La mémoire des lettres: la lettre dans les Mémoires du XVIIe siècle par by Myriam Tsimbidy (review)

transposed into another, but that similar suggestions or feelings could be inspired by or reflected in the different arts. The final section of the book looks at Stendhal’s use of footnotes, underlining, and markings in his manuscripts and his books, and also in other authors’ books. In the latter we see Stendhal creating himself while absorbing others. For Stendhal lovers, this book provides useful and enriching information as a backdrop to the author’s works. Boston University Dorothy Kelly Tsimbidy, Myriam. La mémoire des lettres: la lettre dans les Mémoires du XVIIe siècle. Paris: Garnier, 2013. ISBN 978-2-8124-0902-8. Pp. 348. 39 a. The early modern memoirist tells or re-tells a bit of history from a specific, personal point of view, and often from a position of disgrace. Tsimbidy argues that letters embedded in a memoir shape and advance the narrative constructed by the memoirist, and furthermore, that the placement and editing of those letters serve the fundamental purpose of the memoir: to justify the actions of its author. In her first chapter, Tsimbidy describes the criteria she used in determining which memoirs to include in her study. She selected memoirs dealing with events that occurred during the years 1643–61, the decades of the minority of Louis XIV. This reader finds the choice of that time period somewhat arbitrary, despite Tsimbidy’s claim that it is at the heart of the evolution of the memoir genre. Nevertheless, the mid-seventeenth century is a deeply interesting, even pivotal point in French history, and Tsimbidy was quite thorough in her inclusion of memoirs from the period. Chapter two addresses the authenticity of embedded letters, which fall almost exclusively in the categories of public,political,and military correspondence.Tsimbidy describes ways that seventeenthcentury readers might have been persuaded of the credibility of those letters. She concludes, however, that the great majority of embedded letters were modified or even entirely invented by the memoirists. She points out that even letters that were not altered acquired a changed meaning when they were recontextualized as part of a memoir. The memoirists’presentation of letters embedded in their texts is the subject of the third chapter. Some letters were inserted intact, but others were edited so that they became an integral part of the narrative, rather than remaining a separate, distinct document. In the fourth chapter, Tsimbidy examines the degree to which various memoirs are themselves epistolary in form and in style. Chapter five is an exploration of the double function of the embedded letter, which serves as both a mechanism to advance the memoir’s narrative, and a source of information, presented to the reader as reliable and true because the letter exists (or is purported to exist) independently of the memoir. The final chapter examines the embedded letter as a reflection of the author of the memoir. Some embedded letters were written by the memoirist, or addressed directly to him or her. Other letters describe the memoirist’s actions, but are 238 FRENCH REVIEW 89.2 Reviews 239 outside his or her personal correspondence, having been written by a third party. Tsimbidy asserts that even the decision to include a letter or letters,and the framing and use of those letters in a memoir, reveal much about the memoirist. Tsimbidy’s book is rich in detailed examples, amply contextualized. Her comments on the style in which the letters are written are enlightening, as are her comparisons of stylistic differences between the letters and the memoirs in which they are embedded.La mémoire des lettres enriches our understanding of the function of both letters and memoirs during the early modern era, and reveals much about the intersection of the genres. Saint Louis University Kathleen M. Llewellyn Watt, Adam, éd. Marcel Proust in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013. ISBN 978-1-107-02189-1. Pp. 264. $99. Cet ouvrage est ambitieux puisqu’il s’efforce, comme l’indique son titre, de situer Proust et son chef-d’œuvre À la recherche du temps perdu dans leur contexte culturel et socio-historique, mais il traite aussi la biographie, la correspondance et les autres œuvres de l’écrivain ainsi que...