L’Autoportrait bleu by Noémi Lefebvre (review)

woman knows about her husband’s office wife besides having a second rival in the computer before which he spends more of his time than he does with her. The other heroine has already begun divorce proceedings but is faced with a legal system that discourages divorce. In the end, both couples find redemption and a renewal of their love in a written text. The word thus comes to their rescue in a kind of Proustian epiphany. In the first story, the narratrice discovers a poem written by her husband years before, expressing his deep love for her. When she shows it to him, reconciliation takes place. In the other story, the enterprising heroine seeks refuge from her conjugal frustrations in writing. As in Proust, the sorrows and joys of daily life are imparted with a spiritual significance by being raised to the level of artistic expression. The narratrice gains a new sense of selfworth and fulfillment in her life by transforming it into the stuff of literature. Her writing career turns out to have practical benefits as well. When she asks her husband to read her manuscript—that is, computer print-out—he is so impressed by these previously undiscovered depths in his spouse that they too become reconciled. These five tales are a fascinating and delightful view of Africa today. University of Denver James P. Gilroy LEFEBVRE, NOÉMI. L’Autoportrait bleu. Paris: Gallimard, 2009. ISBN 978-2-07-012633-0. Pp. 143. 13,90 a. Our protagonist is returning from Berlin. In the plane, in total stream of consciousness, she reveals her innermost thoughts of the events that occurred during her stay there. She met a pianist/composer in the Café Einstein. At some point, he told her of his viewing of “l’Autoportrait bleu” by Schonberg, an antiNazi painter/pianist, on display in an estate once owned by the National Socialists, now under the control of the federal German government. This painting becomes the catalyst for a new musical phrase the pianist creates, based on the tableau. The inner monologue of the main character covers a former love interest (a parachutist), her sister’s education (or lack of it), and the invention of the wing flaps on the plane. If that isn’t enough, her mind travels to the Wannsee Conference, brought up by the pianist/composer, and to other composers under the Nazi régime. The problem is that the author suffers from a Proustian complex: her sentences run on for pages, her paragraphs are endless, she has no chapters, and the comma is her best friend. It works for Proust, but not as well for Noémi Lefebvre. In addition, the author assumes that the reader has a working knowledge of German, as well as one of musical terminology. To complicate matters even more, she goes off on yet another tangent in English, vociferating on blended whiskies on the rocks, malts, and anti-Americanism. Her logorrhea continues with her discussion on another of her former acquaintances, an alcoholic—Lefebvre’s own addiction being her verbosity. Her inner monologue is so non-sequential, that none of her characters have names, and we can’t really develop a liking for or dislike of any of them: “Le pianiste avait été seul avec ses idées sur la poésie morte et l’abolition musicale, s’était retrouvé brisé comme un individu par une solitude improductive et dévastatrice, les mains entourant le verre et les yeux dans son whisky allongé” (47). This is one of the shortest sentences in the novel, and in truth contains several of the themes the author gets lost in throughout the 202 FRENCH REVIEW 84.1 piece: solitude; creation and history (where they collide, they truly leave victims); the role of music (can it be squashed by a totalitarian régime?). Discovering somewhat more of the protagonist’s personality, the reader learns she has a failed marriage behind her, due in part to her insouciance. She tries too hard to please; she is pathologically anorexic; she talks far too much. She repeats ad nauseam many expressions, and it is less than clear whether she is the pianist’s muse, or simply...