The French Review

Reviews 235 as Richter deploys it) is never discussed at any length, and is generally mentioned as though it went nearly without saying; its connections to, or difference from past or present notions of artistic genius is unfortunately never discussed. Readers will appreciate that Richter devotes his close readings to neglected texts, and particularly to the war poems of Calligrammes, which is a rare case in Apollinaire scholarship (only two of the book’s readings are devoted to texts from Alcools). Several literary historical excursions (on Ardengo Soffici, de Chirico and Remy de Gourmont in relation to Apollinaire) form a welcome appendix. Readers will certainly delight in Richter’s capacity for detecting the most subtle and interesting textual details. But his difficulty connecting to broader theoretical or ideological issues makes the stakes of his readings often unclear, a disconnect symptomatic of unfortunate, longstanding trends in Apollinaire studies. Virginia Tech Alexander Dickow Siess, Jürgen, Matthijs Engelberts, and Angela Moorjani, eds. Beckett in the Cultural Field/Beckett dans le champ culturel.Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013. ISBN 97890 -420-3776-2. Pp. 282. $96. While each year’s appearance of Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui marks the series as one of the consistently most valuable forums for new paths in Beckett studies, this latest volume is surely one of the best in recent years because of the openness of its guiding framework, Beckett’s work read in context. This makes for a breadth of scope and a consequently great range of contributions, in contrast to many earlier volumes whose essays are offered under such a specific theme that they may only appeal to certain specialists. The new volume instead opens itself up to the broad question of “the parallels between Beckett’s own texts and those of other writers (literary and philosophical), but also between his work and the work of artists of the period” (9). Building upon recent archival research “focused on the literary, artistic, academic, and other contexts of Beckett’s oeuvre”(9), such as his letters and his library, the editors have compiled a wide-ranging and always compelling collection of articles placing his work alongside contemporary figures, and also ones exploring his lasting cultural influence today. The volume reminds us in the process, as Jürgen Siess eloquently writes in the introduction,that Beckett“is not a grand solitary,soaring eaglelike far from or above others”(11), but was rather always interested in and inspired by his contemporaries, while his vision continues to inform our cultural fields in sometimes surprising and unexpected areas.And the strength of this collection resides not simply in the productive diversity of its overarching theme, but in the great quality of the contributors’ essays collected under that theme’s wide span. The volume is divided into two sections, the first with essays of a comparative nature exploring the diversity of Beckett’s literary and artistic points of contact during his own life. Robert Reginio and Joanne Shaw explore his relationship to the visual arts, while others place individual works in dialogue with other writers and thinkers, including Sartre and Bergson. The second section expands its scope to include contexts beyond Beckett’s own times, and many contributors continue finding new contextual lenses through which to read Beckett via individual close readings, particularly Julien Carrière’s excellent analysis of Happy Days alongside the tenth canto of Dante’s Inferno, Tom Vandevelde’s inquiry into how the tools of narratology may be used to analyze the voices of the plays and radio pieces, and Edward Bizub’s idiosyncratic but entirely compelling reading of how Estragon’s boots in En attendant Godot reveal how Beckett’s“signature”is inscribed in his text.These close readings sit alongside more systemic essays,ones situating Beckett’s “relations with literary institutions and the media” (9) and often sociologically inspired , including such stand-outs as Angela Moorjani’s reading of Molloy in relation to the postwar literary scene in France and Andrew Kincaid’s claims for the continued relevance of the rhetoric of torture in Endgame. These are just some of the many exciting essays collected here, in a volume that is sure to contain required reading for anyone working...