Word: rameau
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Parody is a sure sign of continued relevance of postmodernism. Cathleen Schine's Rameau's Niece is a thinly-veiled attack on the currently fashionable lit-crit deconstructionist crowd. (The novel shockingly does not address the hottest topic in literary studies today, transvestitism. There is only one brief reference to "The Importance of Cross-Dressing in the Symbolism of the Eleventh Century Promissory Note" and nary a fetish in sight...
...novel's title is a clever allusion to Diderot's Rameau's Nephew. Its structure, while not entirely original, is ambitious. Reminiscent of Antonia Byatt's Possession, it uses the same conceit of imposing a fictional historical text upon the lives of contemporary characters and concocting a story to fill in the interstices...
Margaret is currently working on another book, which shares the title of Schine's text, Rameau's Niece. This is the ultimate post-modern text, since it is lifted almost entirely from works of prominent philosophers of the time, such as Helvetius, Kant and naturally, Diderot. The text (within the text) is filled with double entendre about a young woman's sexual coming of age and search for enlightenment...
...Rameau's Niece has some redeeming moments, Schine has a good eye for detail and for capturing the essence of a scene, it is becoming her own aesthetic signature. Ultimately, the work crumbles under the weight of its unwieldy structure and its astonishing social anachronisms...
Jean-Phillippe Rameau's Acteon, Les Arts Florissants/William Christie...