Études Gidiennes I. (La Revue des Lettres Modernes, vols. 223-227)Review by: Vinio RossiThe French Review, Vol. 46, No. 5 (Apr., 1973), pp. 1018-1020Published by: American Association of Teachers of FrenchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/388573 .

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1018 FRENCH REVIEW

essay, consequently, is divided into three parts, "Explication et analyse du caractere du heros-6goiste," "La Structure des recits," and "Analyse des procedes romanesques appropries au heros-egoi'ste."

Although the thesis and its organization seem reasonable, the essay is not quite convincing. Mrs. Cancalon characterizes, for example, "le heros-egoi'ste" by six themes which purport to relate each of Gide's protagonists to one another and determine their character (e.g., "la recherche de l'absolu," "le refus de la realit6," "le refus des contradictions de la nature humaine," etc.). That these do little to explain the hero's "egoisme" disappoints far less than the impression they create of falling far short of the level at which Gide was operating. His primary interests, as he frequently suggests in the Journal, lay not in self-preference but in the nature of the self, in what impedes its fulfillment. The discussion of narrative structures, too, lacks depth; topics such as linear monologues, tripartite division of the rdcits, manipulation of chronology, literary quotations and the direct expression of feeling need a clearer focus, one that might have been provided by the idea of structure as pattern or strategy. Finally, section three furnishes analyses of specific techniques in terms of the increased complexity of the protagonist. As he becomes less obsessed with himself (as are Andre Walter and Michel), the tale shifts focus from the individual to the couple (La Porte etroite and La Symphonie pastorale); finally, in Isabelle, Gide moves to "la creation d'une famille et d'un milieu" (p. 35). The narrative opens up to the outside world with marked increase in the number of dialogues, in the importance of secondary characters, in description and points of view. The evidence, it is true, is appropriate, but it does not take into coherent account the greater range of evidence in the works themselves. Les Cahiers d'Andrd Walter demonstrate that complexity is not always a function of proliferation. If one accepts Jean Hytier's evaluation of this first book (quoted, p. 15), one might see a progression in Gide's fiction from the complex to the simple, from "une dispersion confuse des materiaux" to a pruning and subsequent isolation and development of each of the "cuttings" in a single work. But Gide said as much in his often quoted "bourgeon" letter to M. Scheffer (O.C., IV, 616). Consequently, the correlation between hero and technique can lead to entirely different conclusions. More people talk in Jer6me's account because he takes his behavioral cues from others, especially from the true protagonist of the novel, Alissa; Michel, intent upon affirming his true self, chooses to take cues from no one except Menalque, hence theirs are the only conversations reported at length; Gerard builds fantasies on the data the world provides and so Isabelle requires the presentation of these data and the subsequent irony their ambiguity supplies.

Ultimately, the difficulty of the essay lies in one assumption. Surely "le style est l'homme m~me," but only in reality. In fiction, the various techniques Mrs. Cancalon discusses create and develop character, and do not simply emerge from some pre-existing personality.

Oberlin College Vinio Rossi

ETUDES GIDIENNES I. (La Revue des Lettres Modernes, vols. 223-227). Paris: Minard, 1970. Pp. 192.

One begins reading Cecile Delorme's long lead article, "Narcissisme et 'ducation dans l'oeuvre romanesque d'Andr' Gide," with certain preconceived

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REVIEWS 1019

ideas about the meaning of the title's key terms and about their possible relationship to one another in Gide's fiction. These ideas, as well as the author's assumption that all share her understanding of the subject, make the article tedious reading. But more than just a definition of terms is required. A discussion of education in Gide's view could have been pertinently developed, it seems to me, in terms of its possible good or bad effects and in terms of what Gide felt was absent in most European fiction: the development of the personality in relation to God or to the self (cf. Dostoievski, Coll. "Idees," p. 69). As for Narcissism, that is, self-preference, the inclination to see oneself mirrored in all of creation, Gide very early rejected it aesthetically and intellectually, if not always emotionally. Quite early Gide took to heart the wisdom of Christ's admonition to forsake self-preservation for his sake, and explained it as an invitation to abandon an image of oneself imposed by society, by family, that is, by education, in favor of the continual realization of one's potential, of one's authentic selves. Edouard, in 1925, anticipates Thesee (1946), when he advises Bernard to seek rules of conduct within himself, "d'avoir pour but le developpement de soi" (Les Faux-Monnayeurs in Romans, recits et soties, oeuvres lyriques, p. 1215). He repeats, moreover, Gide's own seminal formulation in the early journal: "Je ne veux plus comprendre une morale qui ne permette et n'enseigne pas le plus grand, le plus beau, le plus libre emploi et developpement de nos forces" (septembre 1894, JAG, I, 52). Of course, this all can be ascribed to a larger more generous understanding of Narcissism. Yet nowhere in the article are the ambiguities of the term even partially appreciated. Instead Cecile Delorme isolates Narcissus as the prototype of Gide's protagonists and analyses-occasionally psycho-analyses-him as Father, Son, in relation to the Mother, the Daughter, and finally, as Bastard. But these are all static images, beyond time and the dynamics inherent in any family life. And they are beyond the dynamics, too, of the work of art. Each successive image of Narcissus is pieced together from the full range of Gide's fiction; what results is a kind of Gidian Disneyland where the most unlikely characters rub elbows. One would welcome the narrator of Paludes, in full hysteria, crying that you cannot put things into a work of art, or take them out "que par force." "Un livre . . . mais un livre, Hubert, est clos, plein, lisse comme un oeuf" (Paludes, Livre de Poche, p. 60). And yet the realm of enquiry is, indeed, Gide's fiction. One asks, then, why this limitation when aesthetic questions are neglected and a wealth of appropriate material on the subject is available in all of Gide's works. In fact, Gide never tired of telling what he calls in the journal the most interesting of all human dramas, the struggle between the self and "ce qui l'empiche d'etre authentique. . .ce qui s'oppose a son integration."

