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Apostille by Gérard Genette

2013; American Association of Teachers of French; Volume: 86; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tfr.2013.0302

2329-7131

Warren Motte,

French Literature and Critical Theory

tout le monde sait ce qu’est un groom, comment ça marche et pour quoi c’est faire.” (86) Gailly’s narrators are frequently distracted. Speaking of his work, the narrator of “La roue” notes, “Tout est bon pour m’en distraire. Tout prétexte qui passe, je l’attrape” (14). Yet it is from these ostensible distractions that the narrators craft their stories. The diversions engender both plot elements and an opportunity to contemplate the act of writing. With references to Proust, Shakespeare, Jean Echenoz, and even Gailly’s 1996 novel L’incident, the collection is peppered with comments on writing and the difference between the written and spoken word: “Non, je préférai qu’elle l’écrive, ça prend un autre sens, c’est d’une autre portée, d’un autre poids” (45), we read in “Le lilas lie de vin.” In “Le perroquet rouge” the narrator asks the woman he “claims to love” what she would like for her birthday, to which she responds, “Que tu m’écrives l’histoire du perroquet rouge” (29–30). Contemplating the meaning of this odd request, he assumes his partner’s voice and concludes: “Autrement dit, J’aimerais qu’enfin tu me dises ce que j’aime, ce que j’aime qu’on me dise et qu’on ne m’a jamais dit” (33). Writing may be a simple diversion, one may write simply from boredom (“Quel besoin ai-je de raconter la suite? Quelle raison? L’ennui précisément” [52]), nevertheless it provides Gailly’s narrators the means to better understand themselves and the world around them, even if uncertainties remain. In “Le lilas lie de vin” we again find a male narrator who writes for a woman: “Je lui donnais des choses à lire. Je lui écrivais. Des choses pas toujours de son goût. On n’écrit que rarement des choses du goût des autres” (37). If this is true, then La roue et autres nouvelles is an exception. Bradley University (IL) Alexander Hertich GENETTE, GÉRARD. Apostille. Paris: Seuil, 2012. ISBN 978-2-02-105114-8. Pp. 328. 21 a. Readers of Genette have long taken it for granted that an extremely agile intelligence animates his work. With Bardadrac (2006), Codicille (2009), and, now, Apostille, we are in a position to savor his keen wit, as well. That latter quality is very much on display in the pleasantly miscellaneous Apostille, as Genette ranges from manuscripts to monkeys to mopeds, from Stan Getz to Frank Gehry, touching upon subjects as diverse as icecaps, bedroom slippers, bananas, squirrels, colloquia , trombones, syntax, spinach, Barack Obama, concertos, life, truth, and keyboards (both musical and writerly). Such structure as there may be found inheres in what Genette calls the “désordre alphabétique” (10) of the entries in this volume. He clearly revels in the freedom that such disorder allows him, even as he apologizes (with glorious insincerity) for the “allure un peu [...] acéphale de ce livre” (75). Those who have read Genette’s recent work will find a pleasant mix of the familiar and the new here. A long entry entitled “Médialecte” in which Genette comments pungently upon certain lexical tics, neologisms, and outright solecisms in contemporary mass media extends a discussion initiated in Bardadrac and continued in Codicille. Familiar, too, is the entry called “Souvenances,” in which each element is preceded by the phrase “Je me souviens,” an approach inspired (as Genette notes in Bardadrac) by Georges Perec. One is cheered to find yet another meditation on metalepsis, and it is interesting to watch how Genette’s thinking on that figure evolves. Earlier in his career, he imagined metalepsis as 786 FRENCH REVIEW 86.4 exceptional and transgressive; more recently, he has come to see it as something that is firmly anchored in our culture, popping up again and again in unexpected places. His fascination with metalepsis is itself fascinating, “Je n’en aurai jamais fini avec cette figure, c‘est elle qui bientôt m’enterrera” (215). Regarding the new, Genette discusses music (both classical and jazz) with more precision here. By that I mean technical precision (see the entry entitled “Modulation,” for example...