Je voudrais parler de Duras: entretien inédit avec Michèle Manceaux par Yann Andréa (review)

Reviews 247 vitrées et à donner à l’image une teinte bleu-gris, parti pris à mi-chemin du réalisme et du cliché générique. Malgré ces faiblesses, la sobriété de la mise en scène et l’indéniable talent des comédiens constituent des atouts de taille qui justifient que l’on voie le film et qu’on garde un œil attentif à la carrière du prometteur Nicolas Silhol. Villanova University (PA) François Massonnat Literary History and Criticism edited by Marion Geiger Andréa, Yann. Je voudrais parler de Duras: entretien inédit avec Michèle Manceaux. Paris: Pauvert, 2016. ISBN 978-2-720-21547-6. Pp. 111. This posthumous, yet unpublished interview (2–3 Oct. 1982) crosses multiple boundaries. Is it literary criticism or (auto)biography? Societal and sexual norms are uprooted. Much is revealed, yet so much remains unsaid. Manceaux, a long-term friend of Duras (6), interviews Andréa. However, she barely speaks, except to occasionally press him to say more about his feelings for Duras, and to further explain how his homosexuality affects their relationship. “Je voudrais parler de Duras,” he begins.What follows, however, is a complex dance exposing mutual obsession, a game of control in which Duras always dominates. Despite her never entering the room, her presence is not only that of the woman hovering somewhere nearby, but of the present author and young girl she once was. For her readers, the timing of the interview (two years before the publication of L’amant) proves fascinating, as the dance of pronouns, sexual obsession, hints of incest, domination, and control play out here, showing that, while Andréa purportedly interprets Duras as both woman and writer, her ever present pen and“force”overshadows what is said. The book builds slowly, given Andréa’s initial apparent resistance to analyze or state anything beyond banal details. His total obsession with her texts and films obliterates his daily routine, even after their “meet cute”at a debate following a presentation of her film India Song.A few drinks, a passing invitation to write her at her 5 rue Benoît home incite six years of love letters. These declarations of love paired with total devotion to her writing elicit only one response. Nonetheless, Andréa shows up at her country home and, leaving all behind, stays. He is enticed by her voice, authority, and especially her “force” (18), and the dance of passion and death commences. With continual references to her texts, his interpretations of their relationship could easily be describing her written words. For instance, “la vérité de la passion, la vérité de l’amour, c’est la mort”could easily describe multiple works by Duras (27).A“total,”“absolute,”but“abstract”love consumes him (23) even before the physical enters the couple’s relationship. Fiction, from her pseudonym to her oeuvre, consternates his desire for veracity, according to the frustrated Andréa. Yet it is fiction both on the page and in the bedroom that enthralls him and keeps him there. He continuously interprets her behavior, reminding this reader of other men in her life (from Mascolo to the critic Vircondelet)—indeed, always aware of the danger of betrayal, he carefully tries to keep her central to the discussion, as previously arranged with Duras, who permits this interview (78–80). “J’ai l’impression que c’est elle qui crée tout,” he states (87). In short, some will appreciate the work for the lurid details of the battle between homosexual and heterosexual desire, obsession and control; others will rightfully find it intriguing for the relation between fiction and life, and the mirror this “present” reflects on her written and lived past. Augusta University (GA) and University of Wisconsin, Madison E. Nicole Meyer Basquin,Guillaume.Jean-Jacques Schuhl: du dandysme en littérature.Paris: Champion, 2016. ISBN 978-2-7453-3032-1. Pp. 200. Jean-Jacques Schuhl’s career arc is an interesting one: five books published from 1972 to 2014; a Goncourt in 2000 for Ingrid Caven; a yawning gap of twenty-four years between his second novel and his third. The question that inevitably arises is whether...