Moins que livres: essai sur l'illisibilité, du livre des Lumières à la boîte de Cornell by Lorraine Piroux (review)

relations, controlled his public image, and was involved in the practical facets of publishing. Retracing the origin of the work and exploring its continued reverberations in contemporary literature, the argument and its transitions seem at times whimsical , even somewhat arbitrary. But this meandering is, to a large extent, a reflection of the complex task of following the many proliferations of ‘le fait littéraire.’ While a totality is neither the goal nor a possibility, Naturel pays little attention to current literary phenomena, such as Proust’s presence on the Internet or in popular culture. Another loose end in the argument: Naturel suggests that Proust was a precursor in his engagement with the complex social processes surrounding literature. A comparison with other writers of the time or an explanation of how later authors adopted his strategies would have made this point more convincing . Nevertheless, Naturel’s book makes a fascinating contribution to Proust scholarship; it broadly charts Proust’s creative process, literary acumen, and lasting influence. Fort Lewis College (CO) Nathan Guss PIROUX, LORRAINE. Moins que livres: essai sur l’illisibilité, du livre des Lumières à la boîte de Cornell. Québec: Nota Bene, 2010. ISBN 978-2-89518-304-4. Pp. 216. $27,95 Can. Piroux explores how the materiality of the book is confronted in works by Diderot, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Graffigny, and the twentieth-century American artist Joseph Cornell. Citing research on the history of the book by Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin, Piroux observes that the relative compactness of the codex volume (compared to the potentially unending Web page) signifies a totality of thought in Western culture. The typesetting conventions and smaller formats of books published in the eighteenth century rendered the materiality of the page transparent and allowed readers to focus their attention on the discourse of the author. A ‘serious’ work in print would not call attention to its material dimensions. Against this prevalent idea of the book, Piroux thus defines illisibilité: “[le regard du lecteur] s’arrête temporairement sur l’aspect formel, visuel, acoustique, rythmique, ou même tactile [...] de l’écriture” (22). This interruption of the transmission of knowledge threatens control over the book’s content and opens the written work to further rewriting and potential transformation. Three of Piroux’s four studies focus on works by eighteenth-century writers. In her chapter on Diderot, she argues that although the philosophe’s writing usually assumed the form of a printed volume, it often challenged the idea that the text is unified and self-contained. In Éloge de Richardson, Diderot dreams of finding the letters of Pamela and Clarissa stuffed in a dresser and reading them before they were assembled as a coherent narrative. For Piroux, this dream is emblematic of a book that eschews dematerialized coherence in favor of fragmented text that calls attention to its sensible form. In her chapter on the 1806 Didot edition of Paul et Virginie, Piroux observes that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre distrusted the book as a vehicle for knowledge and preferred intensive and meditative reading practices. The deluxe Didot edition restored a more restricted relationship between reader and the text, discouraged critical engagement (as well as piracy), and promoted an affective reading experience with illustrations that reduce the narrative to six essential moments. In her chapter on Graffigny’s Lettres Reviews 191 d’une Péruvienne, Piroux begins with the Chevalier de Jaucourt’s definition of écriture in the Encyclopédie and observes in his description of Incan quipus an ambivalence toward writing as either a mystified language or the immediate symbols of human thought. The tactility of quipus contrasts sharply with the inscription of letters on paper but also suggests that writing with a pen and ink is not far removed from cords and knots. Graffigny’s novel reaffirms transparency over materiality in writing by recounting how the Incan princess Zilia abandons the impenetrable poetics of quipus, translates her own texts into French, and turns to reading books in her newly acquired library. Piroux’s chapter on Cornell’s art books is an anachronistic shift from the earlier chapters, and while it examines Cornell’s unique approach to the illisibilité of the...