Fifteen Favourite Quebec Novels pour la Fête

For the day, a list of fifteen novels by Quebecers – born and bred – all deserving more attention. In each case, the image presented is the cover of the edition I read. Descriptions are short, but clicking on the links will give a better idea as to why they were selected.

Was 1960 the banner year for Quebec literature? 1962? 1916?

Les Anciens Canadiens
Phillipe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé
1863

The second French-language novel – following son Philippe-Ignace-Francois's L'influence d'un livre (1837) – Les Anciens Canadiens is set in the decades surrounding the fall of New France. Steeped in history, culture, and the supernatural, I've read it twice, but only in translation.    

Armand Durand

Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
1868

A novel I read in French translation, though it was composted in English. Makes sense in a way because Mme Leprohon was even more popular amongst French readers. Like Les Anciens Canadiens, it leans heavily on what would've then been described as Canadien traditions and culture. A moving tale of love and betrayal.

La Scouine

Albert Laberge

1909

Condemned by Mgr Paul Bruchési, Archbishop of Montreal, as "ignoble pornographie," you can understand the attraction. La Scouine is populated by dislikable, immoral, and hypocritical characters, clergy included. It is, in short, the anti-roman a terre. Sadly, Laberge paid a real price in writing this novel.

The Miracle Man
Frank L. Packard
1911

A gang of thieves and con artists leave New York City for rural Maine so as to get in on the scam pushed by a blind faith-healer, only to find there there is no grift. The 1919 Hollywood adaptation is considered one of the great lost silent films. Since writing my 2011 review twenty-four more seconds have been found. I couldn't be happier.

Similia Similibus
Ulrich Barthe
1916

A Great War nightmare in which Germans invade Quebec City, seize the Legislative Assembly, and slaughter citizens, this novel was almost certainly inspired by propaganda involving supposed atrocities committed in Belgium. Civil servant Barthe's lone novel, it is itself propaganda.

Marion: An Artist's Model
Winnifred Eaton
1916

No other Montreal family has been so remarkable. Though a novel, Marion provides the most intimate glimpse of the Eatons' struggles against racism and poverty. Winnifed was a successful novelist with a career in early Hollywood. Whether she was the most accomplished of the twelve Eaton children is a matter of debate. Imagine!

Les Demi-civilisés

Jean-Charles Harvey

1934

Another banned book, the villain this time is Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve, Archbishop of Quebec, who condemned it for criticizing religion. It does not. What Les Demi-civilisés does criticize is the Roman Catholic Church. The novel has been translated twice, but John Glassco's is the one to read.

Erres boréales
Faurent Laurin [Armond Grenier]

1944

The craziest Quebec novel I've read thus far, in Erres boréales massive heaters have been placed in the Gulf of St Laurence so as to make Quebec a tropical paradise. A travelogue of sorts, the story follows friends as they explore the province, now an independent country with palm trees.

Les Plouffe

Roger Lemelin

1948 

Roger Lemelin's first book, for decades Les Plouffe stood second only to Gabrielle Roy's Bonheur d'occasion as the best known French Canadian novel. The television series it inspired made for essential viewing. So why is Mary Finch's translation not in print? I blame Bertelsmann.

Le Libraire
Gérard Bessette

1960

The story of a washed up man who somehow manages to get a job in a shop selling stationary, religious items, and books. After a time, the proprietor comes to trust him with selling literature banned by the Catholic Church. Le Libraire was first published in France, not Quebec... 'cause, you know, the Church. 

 

The English Governess
Miles Underwood [John Glassco]

1960

First published in Paris by Olympia Press, The English Governess is both this country's finest and best selling work of erotica. That said, I much prefer Harriet Marwood, Governess, the more elegant version of the love story, published fourteen years later. 

Doux-amer
Claire Martin [Claire Montreuil]

1960

A literary editor is presented with a bad manuscript by a good looking woman. He reworks, remakes, and remodels, crafting a work that is both a critical and commercial success. A novel of obsession, it is vaguely Nabokovian – which is always a plus.

Four Days

John Buell

1962

This writer is far better known for his first novel, The Pyx (1960), but it was the second that caused critic Edmond Wilson to place Buell alongside Marie-Claire Blais as one of Canada's great writers. Of the nineteen novels I've helped return to print, this is my favourite.

The Damned and the Destroyed

Kenneth Orvis
   [Kenneth Lemieux]

1962

Another novel I helped usher back to print, The Damned and the Destroyed is set during the earliest days of Jean Drapeau's first term. Its hero, a Korean War vet, is hired to go after the heroin ring polluting the veins of a rich man's daughter. Lee Child is a massive fan.

