If the novelle is not seen as a proto-realist narrative with a fair degree of historical accuracy--and there is good reason not to accept this conventional view--then how is it to be read, especially considering its distorted and frequently hyperbolic fictions? American and British scholars of French literature take up the question. They develop a range of critical and theoretical perspectives, drawing on discourses and methodologies of history and literary history, psychoanalysis, narratology, post-structuralism, feminism, and queer theory. The quotations are in French. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)