Mise au point sur la virgule by Gérard Barroy (review)

costs that are of less interest than a developed discussion of human relationships would have been. She finds a journal describing her father’s youth, a curious document written in the third person, focused almost entirely on his academic successes even though it covers the period of his marriage to Nina’s mother. Three other such texts make the father seem even more distant: instructions on countering the effects of witchcraft, a third-person narrative of his meeting with a marabout who “multiplies bank notes” and a laconic diary describing a trip to visit a Protestant “holy man” who can grant favors and cure diseases (for a price). There is no consistent religious paradigm: there are Requiem Masses for the father, but the date of his burial has to be postponed because it conflicts with the major harvest festival. The marabouts, though more closely associated with Islam, are not accepted in orthodox Muslim practice; here they seem merely “African,” since no reference to Islam occurs in the novel. Dr. Kouadio seems eclectic from every point of view. The fact of being of mixed race never figures in the narrative. Instead, Tadjo devotes a brief chapter to a meditation on being neither black nor white. The cover design, a woman’s head repeated once with eyes open, then with eyes closed, could evoke Nina’s sense of duality without unity. The mother remains distant from her daughters because she is a musician devoted to her art. But this narrative choice allows Tadjo to ignore what could be a tantalizing theme, a mother-daughter relationship involving racial difference. The overall impression of the reader at the end of this relatively brief novel is that Tadjo was tempted by too many themes to be able to develop them coherently. Even her central character appears sketched in and unresolved at the end of the work. Nina has come to the conclusion that the new children in her life are enrichment, but how this might fit with her ambiguous relationship to a man in Paris is another path not followed. Aquinas College (MI) Suzanne Gasster Carrierre Linguistics edited by Stacey Katz Bourns BARROY, GÉRARD. Mise au point sur la virgule. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010. ISBN 978-2296 -12465-3. Pp. 89. 11 a. Should this punning title be construed as an affirmation or be punctuated as an interrogation? Does this volume bring focus to the comma or rather blur its depth of field? Can so many pages devoted to this tiny stroke resolve the multiple semantic and syntactic factors that govern its use? A small group of readers, specifically editors and advanced teachers/students of French stylistics, will find this book useful. Other readers may find themselves overwhelmed by the dense detail, frustrated by the underdeveloped pedagogy, or simply baffled by the trajectory of the author’s project. Barroy identifies his concern in the book’s first paragraph: the placement of commas can be problematic, rendering the reading task difficult and unpleasant. His goals are likewise clearly presented: to determine the extent of comma misplacement and to analyze the reasons that account for this “comma abuse.” Ten pages of sentences gleaned from Libération and La 410 FRENCH REVIEW 85.2 Voix du Nord during the year 2010 more than suffice to illustrate the extent of the problem. Each misuse is followed by its corrigé. In his revisions, the author hints at the grammatical/stylistic considerations he will bring to bear upon the comma conundrum. To account for comma clutter, Barroy makes an intuitive assertion: its usage is poorly analyzed and taught. In his second chapter, the author reviews the history of the comma. This chapter is particularly disappointing, consisting of extensive quotations from two historians of punctuation. The author periodically intervenes with clarifications and expansions. Nevertheless, his voice is overpowered by quotations that can exceed a page and a half. Chapter 3 seeks to discover how the comma is taught. Once again, this section is flawed by heavy citation from pedagogical manuals with minimal analysis. After citing seven sections of the Bescherelle école, Barroy concludes, with regard to its explanation of comma usage: “C’est peu clair, insuffisant, approximatif. Surtout, ce n’est...