Parcours critique II (1959-1991) (review)

As if it were not enough to have lived an extraordinary personal life and to have transformed this into seven volumes of autobiographical literature of exceptional quality, Parcours critique is testimony to the richness of Serge Doubrovsky's intellectual life. Grell's approach is original, focusing on Doubrovsky's work as a literary critic rather than as an autofictional writer and after a brief introduction and interview, a series of Doubrovsky's most significant critical articles are republished. These are grouped into two categories, those relating to twentieth-century literature and those focusing on seventeenth-century literature. They range in time span from 1959 to1991 and in subject matter from Corneille to Ionesco. In the introduction to Parcours critique it is established that the aim of the volume is to shed light upon 'les interférences entre son activité de romancier et son métier de professeur et critique' and this is certainly achieved. Indeed, if Doubrovsky's autofictional writings have long been known for their consistent blurring of boundaries, most notably those between fiction and fact, it becomes clear in this volume that a similar erosion of clear boundaries has been a feature of the different roles in Doubrovsky's own life —as university lecturer, literary critic and autofictional writer. Just like his literary writings, Doubrovsky's critical work is preoccupied by the recurring themes of existentialism, identity, the unconscious, the fallibility of memory and representation in literature. The endlessly spiralling interdependency between criticism–writing– teaching is reinforced when Doubrovsky agrees with Grell's comment in interview that 'vous indiquez par votre approche des textes la meilleure maniè re de vous lire'. A major difference between Doubrovsky's autofictions and his critical writings, however, is to be found in the image of the United States that emerges. Whereas in the former, self-imposed exile in the United States is presented as a source of personal angst for his intratextual avatar, both a cause and an effect of his problematic sense of Frenchness, Doubrovsky-the-critic is at pains to stress the vital role this country played in freeing him from the restrictive conventions of postwar French criticism. The United States is presented as a vital space of innovation and freedom in which he was able to explore emerging writers such as Ionesco. Doubrovsky's broad knowledge, both intellectual and personal, of some of the key figures of the twentieth century, including Sartre and Barthes, and his position both inside Frenchness and outside it, makes this collection of articles seem like a frieze of key moments in twentieth-century French critical thought. An author of sensational literature best known for the scandal surrounding the death of his wife and the accusation on mainstream French TV that his book was the cause of her suicide, or a serious and enduring contributor to the intellectual and literary landscape of the twentieth century? If there is still any doubt in this matter, Grell's compilation shows us that it is high time for us to recognize the talent and depth in all its dimensions of Doubrovsky's contribution to our field.