L’autorité du discours: recherches sur le statut des textes et la circulation des idées dans l’Europe des Lumières by Franck Salaün (review)

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, he is at the top of his game when he analyses passages from key novels such as Regain. The comparisons between Giono’s narrative techniques and those of his predecessors provide a solid base for Romestaing’s analysis. For Giono, “l’identité est physique” (219), so it is not surprising that he creates physiognomic portraits à la Balzac. The parallels Romestaing draws between Le hussard sur le toit and Rabelais’s Pantagruel are especially intriguing; both authors, he argues, present us with “ le triomphe du bas corporel, le renversement carnavalesque du monde humain en un monde monstrueux de déjections et d’obscénités” (155). Baudelaire and Huysmans, moreover , inspire Giono to change the sense of smell “en une extraordinaire ‘faculté d’information spatiale’; mieux même: en une faculté de jouissance de l’espace” (24–25). Because of the link between bodily sensation and emotion, one would expect that Giono and Proust would be kindred spirits, yet Romestaing asserts that Giono is an “Anti-Proust:” “si les deux écrivains s’enracinent de la même manière dans le vécu et s’intéressent particulièrement aux mystères de la perception humaine, ils le font chacun en privilégiant l’un le temps, l’autre l’espace” (202). In Giono’s récits, then, physiological sensations “va[lent] autant que le déroulement du récit” (138). Despite the occasional lack of narrative flow, Romestaing’s work makes it clear that le corps gionien is essentially a stage for Giono’s brand of humanism, the means by which he calls into question man’s “condition terrestre” (14). What the reader takes away from the study is the conviction that Giono’s intent in showcasing the body is to recast Descartes’s cogito in physiological terms: “Je perçois donc je suis” (248). University of Arkansas Kathy Comfort SALAÜN, FRANCK. L’autorité du discours: recherches sur le statut des textes et la circulation des idées dans l’Europe des Lumières. Paris: Champion, 2010. ISBN 978-2-7453-20247 . Pp. 456. 85 a. Understanding the objective of Franck Salaün’s current work presents as much a challenge as pinpointing the arguments he details to support his aim. Ostensibly, he examines where certain thinkers and writers of the Lumières obtain their authority to speak as authorities themselves. Throughout the text, he poses many questions that typically serve as pedagogical devices aimed at assisting readers uncover so-called “truths” exposed in various literary genres of the day. In fact, the questions might distract and further confuse readers to the extent that 566 FRENCH REVIEW 85.3 they may find themselves searching for discrete answers instead of concentrating on just the material itself. The best use of his work, perhaps, is as a reexamination of the major philosophical and intellectual trends and ideas of the period as expressed by specific authors in both their obscure and celebrated writings. The question of newfound authorial and textual legitimacy that reverberated throughout eighteenth-century Europe is incorporated in Salaün’s study; it does not seem to reflect the raison d’être of the text. Salaün approaches his subject by creating twenty-six distinct chapters that are almost equally divided into four major sections. The first one concerns the nature of Enlightenment thought, that...