Taches de soleil, ou d’ombre: notes sauvegardées 1952–2005 par Philippe Jaccottet (review)

Reviews 215 Jaccottet, Philippe. Taches de soleil, ou d’ombre: notes sauvegardées 1952–2005. Paris: Bruit du temps, 2013. ISBN 978-2-35873-053-2. Pp. 207. 22 a. These notes on literature and everyday life make for enjoyable reading sure to please lovers of finely burnished prose. Best known for his emphasis on place and presence in self-conscious yet expansive essays and verse, Jaccottet shows his gift for discussion of “peines et joies quotidiennes”(59) in relatively ample storytelling form, with perhaps still greater generosity and honesty than in his other journal collections, which tend toward fragmentation and intense introspection and for the most part omit overly private concerns. Literary criticism, which addresses numerous writers, is interwoven into diary excerpts that may have previously been deemed too informal but are for this reason somewhat different and new. Citations and related reflections add material of interest to specialists that ranges from Heidegger to haiku, as well as background information for the general reader that sheds light on contemporary debates. Every so often, extended commentary contextualizes earlier publications. Within this general framework, a focus on authenticity recurs, for example distaste for“poètes savants [... qui] multiplient les paroles sur les paroles et sur le silence”(59), refusal of “les extravagances surréalistes” (110), appreciation for Audiberti’s “vers courts” and “chanson verveuse, populacière et métaphysique” (137), and high regard for how Supervielle can “tirer une magie des mots les plus banals” (184). Personal anecdotes on visits to Du Bouchet,Ponge,and Tortel,seen in the light of their individual strengths and sufferings, illuminate chapters of poetic history with admirable clarity and restraint.Also key to this volume are its varied depictions of time passing: experiences in the outer world, reactions to local and global events, sorrow at friends and loved ones dying, subconscious regret expressed through dream tales. In entries from 1967, Jaccottet’s eye for detail moves from“cette lumière d’opale qui luit sur les feuilles comme autant de gouttes d’eau” (70) to the still pertinent observation that “[s]i nous voyons autour de nous tant de personnes se tourner vers le yoga ou d’autres disciplines analogues, c’est bien que nous souffrons de plus en plus d’un problème de souffle”due to our “corps ‘spirituel’” being “bombardé d’images [...] en grande partie nocives” (71). In 1988, we go from graceful snow“presque plus bienfaisante que la floraison trop précoce, comme égarée, des amandiers”(113) to“Étiemble conversant avec Pivot [...] à la TV” and “les illusions de tant d’intellectuels de gauche, d’abord sur l’URSS, plus tard sur Mao” (114). The lengths at which he describes painful or quirky episodes of all sorts, while avoiding images or structures that might prove distracting, make this work an unusually fluid overview of experiences that shaped his voice. More than a miscellaneous compendium, Taches de soleil beautifully foregrounds the feeling of being achingly alive, aware of people and places and their effect on us as we maintain what he calls concerning Handke a “capacité infinie d’étonnement et d’admiration” (201) and learn to help words “fortifier la lumière ‘réélle’” (174). A welcome prelude to part one of Jaccottet’s forthcoming Œuvres in La Pléiade. Southwestern University (TX) Aaron Prevots ...