Annie Ernaux: le temps et la mémoire éd. par Francine Best, et al (review)

Reviews 247 including an examination of the illustrated edition of Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel by Mary Meigs and a consideration of Blais’s expressionist aesthetic and reference to specific artworks (Edvard Munch, George Grosz), in addition to the beautifully nuanced discussions of the importance of Kokis’s paintings within his literary creations. While Bell is careful not to claim the role of art critic or historian, this impressive volume deftly handles concepts ranging from artist biography and selfportraiture to the use and affective value of color in convincingly explicating the fascinating “coprésences” and “entrecroisements” between text and image in these Québécois works. Lastly, although the concluding chapter is rather short and unsatisfying in its summary restating of evidence, it offers many suggestions for further avenues of possible research on related subjects—most notably the undoubtedly fertile study of the character of the artist in Québécois literature. Illinois Wesleyan University Scott Sheridan Best,Francine,Bruno Blanckeman,et Francine Dugast-Portes,éd.Annie Ernaux: le temps et la mémoire. Paris: Stock, 2014. ISBN 978-2-234-07821-5. Pp. 486. 23 a. In personal remarks included in this volume, Ernaux expresses a sense of wonder at having been the subject of a Colloque de Cerisy that attracted an international cast of participants from a range of disciplines. In her eyes, her work has always been modest in scope:“[J]e ne vois que la poursuite d’un désir obscur, persévérant, solitaire, de mettre en mots des choses de moi et du monde” (23). The editors of the collection (and organizers of the colloquy, held in July 2012) emphasize by contrast the extent to which Ernaux has called into question “la littérature académique [...] en intégrant les multiples registres de la culture, de la contre-culture ou des cultures parallèles et en entretenant la conscience du légitime et de l’illégitime” (18). Following each of the twenty-five individual contributions, they provide a synopsis of the ensuing discussion , while including verbatim “les interventions d’Annie Ernaux elle-même durant ces échanges,telles qu’elle les a retranscrites”(21).Her reactions—by turns appreciative, thoughtful, or on occasion somewhat defensive—constitute in effect an interesting subtext that runs through the volume as a whole. Of her books, it is Les années, not surprisingly, that draws the most attention, whether viewed as a “livre-somme” (69) by Aurélie Adler, praised by Judith Lyon-Caen for its sense of “vérité historique”(142), compared by Yvon Inizan to Paul Ricœur’s La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli as a means of capturing life experience, or appreciated by Fabrice Thumerel for its poetic effects. The more recent L’autre fille, Ernaux’s ‘letter’ to a sister that she never knew, but effectively replaced, is also the focus of two engaging studies: one by Françoise Simonet-Tenant, who explores what the “dossier génétique” (314) of the work, to which she was given access, can tell us about the author’s manner of writing in general; the other by Barbara Havercroft, whose subtle analysis uncovers discursive strategies at play in the published text. Among contributions of particular note more generally are Élise Hugueny-Léger’s argument that the notion of palimpseste, which figures prominently in the final stages of Les années, might in fact be an appropriate image for Ernaux’s writing more generally; Florence Bouchy’s appreciation of how Ernaux has drawn from personal experience a body of work that resonates with a broad and varied readership; and Jacques Lecarme’s argument, analogous in conclusion although developed along other lines, that “la force de l’autobiographie d’Annie Ernaux est de susciter une recherche de l’autobiographie propre à chaque lecteur” (206). In a very different vein, certain works of Ernaux are examined with those of foreign authors or artists, such as the British feminist historian, Carolyn Steedman (by Lyn Thomas), the Austrian novelist and playwright, Elfriede Jelinek (by Robert I. Kahn), or the American painter, Dorothea Tanning (by Isabelle Roussel-Gillet). Featuring work by most of the prominent critics who have...