Une Chaîne dans le parc

André Langevin

1974

Jack McClelland considered this novel the best to have come out of French Canada since Bonheur d'occasion. Sadly, sales did not in any way match expectations. Alan Brown's 1976 translation received no second printing and has been out of print ever since. The novel is a masterpiece.

Bonne fête!

Related posts:

Gothique Canadien

Armand Durand; or, A Summer Project

Ignoble Phorographie - Translated!

The Miracle Man on Paper and Nitrate Film

Dreaming of the Hun

Glassco's $9500 Library and the Montreal Eatons
Cardinal Villeneuve's Folly
Global Warming as a Nationalist Dream

What's Going on with The Plouffe Family?
Reading Gérard Bessette on His Hundredth
Canada's Olympians (Part III)

Claire Martin at the Start of a Quiet Revolution
Four Days in Darkest Quebec
'A Relentless Story of the Hell of Drug Addiction'
Langevin's Masterpiece; McClelland's Disappointment

The Dustiest Bookcase: H pour Harvey

The Dustiest Bookcase:

Short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).

They're in storage as we build our new home.

Patience, please.

Pourquoi je suis antiséparatiste

Jean-Charles Harvey

Montreal: Éditions de l'Homme, 1962

123 pages

Last year's Dusty Bookcase Best Books in Review ended with a series of resolutions, one of which was to read more books by French language authors. The bar was set very low. I read only one in 2017 – Roger Lemelin's Pierre le magnifique – and that was in translation.

I admit I sometimes find reading books in the original French a struggle, but this is not to say the effort doesn't pay off. Similia Similibus, Le Nom dans le bronze, Erres boréales, and Fermez la porte, on gèle are four favourite books covered in this blog.

I've had the luxury of reading Jean-Charles Harvey in translation. His second novel, Les Demi-civilisés, has twice appeared in English-language editions: Sackcloth for Banner by Lukin Barette and Fear's Folly by John Glassco.

That's it.

Harvey published eighteen other books during his lifetime, but not one has been translated. I find this odd in that he wasn't unknown amongst English-speaking Canadians. Harvey spoke to audiences across the country. His opinion pieces appeared – translated, I'm guessing – in the Maclean's and the Globe & Mail.

The Globe & Mail
10 January 1944

A light in the darkness of Maurice Duplessis' Quebec, Jean Paré dubbed him "bootlegger d'intelligence en période de prohibition." To Pierre Chalout, he was "grand-père de la révolution tranquille." I was born in the midst of that revolution... a revolution for which he had fought and risked everything.

I've read all Harvey's novels: Marcel Faure, Les Demi-civilisés, Les Paradis de sable, and La Fille du silence, in French, but not his non-fiction. Pourquoi je suis antiséparatiste appeared near the end of his seventy-five years. Even at the time, it must have seemed an inadvisable career move. But then Harvey was never one to stand down; Les Demi-civilisés, is proof enough of that.

He was a great man to whom I owe a great deal.

All Quebecers do.

Related posts:

The 75-Year-old Virgin and Others I Acquired

Ex Libris

Cardinal Villeneuve's Folly

Freedom to Read

Freedom to Read Redux

The 75-Year-Old Virgin and Others I Acquired

Published in 1935 by les Éditions du Quotidien, a first edition by one of the most important Canadian writers of the twentieth century. I bought Sébastien Pierre this year for ten dollars. A full 75 years after publication, its pages remained uncut. Three of the 23 illustrations featured are revealed here for the first time.

Such a sad commentary on the country's literature, and yet... and yet this same sorry situation enables souls like myself to amass a fairly nice collection of interesting and unusual Canadiana.

Case in point: Thomas P. Kelley's pseudonymous No Tears for Goldie (1950), which was purchased in February for a mere five dollars. No hits on Worldcat, absent from Abe, nothing at all at AddAll.

Rare, bizarre, but not really worth a read.

Of the obscurities reviewed here these past twelve months, the three I most recommend:

The Long November by James Benson Nablo

The Door Between by Neil H. Perrin

Gambling with Fire by David Montrose

These are not great works of literature, but they are engaging and very interesting. Each depicts a dark, disturbing and gritty Canada found in very few novels of their time.

Financially speaking, my best buy was a very nice first edition (my second) of Tender is the Night (sans dust jacket), which I found just last month for $9.50 in a Montreal bookstore. The year's favourite purchase, however, is of negligible commercial value: a 1926 edition of Anatole France's Under the Rose. I came across this at a library sale, flipped through a few pages, and happened to spot the name Peregrine Acland, a subject of ongoing research, stamped ever so discretely in the front free endpaper.

What luck!

Still no luck, I'm afraid, in tracking down Sexpo '69, that elusive novel of lesbian erotica set at Expo 67. Will I never find a copy?

