L’école des filles, l’école des garcons by Daniel Picouly (review)

such a variety of disciplines year by year comes at a price—especially when, in this case,“friends”Debussy, Ravel, Isadora Duncan, Matisse, Bernhardt, and Rodin garner every bit as much attention as the figures singled out in the book’s title, and when they are accompanied by an even larger cast of secondary players including Citroën, de Gaulle, Zola, Braque, the Michelin brothers, the Boulanger sisters, Diaghilev, Satie, Cocteau, Coty, Chanel, and Apollinaire. McAuliffe relies heavily on transitional statements which make events seem more coincidental than they surely were; these range from the innocuous—“Meanwhile, back in Paris” (66)—to the more obtrusive and sometimes unintentionally humorous:“While Rodin was brooding on his inability to impress his fellow Frenchmen, Isadora Duncan was reveling in her growing success” (70);“While Debussy and Emma Bardac were on the brink of shedding their respective spouses, Marie and her beloved husband, Pierre Curie, were hard at work”(82);“While [Bernhardt’s grandchildren] gorged on cakes, businessmen throughout Paris were finding new and better ways for making money” (203). Another holdover from the first volume is McAuliffe’s habit of planting“teases”just before turning to someone or something else: “Unfortunately, though, [...] tragedy would eventually strike” (14); “[Duncan] was also about to meet someone who would change her life” (51); “as [Debussy] would eventually realize, the weakness and pain he already was experiencing would not be going away” (189); “Of course young Cocteau had no way of knowing that fame as a poet, novelist, and filmmaker lay ahead” (176). That said, it is difficult to imagine a more capable treatment of this complex period. McAuliffe’s analyses of the post-Dreyfus fallout, the evolution of Cubism, and especially the unfolding of the Great War are particularly impressive, and her lively anecdotes add freshness and new dimension to well-known figures. McAuliffe’s Toulouse-Lautrec, for example, sets petrol-soaked rags on fire in toilets; her Picasso fires a few shots from his Browning revolver when some Germans insist on“extracting aesthetic theories from him”(106); her Duncan,having returned to work after weaning her baby,has to contend with breast milk on her dancing costume; her Marie Curie brings x-ray cars to the war front. We learn about road races so perilous that drivers jettisoned doors and seats to lighten their loads, a cocktail called“the Earthquake”for its“shattering combination of cognac and absinthe” (41), the pre-scripted sequence of events involved in bringing Proust a second croissant. It is McAuliffe’s obvious delight in these quirky details, along with her general gift for storytelling that keeps us not only reading, but wanting for more. University of Arkansas Hope Christiansen Picouly, Daniel. L’école des filles, l’école des garçons. Paris: Hoëbeke, 2013. ISBN 9782 -84230-486-7. Pp. 174. 29,50 a. Après Nos histoires de France (2011) et Nos géographies de France (2012), deux ouvrages illustrés de planches et de cartes scolaires anciennes, Picouly se sert à nouveau 240 FRENCH REVIEW 88.3 Reviews 241 de documents authentiques pour faire revivre le fonctionnement de l’école primaire avant que la mixité scolaire ne devienne la règle (elle ne sera généralisée qu’au milieu des années 1970). Cette plongée dans les écoles françaises des années 1950, qui séparaient rigoureusement les garçons et les filles, constitue un rappel visuel que le contenu de l’enseignement lui-même était différencié. De façon schématique (et sans exagération): la mécanique pour les garçons, la cuisine pour les filles. Il s’agissait de préparer les garçons à entrer dans le monde du travail, alors que les filles étaient destinées à devenir des maîtresses de maison accomplies. Les nombreuses planches scolaires,d’ailleurs fort claires et précises,qui sont reproduites dans ce livre proviennent des collections de deux maisons d’éditions (MDI et Rossignol) spécialisées dans ce domaine. Quant aux dialogues pleins d’humour, ils évoquent le charme nostalgique de la série Le petit Nicolas de Sempé et Goscinny. En effet, au lieu d’accompagner les illustrations par un...