Aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle,

L’Arbre, le maire et le mediatheque, and

Les Rendez-vous de Paris. Leigh also takes

on the role of defender, answering some

of the critiques Rohmer’s films have

garnered. Of Les Nuits de la pleine lune,

the last of the Comedies et Proverbes, and

one of Rohmer’s most criticized films,

Leigh writes, ‘It is not a cynical or

satirical portrait of self-obsessed young

people, but a sensitive account of a

generation dealing with changing expec-

tations and attitudes’ (125).

The book’s clarity and readability are

hampered by one minor technical criti-

cism. The notes, which are frequent, are

challenging to locate at the back of the

book because there is no header infor-

mation on those pages. Future editions

might add at the top of each ‘Notes’ page:

‘Notes to Pages xx-xx’. Ultimately, Jacob

Leigh’s volume is highly accessible yet very

thorough and learned. This book is above

all a celebration of Rohmer’s cinema, and

Leigh’s deep appreciation for Rohmer’s

work is evident on each and every page.

LEAH M. ANDERST

Queensborough Community Collegelanderst@qcc.cuny.edu

q 2013 Leah M. Andersthttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639489.2013.861249

Balzac, le texte et la loiMICHEL LICHTLE

(Etudes reunies par Sophie Vanden Abeele;Preface de Franc�oise Melonio)Paris, Presses de l’Universite Paris-Sorbonne,2012518 pages, 23.00 e, ISBN: 978 2840508380

This impressive volume contains some 17studies by one of France’s most respected

balzaciens, long-time editor of L’Annee

balzacienne and specialist in Balzac’srepresentations of the law. Although

legal issues occupy more than half ofthe essays published or republished here,

the book opens with a cluster of moregeneral articles on Balzac’s modernity

(with particular emphasis on Balzac and

morality), on Balzac’s method of writing,as illustrated by his incessant reworking

not only of his manuscripts and proofsbut of what became ‘pre-publications’ of

his novels, on his association with theRevue etrangere, which was much more

extensive and positive than can be

assumed from the furore over itspublication of an uncorrected Le Lys

dans la vallee, and, finally, on hiscollaboration with the seemingly politi-

cally uncongenial Le Siecle, not least viathe Lettre sur le proces de Peytel, also

covered at length in a later chapter. Thisgroup of essays thus illuminates not only

Balzac’s working methods, as he corrects

what become pre-texts for later texts, butalso the development of his politics and

his ethics in relation to a combination ofthe constraints of the serial format and

‘“[le] jansenisme liberal du Siecle”’ (117).The main body of essays on Balzac and

the law continues to foreground not justlegal issues but their relation to ethics,

politics and aesthetics. In order to show

that the law is not restricted to a theme inparticular novels such as Le Contrat de

mariage but is ‘un element structurant deLa Comedie humaine’ (137), Lichtle

investigates what Balzac may havedrawn from the curriculum he followed

while at law school and his respectful but

nevertheless critical approach to the Code

Book Reviews 115

civil in matters such as inheritance anddivorce, where law is inseparable from les

mœurs and where, therefore, ‘le droit

impregne la vie’ (165). Particularlyinteresting are the chapters that follow

on the ways in which legality andillegality affect the careers of Chabert

(the implications of whose reappearanceare only inadequately covered by the law)

and the marquis d’Espard in L’Inter-

diction, where, as the lawyer Popinotshows, the workings of the law fail to

coincide with justice. In succeedingchapters the emphasis is again on the

difficulties of combining legality andjustice, whether through the somewhat

ambivalent if valuable role of the juge depaix or through arguments for and

against the death penalty: politics sways

punishments (or non-punishments) inUne tenebreuse affaire; Tascheron is

executed in Le Cure de village but thearguably equally criminal Vautrin

becomes Chief of Police at the end ofSplendeurs et miseres des courtisanes.

Although Balzac is fascinated byexecutions, he shows that the implemen-

tation of the death penalty can be both

arbitrary and unable to repair injusticescommitted. After the chapter on Peytel—

which again shows Balzac vainly fightingagainst the harshness and probable

injustice of capital punishment—a chap-ter on Le Lys dans la vallee demonstrates

how not just the law but justice itself can

be problematic: in Le Lys, as in other textssuch as La Femme de trente ans which

invoke ‘“le doigt de Dieu”’, justice,whether human or divine, seems as

inequitable as it is inescapable: ‘Ainsi,non seulement Dieu n’assure pas la police

du monde, mais sa justice, quand elles’exerce, apparaıt cruelle, disproportion-

nee, inhumaine’ (329). Since the idea of

justice is, like the law in Chabert, neither

clear nor universal (338), Balzac emerges

as a perceptive analyst both of legal

technicalities and of their implications

for philosophy, politics and ethics.In the following sections Lichtle moves

on to aspects of Balzac’s ideas of politics

and modern government as they develop

in relation, notably, to the English

‘revolution’. Balzac’s ambivalent portrayal

of Cromwell inCromwell, and his seeming

endorsement of a constitutional monar-

chy supported by a strong second

chamber, give the lie to any assumption

that Balzac was just a reactionary: in

politics and ethics, as inmatters of the law,

Balzac is unfailingly reflective and critical.

As Franc�oiseMelonio notes in her preface:

‘le roman est l’antidote a l’hegemonie du

droit’ (13). A detailed analysis of Louis

Lambert as a (failed) mystic, and an

examination of the reception of Le Pere

Goriot between 1912 and 1960, close this

meticulously researched, finely argued,

beautifully produced book.

OWEN HEATHCOTE

University of Bradfordq 2013 Owen Heathcote

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639489.2013.841665

Michel Houellebecq: Humanity and itsAftermathDOUGLAS MORREY

Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2013212 pages, £70.00, ISBN: 978 1846318610

Not many people would be prepared to

take on the task of writing a book on

116 Book Reviews