Zola, tel qu’en lui-même by Henri Mitterand (review)

of fiction as a documentary tool” (3–4). In the interest of clarity he distinguishes between narratives emerging from concentration camps, penal colonies, and extermination camps and selects to focus upon “the experience of prison as punishment ” (22). In the Serge chapter Sobanet demonstrates how Serge “fictionalized his experience behind bars in order to accentuate his critique of European capitalist power structures” (25). In dealing with Genet, Sobanet looks at a variety of his works, but directs the main thrust of his remarks to Miracle de la rose, “arguing that it should be read as a work of fiction in spite of its referential pact and legitimate documentary value” (64). In the Sarrazin section, Sobanet highlights the ways the novelist underscores the banalities of everyday prison life, and shows how the reality of prison is debilitation rather than rehabilitation. In writing about Bon’s Prison, Sobanet shows how he “uses his creative license to depict the carceral realm” (146). The sections on Genet and Bon are the strongest, most provocative in the book, and this is due in part to their being more talented writers than Serge and Sarrazin; they are capable of exploiting with great subtlety and detail the intersection of fact and fiction. Genet is so gifted in this respect that despite Sobanet’s forceful arguments, not to mention our knowledge of Genet’s life, Miracle seems to read like an elaborate, unrequited love story which happens to have a prison as a backdrop. Whatever documentary value one might attribute to this text, the fictional element clearly dominates. François Bon is another matter. Prison is in large measure the result of an atelier d’écriture Bon conducted for prisoners in Gradignan, a Bordeaux suburb. Sobanet does a fine job detailing the background for this experience, and profited from information Bon supplied him in interviews. The results are illuminating, but a bit disquieting as well. A book entitled Prison is finally not really about prison since Bon never asked his students “to write about their confinement, preferring to focus on their experience not as inmates, but [. . .] ‘citizens’”(153). At the same time, “fictional and non-fictional elements [. . .] are not only intertwined but are presented such that fiction can take on the guise of factual information and vice versa” (152). As Sobanet notes, Bon’s changes are neither artistically nor ideologically innocent and the alterations heighten both the semblance of truth and the alienation of the prisoners (159). What then does one make of Prison? What is the proper reading strategy? How does one determine its documentary value? More than any chapter in this study, the Bon section underscores the ambiguity of the concept of “documentary fiction,” and leads one to question its value as anything other than fiction. Sobanet really does not answer this question , but his thoughtful study forcefully brings it to our attention. Florida State University William Cloonan ALLEMAND, ROGER-MICHEL. Michel Butor: rencontre avec Roger-Michel Allemand. Paris: Argol, 2009. ISBN 978-2-915978-46-9. Pp. 234. 27 a. Avec ses premiers ouvrages aujourd’hui classiques comme L’Emploi du temps (1956) et La Modification (1957), l’on rattache encore Michel Butor au groupe du 392 FRENCH REVIEW 84.2 Nouveau Roman. Voilà deux romans qui, disait-on jadis, firent “avancer la théorie”, le premier en dramatisant la distinction devenue fontamentale en narratologie entre le temps de la fiction et le temps de la narration; le second en offrant un récit entièrement écrit à la deuxième personne (du pluriel), mutation vocale qui depuis, on le sait, a fait florès, notamment avec L’Homme qui dort de Georges Perec. Cependant, l’œuvre romanesque de Butor s’interrompt en 1960 avec Degrés qui déjà annonçait les “techniques du collage des livres suivants” (103) pour emprunter des voies génériquement si variées qu’il nous faut un véritable guide pour se frayer un chemin dans ce labyrinthe d’écrits où l’on a vite fait de perdre le fil. L’abondante bibliographie (222–24) atteste de cette prolixité: recueils de poèmes, récits de voyage, récits de rêve, montages-collages expérimentaux (Mobile sous...