The Novel Map
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The Novel Map The Novel Map Space and Subjectivity in Nineteenth-Century French Fiction Patrick M. Bray northwestern university press evanston, illinois Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyright © 2013 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2013. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available from the Library of Congress. Except where otherwise noted, this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. In all cases attribution should include the following information: Bray, Patrick M. The Novel Map: Space and Subjectivity in Nineteenth-Century French Fiction. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2013. The following material is excluded from the license: Illustrations and the earlier version of chapter 4 as outlined in the Author’s Note For permissions beyond the scope of this license, visit www.nupress.northwestern.edu An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books open access for the public good. More information about the initiative and links to the open-access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Author’s Note xiii Introduction Here and There: The Subject in Space and Text 3 PART I Stendhal’s Privilege 19 Chapter One The Life and Death of Henry Brulard 23 Chapter Two The Ghost in the Map 41 PART II Nerval Beyond Narrative 61 Chapter Three Orientations: Writing the Self in Nerval’s Voyage en Orient 65 Chapter Four Unfolding Nerval 85 PART III Sand’s Utopian Subjects 107 Chapter Five Drowning in the Text: Space and Indiana 111 Chapter Six Carte Blanche: Charting Utopia in Sand’s Nanon 129 PART IV Branching Off: Genealogy and Map in the Rougon-Macquart 147 Chapter Seven Zola and the Contradictory Origins of the Novel 151 Chapter Eight Mapping Creative Destruction in Zola 169 PART V Proust’s Double Text 189 Chapter Nine The Law of the Land 193 Chapter Ten Creating a Space for Time 213 Conclusion Now and Then: Virtual Spaces and Real Subjects in the Twenty-First Century 229 Notes 233 Works Cited 255 Index 263 Illustrations PART I Figure 1.1 The narrator as Zadig 29 Figure 1.2 Henry in the corner H, the rest of his family in a line at D 31 Figure 1.3 Henry in his bedroom 37 Figure 1.4 Routes taken at various stages of life 53 PART II Figure 2.1 Nerval’s Fantastic Genealogy 87 PART III Figure 3.1 Ahun and Its Moutier 140 Figure 3.2 The Bois de Villemort, Crevant, and the area around Sand’s fi ctional “Île aux fades” 141 Figure 3.3 The blank space corresponding to the “Île aux fades” 142 PART IV Figure 4.1 Zola’s preliminary map of the region surrounding Plassans 160 Figure 4.2 The Aire Saint-Mittre 161 Figure 4.3 1878 genealogical tree revised by Zola 182 Figure 4.4 Defi nitive genealogical tree for the Rougon-Macquart 186 vii Acknowledgments This book attests to my enduring fascination with spaces and places. While writing this book over the years, I have had the good fortune of hiking above an ocean of fog in Big Sur, sneaking into the catacombs of Paris at night, walking through an inhabited cemetery in Cairo, and contemplating an unending sea of cornfi elds in Champaign. But a book is made of more than nostalgic atmospheres. Innumerable friends and colleagues have nourished this project with their time and insight. Nearly every sentence bears the trace of a conversation (real or imagined) with a dear friend, to the extent that rereading my text is like traveling across a virtual space of memory. Textual time travel is all the more impor- tant when it becomes the only way to communicate with those who have passed away. This book began life as a dissertation at Harvard, the idea for which came from seminars on authorship and literary theory taught by Abby Zanger and Naomi Schor. My advisor, Janet Beizer, and my readers, Tom Conley and Christie McDonald, offered not only a wealth of knowledge and insight, but have followed the project through all its stages. I am grateful for their mentoring and remain awed by their scholarship. Nelly Furman has been a friend and mentor from the beginning; her enthusiasm inspired me to become a dix-neuvièmiste. Lawrence Kritzman, through his devotion to the study of literature and the warmth of his friendship, has taught me the value of an intellectual community. The Bibliothèque municipale de Grenoble graciously allowed me to consult the manuscript of Stendhal’s Vie de Henry Brulard, which proved invaluable to the fi rst two chapters. Stanley Hoffman and Michel Zinc fa- cilitated my entry into the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, where I was able to scrutinize fi rsthand Gérard de Nerval’s “Généalogie fantastique.” I owe thanks to the Sablé Center at the University of Toronto for allowing me to consult their materials on Zola’s dossiers for the Rougon-Macquart. I have benefi ted from the fi nancial support of several institutions whose help was crucial