Summer Reads by French Canadian Women Writers
Gabrielle Roy, Marie-Claire Blais and Anne Hebert
During hot, lazy summer days often the most enjoyable books to choose are shorter ones. However, these books should still be well written, thought provoking and memorable. Three French Canadian women writers, Gabrielle Roy, Marie-Claire Blais and Anne Hebert have each composed classics of love, poetry, epiphany and nostalgia. You're sure to relive the beauty of these stories far into winter!
Gabrielle Roy
Roy's writing career spanned the 40s to the 60s. While she wrote longer novels like The Tin Flute, an evocative portrayal of a poor family in the slums of Montreal, she also composed somewhat shorter works. Still novels, stories like The Cashier and Where Nests the Water Hen are more easily read in briefer periods of time.
The Cashier (The New Canadian Library 1955) is about a poor bank employee called Alexandre Chenevert during the period 1947-49. When he discovers he has cancer, after nursing his wife Eugenie, the shy man is compelled to discover aspects about himself he had previously suppressed. He takes a visit to Lac Vert in the Laurentians and stays with the Gardeurs family. Within eighteen months, he is hospitalized in the city and in such surroundings, realizes an empathy in himself and develops true friendships.
Where Nests the Water Hen (1951) takes place, conversely, in an idyllic rural environment. The story concerns the joys and travails of the Tousignant family, especially in relation to the often-pregnant mother Luzina, the priest, Father Joseph-Marie, and the schoolteachers Mademoiselle Cote, Miss O Rourke and Armand Debreuil. It is less a narrative than a collection of vignettes of family life in the wilderness, told with charm and natural detail.
Marie-Claire Blais
This renowned French-Canadian author published her first novel when she was only 19. She wrote several novellas, among them The Day is Dark, as well as longer works in stream of consciousness like Deaf To The City. A Season in the Life of Emmanuel is one of her most popular shorter novels and the novella The Three Travelers her finest.
A Season in the Life of Emmanuel ( New Canadian Library 1965) is a brief, yet poignant tale of the sixteenth child of a farm family in rural Quebec. Dominated by the grandmother, Antoinette, this family, where the children are often refered to by number, go to school, endure beatings and lice, suffer religious persecution and deal with the death of their brother, the poet, Jean Le Maigre, from tuberculosis. At the end, through the power of books and the warmth of a new season, the family's hopes are rejuvenated.
The Three Travelers(Penguin Books 1967) is a sensual and poetic novella about two men, the playwright, Miguel and the pianist, Johann and their love for the sculptor, Miguel's wife, Montserrat. As the week goes by in Paris, during a series of Johann's concerts, the couple resists and embraces various permutations of their love and desire. The book is a symphony of lyricism, torment and rebirth.
Anne Hebert
Prior to her death in 2000, Hebert wrote many acclaimed novels, including Kamouraska and Am I Disturbing You? Her last novella, A Suit of Light, however, is her most brilliant production.
A Suit of Light (Editions de Seuil 1999) recounts another familial saga, each short section told in the voice and perceptions of the main characters: Rose-Alba Almevida, Pedro her husband, their landlady Madame Guillou, their son Miguel and his lover, the dancer at the Paradis Perdu, Jean-Ephrem de la Tour. The mother struggles with her vanity and her husband's jealousy, while their son is slowly drawn into the world of carnivals and androgyny. Though the ending is a chastening one, these characters will echo in the mind long afterwards. This tale of awakening is full of exquisite images and moving dialogue.
Don't settle for cheap reads this summer. Choose books that are briefer in length but still as enduring in the memory as more epic selections.
