J. M. G. Le Clézio et la métaphore exotique by Bruno Thibault (review)

revisits the “ubiquitous culture of mother blaming” (141) and studies how Angot’s Léonore, toujours and Darrieussecq’s Le Mal de mer contrast with it. Clearly written, this book shows that “the figurative power of the female reproductive body is [currently] taken to new horizons” (74) and that women’s narratives “reveal how their individual experiences as mothers [continue to be] in tension with ideologies of good mothering” (116). Rye’s insights are both well-informed and illuminating. Davidson College (NC) Catherine Slawy-Sutton THIBAULT, BRUNO. J. M. G. Le Clézio et la métaphore exotique. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. ISBN 978-90-420-2646-9. Pp. 241. $70.00. This book argues that exoticism is at the heart of Le Clézio’s writing, defining a “métaphore exotique” as “l’inscription problématique de l’espace et du voyage dans l’écriture” (12). Another way to say it is that Le Clézio uses travel instead of time to organize and inform his works. In support of his thesis Thibault considers the œuvre thematically, a choice which leads to some repetition but which has the virtue of showing how Le Clézio, a nomadic writer himself who seems to be at home nowhere, has refined his criticism of Western society in some 22 works of fiction published since Le Procès-verbal in 1963. The voyages Le Clézio imagines often take his characters from a corrupt Western world to an innocent one inhabited by third-world people in touch with the spiritual. Le Clézio’s criticism of modernity being largely that it harms the psyche, Thibault’s analysis frequently evokes Freud, Jung, and Eliade. Le Clézio’s immigrant or indigenous third-world protagonists often suffer physically from economic hardship, but Le Clézio is more interested in the mental toll of poverty than its physical effects. Among themes Thibault discusses are l’errance, or escape from consumer culture through nomadism; l’abîme, in which a literal song is used to attack left-brain logic; le chamanisme, particularly Amerindian thought and practice; la méditation and l’éducation, which lead to initiation through archetypes; l’immigration, l’individuation, la romance, and l’utopie. These themes have recurred from one work to another, despite changing focus as Le Clézio’s thinking has developed , and they reflect his desire to present ways of life which exist in opposition to modern Western urban lifestyles. As Thibault’s discussion makes clear, Le Clézio’s exoticism can be problematic due to its idealization of non-technological societies and its tendency to treat non-Westerners as symbols rather than human beings. For example, Thibault calls Ouma in Le Chercheur d’or a symbol of the anima of Alexis, the protagonist: she is first a sensual being of pure exoticism, then “la ‘douce sœur’ sentimentale de la sublimation” (142), and finally a goddess. What she is not, is a realistic woman: as Thibault says, “la personnalité de l’héroïne apparaît peu vraisemblable ” (142). Alexis, a Western man, matters in his own right; Ouma counts only in relation to him. Similarly, Le Clézio uses Lalla, the protagonist of Désert, to “représenter l’immigré avec humanité” (110), and also to “incarne[r] surtout ‘l’Orient’ de l’esprit [...] où naissent les mythes et les archétypes” (111). This leaves little room to portray Lalla as a believable woman. A related issue is Le Clézio’s treatment of utopia in Ourania, which seems in some ways an idealistic paean to Amerindian culture but which shows “une profonde ambivalence” (217), Reviews 823 being both millennialist and nostalgic while revealing the failure of an edenic commune, as if l’errance is the only utopia. Le Clézio idealizes non-Western cultures , but he does not seem to see a future for them. Or, rather, he sees two opposite ones, both of which he endorses. In one future, the Third World peoples go away to smaller and smaller areas untouched by industrial society; in the other, they emigrate to Western countries, where they are accepted and valued but where they have to adapt, losing touch with their...