Scott Sprenger
128
clear how a modern and secular reader grounded in rationalism and/or
materialism would understand Sarrasine’s divinized love. The narrator
is hyperconscious of the epistemic rupture between his mystified consciousness as “Sarrasine” (which he is attempting to reconstruct for
us) and the rationalistic understanding of his modern interlocutors.
Understanding this lost illusion involves great difficulty, and
is not without certain dangers. In order to avoid an immediate scandal
and gain the confidence of modern readers, Sarrasine takes cover under his own death, doubling and obscuring himself behind the anonymous narrator while hiding the identity of his ideal love object behind
a feminine appearance. In other words, he transforms his loss of religious love into a hoax love story, recounted anonymously and in the
third-person, about how Sarrasine fell in love with an opera singer, a
castrato disguised as a woman. At the thematic level, we could easily
conclude that the narrator does not master his story. Certain critics
have argued that since the narrator scandalized Madame de Rochefide
to the point of refusing to “pay up” for the story (they were to be lovers if the narrator revealed the mysteries of Part I), the narration is a
failure. Barthes, for example, considers the narrator’s failure to conclude this deal as evidence of the triumph of “l’infini du langage” over
mimetic realism. But is the scandal awaiting Rochefide (i.e. the revelation that la Zambinella is a man, that the old man is an aged version
of la Zambinella or that the painting of the Adonis is la Zambinella in
his youth) identical to the scandal that Balzac prepares for his reader?
For what narrator would publicly recount his own failure if there were
not some hidden and more serious objective? In our view, the narrator’s failure plays an important role in Balzac’s narrative strategy,
serving as a vehicle for a deeper novelistic communication. Seen from
this angle, the “death” of Sarrasine (the young narrator) dramatically
marks the temporal and epistemic frontier between his mystified (and
“crazy”) state of mind and his consciousness after the disillusionment.
That the obvious scandal (i.e. that la Zambinella is a man)
communicated by an openly ironic narrator hides another, more serious, scandal (the hidden identity between the narrator and Sarrasine
and the secret declaration of his homoerotic love for la Zambinella)
would explain why the narrator so carefully reviews the elements of
his (lost) illusion when he sees the old man, after many years of separation, at the Lanty mansion. The old, displaced emotions associated
with la Zambinella surge forth into consciousness, reminding him of
128
clear how a modern and secular reader grounded in rationalism and/or
materialism would understand Sarrasine’s divinized love. The narrator
is hyperconscious of the epistemic rupture between his mystified consciousness as “Sarrasine” (which he is attempting to reconstruct for
us) and the rationalistic understanding of his modern interlocutors.
Understanding this lost illusion involves great difficulty, and
is not without certain dangers. In order to avoid an immediate scandal
and gain the confidence of modern readers, Sarrasine takes cover under his own death, doubling and obscuring himself behind the anonymous narrator while hiding the identity of his ideal love object behind
a feminine appearance. In other words, he transforms his loss of religious love into a hoax love story, recounted anonymously and in the
third-person, about how Sarrasine fell in love with an opera singer, a
castrato disguised as a woman. At the thematic level, we could easily
conclude that the narrator does not master his story. Certain critics
have argued that since the narrator scandalized Madame de Rochefide
to the point of refusing to “pay up” for the story (they were to be lovers if the narrator revealed the mysteries of Part I), the narration is a
failure. Barthes, for example, considers the narrator’s failure to conclude this deal as evidence of the triumph of “l’infini du langage” over
mimetic realism. But is the scandal awaiting Rochefide (i.e. the revelation that la Zambinella is a man, that the old man is an aged version
of la Zambinella or that the painting of the Adonis is la Zambinella in
his youth) identical to the scandal that Balzac prepares for his reader?
For what narrator would publicly recount his own failure if there were
not some hidden and more serious objective? In our view, the narrator’s failure plays an important role in Balzac’s narrative strategy,
serving as a vehicle for a deeper novelistic communication. Seen from
this angle, the “death” of Sarrasine (the young narrator) dramatically
marks the temporal and epistemic frontier between his mystified (and
“crazy”) state of mind and his consciousness after the disillusionment.
That the obvious scandal (i.e. that la Zambinella is a man)
communicated by an openly ironic narrator hides another, more serious, scandal (the hidden identity between the narrator and Sarrasine
and the secret declaration of his homoerotic love for la Zambinella)
would explain why the narrator so carefully reviews the elements of
his (lost) illusion when he sees the old man, after many years of separation, at the Lanty mansion. The old, displaced emotions associated
with la Zambinella surge forth into consciousness, reminding him of