Nathalie Vanfasse on Le Spectre du document dans l’œuvre romanesque de Charles Dickens

Résumé En

Prest's remarkable monograph is derived from her award-winning PhD thesis (Prix de la Chancellerie de Paris ; Robert Partlow Prize of the Dickens Society). Le Spectre du document dans l'oeuvre romanesque de Charles Dickens tackles a quintessential facet of Dickens's work that has never before been dealt with as broadly and systematically, namely the materiality of written texts, and particularly paper. Céline Prest argues that the material basis and what is written on it paradoxically often turns out to block rather than to contribute to the transmission of messages. The reason for that is that, in Dickens's writings, documents tend not only to proliferate to the point of being impossible to decipher, but also to disintegrate at times into their essential components. As for the texts they convey, they too break down into incoherent messages made up of isolated letters that no longer add up to make sense. These material elements are neither neglected nor dismissed by Dickens. He uses them as a pretext not for reading, but for the production of pure sensual pleasure. In a context of widespread development of printing technologies and of the paper industry, as well as of significant progress in education, Céline Prest hypothesizes that this surprising decline of the written word at the very moment when it was at its height gives rise, in Dickens's writing, to a dream of other forms of writing. This very convincing demonstration is based on powerful close-readings, which are one of the many great qualities of this research work. Céline Prest tackles a broad Dickensian corpus, focusing in particular on the novels David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend, as well as on a few well-chosen newspaper articles that shed light on the subject ("City of Unlimited Paper"; "Bill Sticking"; "Valentine's Day at the Post-Office"...). The monograph places these subtle textual analyses in their historical context, tracing in detail the conditions of document manufacturing and distribution in the Victorian era. It also draws on numerous theoretical texts that shed additional light on the passages studied. All of this results in highly original interpretations of Dickens's work. Céline Prest examines the role played in Dickens's work by various documents with secret content, such as Tom Jarndyce's lost will in Bleak House, Dr. Manette's manuscript-testament in A Tale of Two Cities, John Harmon Sr.'s last will and testament in Our Mutual Friend, the codicil in Little Dorrit, and various letters or messages exchanged by characters in Bleak House and Great Expectations. The passage devoted to the links between secrecy and secretion is highly original, and Céline Prest describes this phenomenon as "the art of hiding in broad daylight". The book examines various forms of inscription in public spaces (signs, posters, printed matter, drowning notices) that conceal implicit or imagined narratives, but also prove deceptive, and are at times transposed to private places where they appear incongruous and take on a different meaning. Céline Prest explores a notion taken from the novel Bleak House, that of "walls made of words". She is also interested in the very act of reading, focusing on various characters who read in Dickens's novels. Prest shows that in the act of reading, reading itself becomes at times secondary to preoccupations with social status, feigned postures and scenes of seduction. Books in Dickensian novels even come to be used for other purposes than reading, such as ensuring the balance of a tea set or serving as projectiles. Another great analysis is devoted to Dora's intertwined curls of paper frill in the novel David Copperfield, which enable the character to