaxed and self-confident master of the genre.” Several of the essays in this volume are slight and fail to achieve either depth or originality. But most of them are skillful pieces treating somewhat new material descriptively and revealingly, or else taking...