Catherine Poisson, Sartre et Beauvoir, du je au nous

BOOK REVIEWS
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connaissance de Turner et de Ruskin pour confirmer la « dimension
sexuelle » de la confusion/inversion de la mer et de la terre dans la
description du paysage de Carquethuit. D'autres hypothèses de lecture
sont proposées, s'engageant dans des perspectives encore mal connues.
C'est le cas de Luzius Keller, qui reprend une intuition de Jacques
Rivière non développée depuis 1922, les implications futuristes et
cubistes de l'œuvre proustienne, et qui accompagne ses propres analyse
d'une très utile bibliographie.
Avec l'étude de Luc Fraisse, la tentation de la monographie et des
« détails matériels » est encore présente (lire ses hypothèses sur Odilon
Redon, dont le journal de voyage en Hollande se rapproche
effectivement de Carquethuit), mais une deuxième approche s'impose
ici, celle qui l'amène « au fond des choses ». Voir comment ce qu'il
appelle le « versant Vermeer d'Elstir » passe à Bergotte, c'est suivre le
cheminement du « hors d'oeuvre » à l'œuvre à venir, et assister « au
processus de la création ». Enfin, l'article de Bernard Brun qui a pour
point de départ une nomenclature (des éléments bibliographiques et
génétiques) aboutit à une méthodologie et à une problématique : quelle
serait la place de la peinture dans les réflexions du Narrateur sur la
représentation de la réalité par l'art.
Pascale McGarry
National University of Ireland, Dublin
Catherine Poisson, Sartre et Beauvoir, du je au nous
Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi, «Faux Titre» 225,2002,211 pp.
This study is a welcome addition to a growing body of work on the
crosscurrents of Sartre and Beauvoir's œuvre. Here, Poisson focuses on
the literary construction of that partnership. She analyses to what extent
the fictional and autobiographical works, diaries, letters and interviews
reveal what she terms a 'nous autobiographique'. This examination
begins with a re-evaluation of the mythologised Sartre-Beauvoir
relationship in the context of the 'portrait officiel' of the couple and
with reference to other famous literary couples (Arendt/Heidegger and
Triolet/Aragon, for example). Poisson identifies exhibitionism and the
secret, authenticity and fabrication, as distinctive features of this
project of self-representation. These are explored in the four chapters
which deal, respectively, with 'Le moi et ses écrits' (focusing on early
letters and journals); 'Le nous et ses fonctions' (tracing the 'nous' in
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these same texts and the early volumes of Beauvoir's autobiography);
'Transpositions' (which considers questions of genre and the
transposition of the relationship in the fiction, notably L'Age de raison
and L'Invitée); and finally 'Collaborations' (which considers Sartre and
Beauvoir as readers of each other's texts, and past, present and
projected visions of the partnership). Through close, intratextual
readings Poisson argues via the term 'ambi-bio-graphie' that there is an
ambidextrous quality to their self-representation that is permeated by
ambivalence and ambiguity. Although they did not engage directly in
joint projects, Poisson likens their self-representation in the public
sphere and its transposition in texts to a 'tentative de gémellité, un
moyen d'être soi et l'autre par le biais de récriture' (p. 23) which blurs
gender distinctions. References to a fantasy of unity, on the one hand,
and a phobia about loss of subjectivity, on the other, indicate how this
is negotiated differently in Sartre and Beauvoir's writing (more space
could have been devoted perhaps to the question why Beauvoir
participates far more in the construction of a 'nous' voice in her
writings than Sartre). The study is wide-ranging, and this ambitious
breadth of reference cannot, inevitably, always do justice to the wealth
of criticism in the field, especially the considerable recent body of
Anglo-American scholarship on questions of influence and
collaboration as far as their philosophical thought is concerned.
However, Poisson presents a carefully documented and clearly written
study which offers fresh perspectives on Beauvoir and Sartre's literary
enterprise and personal relationship.
Susan Bainbrigge
University of Edinburgh
Peter Noble, Beware the Stranger: The Survenant in the Quebec
Novel
Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi, Chiasma 13,2002,121pp.
Peter Noble, a noted student of Quebec literature, here offers a series
of readings of mordem Quebec novels. Originally papers at research
seminars in Reading, each is a close reading, with various psychocritical insights, and frequent reference to the critical literature. The
following, culled from a single page, will give a taste: 'Scott Lee takes
this interpretation even further', 'as Côté and Mitchell suggest', 'as
Andrée Stephan suggests', 'Lucie Guillemette points out' (all p. 74).