Women writing in contemporary France

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Misunderstandings in Desarthe’s novels 111 In Cinq photos de ma femme, the central character, Max, displays a contradictory approach to understanding which recalls that of Cyrille in Quelques minutes de bonheur absolu. If at times he is very much aware of the difficulties of both making himself understood and of understanding others, at other times he presumes that truth is a transparent absolute. It is this presumption which makes him believe that the identity (both physical and psychological) of his dead wife, Telma, is an eternal absolute which can be perceived and communicated by three artists from each of whom he commissions a portrait of her, even though he believes that while alive she eluded definition by him and, indeed, by other artists, namely the photographers who tried to photograph her: Max pensa que c’était une femme démoniaque et qu’elle avait soigneusement évité de se faire tirer le portrait. A présent qu’elle n’était plus là pour protester, il se réjouissait à l’idée de la fixer enfin, de caler son joli visage triangulaire dans un cadre doré et de passer des heures, en son immobile compagnie, à discuter en silence. 7 (Max thought she was fiendish and that she had carefully avoided having her portrait taken. Now that she was no longer there to protest, he took pleasure in the idea of fixing her once and for all, of capturing her pretty triangular face in a golden frame and of spending hours in her motionless company talking in silence. (p. 9)) Like Cyrille and the linguisticians, Max is oblivious to his own role in the mediation and construction of the other’s identity. In what may be considered a reworking of the Zeuxis story, 8 he provides each of the artists, who have no first-hand experience of Telma, with five images of her. Their access to her identity is therefore through the photographers’ interpretation of her, and this interpretation has been subjected to a further interpretation by Max who, from among all the photos and slides he has of her, selects only five, his criterion being that ‘il fallait choisir les plus significatives’ (p. 16) (‘he had to choose the most revealing ones’ (p. 8)). We are not informed why the ones he chooses are the most ‘revealing’, and this omission, together with the emphasis on his inability to understand Telma – who is frequently evoked as enigmatic and secretive (pp. 25, 26, 48) – highlights the opaque subjectivity and the arbitrariness of his choice, as indeed does the selection of just five photos and the commissioning of three portraits as opposed to any other number (as the character Nina points out (p. 142)), and the random selection of the artists: Angus from the telephone directory, Virginie from a newspaper advertisement, and Marion
112 Writing the dynamics of identity by chance encounter at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Moreover, in the case of the materials which he provides for the artists Virginie and Marion, he has transposed the original photos onto different media (slides and photocopies respectively), which constitutes a further reinterpretation, a further layer of subjectivity, separating them from the original subject. This entire project whereby Telma is reproduced by Max in different media, only to undergo a further series of interpretations in different media again, highlights the malleability of identity at the hands of the interpreter. As the artists reveal their respective approaches and finally their understanding of Telma, we recognise a recontextualisation of the debate central to the two earlier novels on the role of the perceiving subject in relation to the object. Virginie and Nina’s aspiration to reproduce Telma’s physical appearance as Max knew it implies that, in their opinion, they may find the key to her identity through him, a confidence expressed by the detail in which they explain to Max the sensitivity of their respective interpretation (pp. 159, 179–82). Moreover, by relying upon Max to define Telma’s physical attributes, as if he is an objective appraiser of Telma, the two artists signal to the reader how far removed their interpretation is from the object (pp. 74, 180). In contrast, Angus and Marion try to capture her essence in more abstract and figurative terms which flaunt the subjectivity of their interpretation. However, none of these approaches produces a portrait in which Max recognises the version of Telma he wishes to capture: A chacun d’eux, il avait parlé de la petite étincelle dans le regard et n’avait rencontré, les trois fois, que l’indifférence la plus sourde. ‘Ce que je veux, précisait-il, c’est ce petit air, qu’elle a, enfin, qu’elle avait. On ne se rend pas compte sur le photos, c’est pour ça que je vous en parle. La petite lumière dans les yeux. Vous voyez ce que je veux dire?’ C’est ça, cause toujours, papy. Il les aurait mangés tout crus. Comment pouvait-on accepter une commande si l’on n’en saisissait pas tous les termes? Une bande de malhonnêtes. (p. 164) (He had spoken to each of them about the little twinkle in her eye, and on all three occasions this had been greeted with nothing but dull indifference. ‘What I want’, he had specified, ‘is that little look that she has, well, that she had. You can’t really see it in the photos, that’s why I’m telling you about it. The little light in her eyes. Do you see what I mean?’ That’s right, Grandpa, you keep chatting. He could have eaten them for breakfast. How can you accept a commission when you haven’t grasped all the conditions? Bunch of crooks. (p. 144))
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WOMEN’S WRITING IN CONTEMPORARY F
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Copyright © Manchester University
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vi Contents 10 Saying the unsayable
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viii Contributors SHIRLEY JORDAN is
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to t
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2 Introduction introduce to English
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4 Introduction became more and more
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6 Introduction French ‘difference
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8 Introduction essential issues to
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10 Introduction Indeed, much contem
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12 Introduction phototextual projec
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14 Introduction about the body or e
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16 Introduction European Union) has
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18 Introduction Béatrice de Jurque
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20 Introduction and the group, the
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22 Introduction Feminist Perspectiv
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24 Introduction Barthes, Image, Mus
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26 Introduction 33 This is a wider
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1 VICTORIA BEST Louise L. Lambrichs
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Lambrichs: trauma, dream and narrat
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Memory and identity in Redonnet’s
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3 KATHRYN ROBSON The female vampire
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Chawaf ’s melancholic autofiction
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Page 76 and 77: 4 GILL RYE Lost and found: mother-d
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Page 88 and 89: 5 ELIZABETH FALLAIZE Puzzling out t
Page 90 and 91: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 79 for o
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Page 96 and 97: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 85 fathe
Page 98 and 99: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père 87 other
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Page 102: II Writing the dynamics of identity
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Page 117 and 118: 7 SARAH ALYN STACEY ‘On ne s’en
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Page 129 and 130: 8 GILL RYE Textual mirrors and unce
Page 141 and 142: 9 SIOBHAN MCILVANNEY The articulati
Page 153 and 154: 10 SHIRLEY JORDAN Saying the unsaya
Page 166: III Transgressions and transformati
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162 Transgressions and transformati
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13 MARGARET-ANNE HUTTON ‘Il n’y
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GILL RYE AND MICHAEL WORTON Conclus
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224 Conclusion bi-cultural selves o
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INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR BIBLIOGRAPHY Chri
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228 Individual author bibliography
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GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Abraham, Nicol
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252 General bibliography Cottenet-H
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254 General bibliography Irigaray,
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256 General bibliography Roudinesco
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INDEX Literary works can be found u
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260 Index fiction(s) (cont.) detect
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262 Index Sebbar, Leïla (cont.) Pa
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Women writing in contemporary France

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