Ici.

Meyer, E. Nicole

Ici. At ninety-five, Nathalie Sarraute gives us another powerful work which shares her effort to find meaning and form in the indescribable, unformed, and perhaps unformable zone beneath all words. Who has not felt the frustration and tension of the struggle to find the correct word corresponding to the inexpressible fluid reality of sensation, of ici, the here-and-now we all inhabit?

Ici reconstitutes the experience of remembering a specific word, be it a name of a person, of a tree, or of a well-known artist. The closing of these trous de memoire that gape before us increasingly as we age provides a certain pleasure and feeling of plenitude: "c'est ici qu'Arcimboldo a retenti avec une telle force, alors que depuis longtemps il n'etait plus attendu, meme le vide qu'il avait laisse derriere lui avail disparu."

Ici's dramatic action stems from these efforts and its power from Sarraute's oral style composed of dialogues, repetitions, metaphors, ellipses, and silences. Who else but Sarraute can excite and incite us with all the fixed ideas and expressions, prejudices and misunderstandings that constitute our everyday speech?

Ici also reveals the many interpretations and misunderstandings caused by the simplest and most innocent of expressions. For instance, "Est-ce que vous l'avez lu?" can hide unsatisfied desires, jealousy, and other dangerous feelings. Indeed, Ici explores the relationships between truth and fiction, interior and exterior, death and eternity.

Ici - even this brief title contains the repetitive contradictions and universality' of Sarraute's work. Where is "here" but everywhere and nowhere? Phonetically the word suggests stability (in its redundant simplicity) but also movement (in its explosive pronouncement and in the way it returns again and again on almost every page of Ici). The brevity and form of the word ici suggest to this reader the form of the ellipsis (the three points de suspension) that characterizes Sarraute's writing: "Tout ce qui sort d'ici se reflechit . . . meconnaissable, insaisissable . . . dans ses parois miroitantes."

Ici. To "review" or "analyze" this powerful work proves to be a disturbing process: any attempt appears to banalize it. My advice to any potential reader is simply "Read it!" And here I close, for - to repeat Sarraute - "ici doit rester pur de toute parole."

E. Nicole Meyer University of Wisconsin, Green Bay