L’Univers by Hubert Haddad (review)

the sacred bond of friendship. But this is not an institutionally religious narrative. Mando’s mother, Enza, receives respect initially from Loup for her pious ways, but eventually they become suspicious as she loses patience with the sickly Mando. The religious awe builds up through the recurrence of rituals honoring the scapegoat , the sacrifice, and the stranger. Meanwhile, the narrator’s name reminds us of Freud’s case of the Wolfman. The title of Grimbert’s novel refers to the French rendition of the moment when a psychotic patient reveals his sickness. As a student of psychoanalysis, Loup not only reminds us of this term’s significance but also of his mentor, Professor Psychopompe as the two friends call him, who insists that psychosis is innate. When Mando reveals his madness by talking about a visitor who has taken possession of him, Loup tries to save Mando by telling him that they could find the words to tell their narrative together. But Mando has already written their narrative and gives Loup his journal. Loup then realizes that it is too late to save his friend. Mando’s suicide makes Loup the scapegoat, the sacrificed victim of a relationship that could not endure. As the survivor, Loup is busy in his story ascribing betrayal to himself. Loup’s reader does not have access to the words of Mando’s journal. What the reader sees is Loup trying to analyze who is responsible for Mando’s psychosis. Although Loup tells us that this is not a story about women, there are women who have important roles to play. Loup’s own mother is absent, so his Aunt Gaby raises him and becomes his best friend after Mando. Loup promises her he will attend her deathbed. But comical events with Anna, a local member of a hospice, intervene so that Loup once again betrays a friendship . Promises seem to be challenges for Loup, who represents himself as leaving a trail of faithlessness, and who by contrast sees his friend Mando as keeping his word. Finally, the spaces between the paragraphs of Loup’s story also represent the blanks of Mando’s own version of their unhappy friendship. Trinity University (TX) Roland A. Champagne HADDAD, HUBERT. L’Univers. Paris: Zulma, 2009. ISBN 978-2-84304-474-8. Pp. 510. 22 a. In Hubert Haddad’s novel, a middle-aged astrophysicist, adventurer, and explorer finds himself shipwrecked on an island in the Pacific, and as a result suffers from a rare form of amnesia that has impaired his ability to make rational connections to the multiple memories which assail him: “Ce n’est pas la mémoire qui manque, mais les connexions” (27). Without identity, feeling abandoned, desperate, and suffering from a terrible emptiness, he does not know what has happened to him but he nonetheless realizes that he must count on himself alone to understand his past: “Puisqu’on ne veut m’aider ni me croire, et qu’on me prétend fou, dissimulateur, affabulateur même, je ne compterai qu’avec moim ême” (13). He will attempt to reconstruct if not restore his life by writing a dictionary which will enable the sequential continuance of thought: “Ce cahier sera donc une sorte de conquête du dedans par le dehors” (19). Moreover, the dictionary stands for hope, even if it is imaginary: “Un monde vivant m’attend, dans une bouleversante proximité, peut-être imaginaire” (30). But at the end of the novel, the narrator, despite tremendous efforts and with more than 700 entries, has not yet attained the knowledge sought: “J’ignore mon nom. Je ne sais rien de moi vraiment” (510). 418 FRENCH REVIEW 84.2 Upon reading the text, the reader soon comes to understand that this is no ordinary dictionary, for the definitions of the words cannot be separated from the uniquely unorthodox and intensely subjective perspective of the nameless narrator . The overwhelming diversity and unusual complexity if not baroque aspects of the thematic fabric, together with the discontinuity of thought, often give the text an illusiveness and an obscurity which make precise comprehension and intelligibility difficult. In addition, many of these definitions, being grounded not only in an astonishing...