Marcel Proust Aujourd'hui 7 ed. by Sjef Houppermans et al (review)

French Enlightenment’s development, Patrick O’Donovan investigates Alfred de Vigny’s discourse of happiness in post-revolutionary France “through which we glimpse joys still accessible to us in a world which seemed at the outset ‘fatal, écrasant et glacé’” (210), and Bradley Stephens studies the joy of Victor Hugo’s love affair with Juliette Drouet. The two following essays shed light on the concept of joie de vivre in Symbolist poetics and aesthetics. Beyond the void of Mallarmé’s néant, Hélène Stafford explores in the poet’s work a form of joie de vivre experienced through the mysterious inventiveness of writing: “Plus qu’aucun autre, Mallarmé connaît la jubilation de celui qui participe au sens des mots, à l’essence du poème” (237). Richard Hobbs draws for his part on Baudelaire’s hyperbolic style as he examines the relation between James Ensor’s search for a new poetic language and the French Symbolists’ artistic aspirations. Perpetuating the diverse perspectives the book presents on joie de vivre, the last four essays by Edward Nye, Martin Hurcombe, Gino Raymond, and Alison Finch reflect on the literature of cycling in Leblanc, Riol, Jarry, and Romains, love in the detective fiction of Japrisot, joyfulness in French-British difference, and the rich and complex correlation between joie de vivre and joies du livre in French literature, a joie de vivre that must always include “a sense of the Other” (311). Clemson University (SC) Eric Touya de Marenne HOUPPERMANS, SJEF et al., éd. Marcel Proust Aujourd’hui 7. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. ISBN 978-90-420-2772-5. Pp. 186. $57.35. This volume presents a rich variety of textual analyses and biographical research , in which both professional and amateur Proust lovers should be able to find something to pique their interest. Among the textual analyses, Edward Bizub’s examination of the influence of déjà-lu and déjà-vu on Marcel’s transformation into a writer introduces a compelling argument about the role of the father figure in the discovery of this lost, literary “moi,” both as a psychological guide and as a father-author who legitimizes the son’s work. Luzius Keller combines both a textual and historical approach in order to assess Proust’s actual exposure to Vermeer’s work and Proust’s attempt to create, through the juxtaposition of literal and figurative meanings, the multi-layers of paint he so admired in Vermeer’s work. The result is a Baudelairean mixture of the senses: a treatment on the color of sounds and of text. Luc Fraisse cleverly demonstrates how, using as a basis three simple, non-published dedications written by Proust, one can deduce intricate details about his relationships with his psychotherapists and with Jean Schlumberger from the NRF. Using a comparison of Proust’s correspondence and À la recherche, Françoise Leriche counters the criticism which first appeared in the 1950s that Proust’s heavy use of cultural references creates a pretentious distance between the reader and the book. Through copious examples, she shows that Proust, on the contrary, tailors these references to his audience and presents the readers of his novel with enough information to be able to navigate his allusions. Perhaps some of the weaker sections in the collection are those that seek to discover Proust’s influence on other authors. Antonio Oliviera’s essay on the common themes and metaphors between Proust and the Portuguese poet Eugenio de Andrade, searches for similarities between the works of the two authors, based on the fact that Andrade mentioned that there might be residues of Proust in Reviews 359 his own work. Although the article aptly presents the use of sensory memory, the inclusion of the language of flowers, and the exploration of the finite and infinite in Andrade’s poetry, these themes were not unique to Proust’s writing, and it would be difficult to infer any concrete relationship between the work of the two authors based solely on these examples. Manet von Montfrans explores a possible relation between Proust and Perec in their depictions of Venice. The focus is on Perec’s embroidering on Roussel’s biography by the invention of a fictional trip to...