tudes Gidiennes I. (La Revue des Lettres Modernes, vols.

223-227)
Review by: Vinio Rossi
The French Review, Vol. 46, No. 5 (Apr., 1973), pp. 1018-1020
Published by: American Association of Teachers of French
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FRENCH REVIEW

1018

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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