Subjects of History: Identity and Memory in the First Person Narratives of Patrick Modiano, Assia Djebar, and Hervé Guibert by Vanessa Doriott Anderson Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Alice Kaplan, Supervisor ___________________________ David Bell ___________________________ Roberto Dainotto ___________________________ Laurent Dubois Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 i v ABSTRACT Subjects of History: Identity and Memory in the First Person Narratives of Patrick Modiano, Assia Djebar, and Hervé Guibert by Vanessa Doriott Anderson Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Alice Kaplan, Supervisor ___________________________ David Bell ___________________________ Roberto Dainotto ___________________________ Laurent Dubois An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2012 Copyright by Vanessa Doriott Anderson 2012 Abstract In the wake of a twentieth century marked by the Occupation, the Algerian War, the AIDS crisis, and the aftermath of these events, the debates surrounding French identity have acquired particular urgency. French novelists, meanwhile, have increasingly turned to first person narratives; autobiographies and especially autofictions continue to dominate current publication lists. Equally concerned with identity questions, these same texts have often been accused of solipsism, and their authors described as narcissists of little talent. In this dissertation, I argue that the debates surrounding national identity and the problematic construction of a written personal identity are, in fact, intimately related. I analyze a variety of first person narrative works by three major contemporary authors (Patrick Modiano, Assia Djebar, and Hervé Guibert) in order to resituate these purportedly personal critiques of “Frenchness” within an evolving historical and historiographical trajectory that informs national, community, and personal identity. In so doing, I suggest the ways in which both subjects and identities are constructed (and critiqued) textually with respect to a history of traumatic events, as well as the collective memories that those events inspire. I argue that Modiano’s contemporary evocations of Occupation-era France, Djebar’s complex and shifting assessment of the Algerian War and the legacies of French colonization in Algeria, and the dominant position occupied by Hervé Guibert’s AIDS writings in relationship to the rest of his prolific production all merit reexamination. I therefore seek to analyze the fraught construction of identity in a French society marked by its shifting relationship to history as memorialization, while complicating the generalizations that often result from identity-based scholarship. The novel juxtaposition of Modiano, Djebar, and Guibert within the dissertation enacts my desire iv to challenge the limits posed by reading authors solely in the light of narrowly-defined identity politics. v Contents Abstract..........................................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................viii Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 French Identity, in Continuity and Crisis ........................................................................... 2 Painful Pasts .......................................................................................................................... 10 The Scandalous Singularity of the Autobiographical Subject........................................ 15 About the Authors................................................................................................................ 21 1. A Subject in Search of an Identity: Patrick Modiano’s Postwar Narratives of Loss ..... 27 Singular Subject, Collective Memory................................................................................. 32 In the Name of the Father.................................................................................................... 33 Being “Like” .......................................................................................................................... 39 Collective Amnesia............................................................................................................... 54 Postwar Proust...................................................................................................................... 63 2. Writing Between the Lines: Assia Djebar’s Subjective History........................................ 70 The Art of Representing Exception.................................................................................... 75 “Regard interdit; son coupé”: The Foundations of a Situated Historical Narrative .. 87 L’amour, la fantasia: Toward a Subjective History ............................................................ 95 A Dialogue with Fanon...................................................................................................... 103 3. How to Have Literature in an Epidemic: Hervé Guibert and the Imperatives of AIDS Representation........................................................................................................................... 116 Mes parents, or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man................................................... 121 Image Makers: Hervé Guibert and Cyril Collard .......................................................... 137 A l’ami qui ne m’a pas sauvé la vie, or Portrait of the Artist as a Dying Man................ 152 Conclusions................................................................................................................................ 162 vi Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 170 Biography................................................................................................................................... 180 vii Acknowledgements I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my advisor, Alice Kaplan, whose patient mentoring and wise insight have helped me grow personally and professionally. She has been a constant guide, somehow always making me feel that I had her full attention and support, whatever the geographic distance or other demands on her time. Her advice has been absolutely priceless. It is an honor to have been her student. I am also deeply grateful to the members of my dissertation committee, David Bell, Roberto Dainotto, and Laurent Dubois, for their incisive comments, advice, and support throughout my graduate studies. In France, Dominique Rabaté has been exceptionally generous with his time and knowledge. I feel lucky to be surrounded by so many brilliant people, whom I respect and admire so much. Duke’s Department of Romance Studies has been very generous to me, allowing me to teach two literature courses related to my dissertation and supporting my work in so many tangible and intangible ways. My thanks to the faculty, especially Michèle Longino, Anne-Gaëlle Saliot, Helen Solterer, and Clare Tufts. This project has received additional support in the form of fellowships from the Duke Graduate School as well as the Embassy of France, for which I am truly grateful. I am indebted to the librarians at the IMEC in Caen, France, for their patient assistance during my archival research. Special thanks to Christine Guibert for allowing me to consult these archives. Françoise Denis, Nick Dobelbower, and Diane Brown planted the seeds for this project when I was still an undergraduate at Macalester. They helped me discover my great intellectual passions, and remain my role models for inspired teaching and mentoring. The faculty at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities helped me become a viii more competent and thoughtful scholar. Special thanks to Dan Brewer, Mária Brewer, Bruno Chaouat, Juliette Cherbuliez, Ron Greene, Judith Preckshot, and Eileen Sivert. My diss-pote, Nichole Gleisner, bravely battled her way through previous versions of this manuscript. I am grateful for her always-insightful readings. The Djebar and Guibert chapters also benefited tremendously from the helpful questions posed by audiences at Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Texas at Austin. I would like to thank all of my students, who have been invaluable interlocutors throughout the life of this project. Special thanks to Sofía Becerra, who is an extraordinarily perceptive and intellectually curious student of literature, as well as a wonderfully skeptical critic. I could not have pursued my intellectual dreams without the lifelong support of family and the more recent, but equally treasured encouragement of dear friends, including Nicolas and Élodie Di Méo, Debbie Hill, Julia Mack, and Lauren and Justin Roper. My faithful canine companion, Bruno Howard, has kept my feet warm and my spirits up. The Anderson-Strickland family, especially Ann Anderson and