to the realization of this project and for which I am duly grateful. I received a dissertation completion fellowship granted by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, a summer faculty fellowship from Indiana University, a Hewlett international research travel grant, and a ix x Acknowledgments humanities released time grant as well as a publication subvention from the University of Illinois. I would also like to thank Jonathan Strauss, Emily Apter, and Lawrence Kritzman for generously inviting me to speak at their institutions; the Zola chapters of the book have greatly benefi ted from the discussions that ensued. Signifi cant portions of the book were read at different stages by Lia Brozgal, Ross Chambers, Elisabeth Hodges, Natasha Lee, Richard Rego- sin, Philip Usher, Armine Mortimer, and Lawrence Schehr. I thank all of them for their encouragement, their careful reading, and especially for their patience in correcting my myriad typographical whims and rhetori- cal fl ights of fancy. My editor, Henry Carrigan Jr., deserves special thanks for believing in the project from an early stage and shepherding it through the review process. I would like to thank Andrea Goulet and David Bell, whose comments enriched the fi nal manuscript. The support, friendship, and dynamic energy from three intellectual communities have sustained me during the project. At both the Nineteenth- Century French Studies and the Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century French and Francophone Studies Colloquia, an incredible group of friends and scholars meets once a year and inspires me throughout the year: Bet- tina Lerner, Ari Blatt, Sara Pappas, Jonathan Strauss, Marina van Zuylen, Deborah Jenson, Maurie Samuels, Dorian Bell, Lauren Fortner, Alison James, Steve Spaulding, Alison Rice, Jeff Fort, Joseph Mai, and countless others. At Indiana University, I particularly appreciated the intellectual camaraderie of Sonya Stephens, Oana Panaïté, Margot Gray, Caroline Strobbe, Gil Chaitin, and Jérôme Brillaud. At the University of Illinois, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone in the French Department for their warm welcome and continued support: Jean-Philippe Mathy, Ar- mine Mortimer, Karen Fresco, Margaret C. Flinn, Alain Fresco, Laurence Mall, Adlai Murdoch, Peter Golato, Zsuzsanna Fagyal, Marcus Keller, Annie Tremblay, and Émile Talbot. Larry Schehr’s critical insight, humor, and friendship cannot be replaced. Students in my graduate seminars on literary and spatial theory engaged in exciting discussions with me and helped to refi ne my arguments. I am particularly indebted to Jenelle Grant, Elizabeth Black, and Audrey Évrard. Other colleagues at Illinois have expanded my intellectual horizons and have created an incredibly rich community of friends and scholars (in no particular order, and with apologies to anyone unintentionally left out): Jim Hansen, Renée Trilling, Justine Murison, Derek Riddle, Rob Rushing, Lilya Kaganovsky, Car- oline Szylowicz, Jane Kuntz, Richard Powers, David O’Brien, Jennifer Greenhill, Irene Small, Masumi Iriye, Lauren Goodlad, Michael Roth- berg, Eleanor Courtemanche, and Ted Underwood. Acknowledgments xi Jean-Louis Jeannelle, Louis-Georges Tin, Estelle Castro, Julien Artero, Pauline Perrignon, Julien Meyer, and Catherine Meyer have all provided friendship, thrilling conversation, editorial advice, lodging, and numerous lessons on how to be a French intellectual. Maj-Britt Eagle fi rst brought me to literature, philosophy, and critical theory, and inadvertently saved me from medical school. I am deeply grateful to my parents, Pamela Bray and David Rydland, for instilling in me a love of books and an under- standing of the vital importance of beautiful landscapes. I owe an unpay- able debt to my late grandparents, Gordon and Luella Dague, for their countless sacrifi ces and unwavering support. I dedicate this book to my wife Maggie and to my son Sebastian—may we continue to build beautiful things together. Author’s Note All translations are mine, unless otherwise cited. An earlier version of chapter 4 appeared as an article in French Forum under the title “Lost in the Fold: Space and Subjectivity in Gérard de Nerval’s ‘Généalogie’ and Sylvie,” French Forum 31, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 35–51. I would like to thank the editors of that journal for their kind permission to reprint the article. xiii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 The Novel Map 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 1 2 INTRODUCTION 3 4 5 6 Here and There: The Subject in Space 7 8 and Text 9 10 11 12 13 Talisman and Map 14 15 Toward the end of October 1830, an unnamed young man, having bet 16 and lost his last coin on cards at the Palais Royal, enters a curiosity shop 17 on the Left Bank to while away the hours until the evening, when he can 18 throw himself in the Seine under cover of darkness.