Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

The writings of the contemporary author Marguerite Duras portray compelling women and are appealing subjects for feminist literary critics, heretofore primarily French. The first half of Selous's bilpartite study provides, from the author's translations, a critical explication of the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and the feminist literary critics (Cixous, Irigaray, and Montrelay) who use these theories. The translations and lucid explications are valuable in and of themselves, but the author's approach seems a bit labored: one half the book is given over to the explanation of critical method. The second half of the book is organized according to questions arising out of the application of feminist psycholinguistic theories to Duras's works. Only three of four novels are treated in any depth, for Selous, as she states in her introductory notes, is concerned less with literary analysis than with examining the "meanings generated by {{Duras's}} work and the possibilities they open up or close off in relation to shifts in the cultural construction of gender." Recommended for graduate and upper-division undergraduate libraries, particularly those supporting women's studies programs. -S. Landon, Middlebury College