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generic term, conte philosophique, to classify a subset of Voltaire’s short fictions, Nicholas Cronk signals the creation of an “arbitrary” and “misleading” (73) category that distracts and restricts. In the closing piece, equally interesting, Malcolm Cook sheds light on the genesis of L’amazone, assessing its place in Bernardin’s writing. The other articles completing the volume cannot be covered in more detail within the frame of this review: Jenny Mander explores the collision between fiction and social philosophy in Marivaux’s Le paysan parvenu through the lenses of conjectural history, developed by Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment; Jean Sgard details Prévost’s preoccupation with the ethically monstrous; Judith Still looks at adoption in Prévost’s Histoire d’une Grecque moderne; James Fowler interrogates the meaning of prude in eighteenth-century France and England, searching for answers in Crébillon fils, Richardson, and Laclos; by using L’aveugle as an example, Katherine Astbury looks at how Madame Riccoboni was influenced by English moral journalism; Paul Pelckmans interprets La Morlière’s Motifs de la retraite as a rewriting of La princesse de Clèves; Simon Davies offers a close reading of Vivant Denon’s Point de lendemain; through Bernardin’s letters, Rebecca Ford accesses the difficulties inherent in the act of writing in the age of sociability; and Mark Darlow discusses Dalayrac’s Azémia in relation to insular fiction and constructions of exoticism. A recurrent theme is topical: literary and cultural transfers across geographical boundaries. The uneven ink tone in the copy reviewed, lack of standardization of references, and formatting problems unnecessarily disrupt the flow of reading. Presentation issues notwithstanding, the contributors’ deliberate engagement in a fruitful dialogue with Francis’s work allows the readers to (re)discover its breadth and complexity while recognizing its current relevance. Mount Allison University (NB, Canada) Christina Ionescu ROMESTAING, ALAIN. Jean Giono: le corps à l’œuvre. Paris: Champion, 2009. ISBN 978-27453 -1769-8. Pp. 448. 80 a. There is no question, as stated in the introduction, that the twentieth century saw an unparalleled transformation in the literary portrayal of the body. By illustrating that le corps gionien is “à la fois un objet de prédilection et quasi insaisissable , un objet au centre du texte et qui en explore pourtant les bords” (21), Romestaing reveals Giono’s pivotal role in that transformation. In phenomenological terms, the body in Giono’s œuvre may be understood as “l’être-au-monde [...] autrement dit conscience incarnée, mais dont l’incarnation est aussi un écartèlement” (9). The character studies that mark Giono’s post-World War II writing, moreover, are vivid spectacles in which the body “ne passe pas forcément par l’intermédiaire de personnages artistes ou artificieux. Il s’impose de luim ême, dès qu’il est question de présenter des personnages” (50). Putting words to what many have sensed but few have articulated, Romestaing insists that le corps gionien “est raconté, revenant sans cesse sur le devant de la scène à travers divers avatars narratifs” (106–07). This study is composed of three main parts, “Le corps dans le texte,” “Le corps et la plénitude du monde,” and “Le corps à l’envers.” Although their titles suggest that these are three discrete sections, there is significant overlap between Reviews 565 them; for instance, Romestaing takes up the discussion of the humanization of animals in each part. Some repetition is, perhaps, inevitable in a monothematic study; to be fair, each discussion approaches the motif from a slightly different angle, thereby reminding us that any narrative element may be viewed from multiple perspectives. Unfortunately, too, the study suffers at times from a somewhat choppy presentation; while part 1 forms a more or less coherent whole, the second and third parts are scattershot in places. In the last two thirds of the work, the reader is met with a series of chapters divided into a distracting number of subsections strung together with little transition or continuity. This ostensible attempt to guide the reader only highlights the frequently disjointed presentation. That said, Romestaing makes good use of extant scholarship and critical theory to enhance his analysis. An astute reader...

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