The other two articles in this inaugural issue are shorter and somewhat more satisfying. Both are literary history and treat different phases of Gide's social consciousness. Jeff Last, in his "D'Oscar Wilde aux Nouvelles Nourritures," underlines the affinities between Wilde's 1890 pamphlet, The Soul of Man under Socialism, and the development of Gide's political thinking. In "Gide a travers la presse sovietique de 1932 a 1937," Alain Goulet documents Gide's fortunes in the Soviet press before, during, and after his voyage to the U.S.S.R. His scrutiny of various Soviet writers and their motives clarifies reasons behind the willingness of the Soviet intellectual to misunderstand Gide's professions of faith. Even more interesting would be understanding Gide's willingness to be misled and the degree to which his social thought was always askew in the Soviet view. Goulet does promise a thesis on "Gide et la vie sociale," currently in

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1020 FRENCH REVIEW

progress. Both essays are useful addenda to George I. Brachfeld's Andrd Gide and the Communist Temptation.

In outlining goals of this new journal, Claude Martin evokes an image of a "Gide-workshop." As a start, these essays should inspire the sort of discussions Professor Martin hopes will characterize the review.

Oberlin College Vinio Rossi

CAHIERS MARCEL PROUST, No. 3: Textes retrouvis, recueillis et presentes par Philip Kolb. Edition revue et augmentee. Paris: Gallimard, 1971. Pp. 427.

This new edition of Textes retrouves differs only slightly from the original version (Urbana, 1968). Aside from an updated bibliography containing twenty-one new titles, five texts have been added. The most significant of these are Proust's preface to Jacques-Emile Blanche's Propos de peintre (1919), which contains some charming reminiscences of Proust's childhood and adolescence in Auteuil, and his critical essay, "Pour un ami: remarques sur le style" (1920), reprinted in 1921 as the preface to Paul Morand's Tendres Stocks. Both these texts figured in Professor Kolb's original bibliography, but it helps to have them ready at hand. The other added texts include the slight "Pastiche de Pelleas et Me'lisande," published by Professor Kolb in 1971; a two-sentence fragment omitted from the Pleiade edition of A la recherche, entitled "La Mort de Swann" and first published in 1952 (also listed in the 1968 bibliography); and a short group of "Trois fragments et deux portraits," dating from the 1890's and first published by Larkin B. Price in 1969. Besides these additions, the only changes I note are: the unexplained omission of Professor Price's name from the title page; a few minor textual emendations, correcting errors first noted in Marcel Muller's review of the book (FR, Oct. 1969); omission of four pages of photocopies of original manuscripts owned by the Fonds Proust of the University of Illinois.

How useful will this new edition be to Proust specialists? Less so than was the original edition, for since 1968 almost all of the texts published by Professors Kolb and Price as inddits have appeared elsewhere. Thus, the eleven fragments from Jean Santeuil, a revelation in 1968, have since been incorporated, together with some hitherto unpublished passages, into Pierre Clarac's edition of the novel (Ple'iade, 1971), while the pastiches of Chateaubriand, Sainte-Beuve and Maeterlinck have appeared in J. Milly's critical edition of Les Pastiches de Proust (A. Colin, 1970). It is indeed surprising that the new edition of Textes retrouves takes no account of Milly's readings of the pastiches manuscripts, thus perpetuating a number of garbled renderings that puzzled readers of the 1968 edition. To cite but two glaring examples: "...n'ayant pu desalte'rer mes l4vres que quand tous ces sbires avaient un verre d'eau pure que m'offrir pour le chanteau de la Revolution" (p. 73), reads in Milly (p. 352): "n'ayant pour desalterer mes l4vres que le verre d'eau pure que m'offre le chantre(? ) de la Revolution," while "Ce qui confond ici c'est ... la naivet6 du provincial oui du natif de Combourg et de Quimper. Caumartin croyait au s&rieux d'une pareille escroquerie" (p. 74), reads in Milly (p. 360): ". ..la naivete du provincial, oui, du natif de Combourg et de Quimper-Corentin, croyant au s&rieix d'une pareille escroquerie." Milly himself notes that he has adopted Professor Kolb's readings

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