Of course, I will.

A Happy New Year to all!

Glassco en français

The recent publication of Daniel Bismuth's new French translation of Memoirs of Montparnasse is as welcome as it is unexpected. I believe I'm right in saying that Glassco's masterpiece now holds the distinction of being the only English language Canadian book to have been twice accorded the treatment. Comparisons are unavoidable. Of the two translations, I think Bismuth's Mémoires de Montparnasse, is the superior. This is no slight against Jean-Yves Soucy, whose Souvenirs de Montparnasse appeared in 1983 – Bismuth is a translator, Soucy is a writer.

Equally gifted in both fields, Glassco was a rare talent. He translated close to two hundred French language poems, including all of Hector de Saint Denys-Garneau's verse (then struggled for years to find a publisher). Garneau's Journal was Glassco's first translated book. In later years, he returned to prose, bringing into being English language editions of Monique Bosco's La Femme de Loth (Lot's Wife), Soucy's Un Dieu chasseur (Creatures of the Chase) and Jean-Charles Harvey's Les Demi-civilisés (Fear's Folly).

He lived to see his books translated into Dutch and German, but not French; Soucy's Souvenirs de Montparnasse was published two years too late. Nearly all the French translations published during Glassco's lifetime are found in the 1974 Alain Grandbois/John Glassco issue of ellipse. It's here that we see the very earliest translations of Memoirs in excerpts taken on by Sylvie Thériault and Marc Lebel. The same issue features four translated passages from Harriet Marwood, Governess.

Dutch and German readers have been enjoying Harriet and Richard's love story for nearly four decades. Here's hoping M Bismuth will consider Harriet Marwood, Governess for his next project.

An aside: That's not Glassco on the cover of Mémoires de Montparnasse. Library and Archives Canada holds several photos of the author that were taken during his Montparnassian adventures, yet none have been featured on the now six cover treatments. Another missed opportunity, I'm afraid.

Ex Libris

It was interesting to see Whit Burnett's name appear so frequently in news stories dealing with the death of J.D. Salinger. Burnett is an overlooked figure in American letters – he doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, for goodness sake – yet in his day he held considereable sway and respect. Charles McGrath wrote in the New York Times that Salinger "bragged in college about his literary talent and ambitions, and wrote swaggering letters to Whit Burnett, the editor of Story magazine." According to McGrath, "Mr. Salinger’s most sustained exposure to higher education was an evening class he took at Columbia in 1939, taught by Whit Burnett, and under Mr. Burnett’s tutelage he managed to sell a story, 'The Young Folks,' to Story magazine."

What does all this have to do with Canadian literature? Not a whole lot, I suppose – though Salinger's influence outside the ever-tightening borders of the United States cannot be denied. And it should be recognized that Story published a small number of Canadian writers, including those old standbys Stephen Leacock and Morley Callaghan.

I'm not sure what to make of the inscription in this copy of Sackcloth for Banner (Macmillan of Canada, 1938), purchased seven years ago from a Philadelphia bookseller. Jean-Charles Harvey was not amongst the Canadians featured in Story, and I can find no evidence of a friendship between the two men. Perhaps it's nothing more than a warm greeting from a writer to an admired editor... a "friend in letters", so to speak.

With another deadline approaching, another change of pace. The next week or so will feature images of books from others' libraries that have somehow ended up in my own... along with a word or two of explanation. Wouldn't want anyone to think I lifted these things.

Books are Best

The Globe, 18 December 1909

William Briggs may be gone, but the publisher's words are as true today as they were a century ago. Books are best... and not only for Christmas. So, with the holiday season approaching, I point out the three books covered here this past year that are actually in print.

Montreal Confidential

Al Palmer

Montreal: Véhicule, 2009

$12.00

A most welcome surprise. After nearly six decades, Al Palmer's Montreal Confidential returned to print last month. Where the original seemed fairly designed to fall apart, this new edition benefits from proper printing, 22 photographs and illustrations and, most of all, a four-page "Appreciation" by William Weintraub.

The English Governess

John Glassco

Ottawa: Golden Dog, 2001

$19.99

The English Governess is currently available from a number of publishers, but Golden Dog's is by far the superior, owing to a 10-page Introduction by Michael Gnarowski. A friend of the author, he provides a fascinating account of the curious history of our best-known work of erotica.

Les Demi-civilisés

Jean-Charles Harvey

Montreal: Éditions Typo, 2005

$12.95

Perhaps in deference to Cardinal Villeneuve, Amazon and Chapters/Indigo don't bother offering this book. Interested parties are directed to the the publisher's website or their local independent. Incredibly, the first printing of Fear's Folly (1982), John Glassco's important translation, is still available. The most modest of paperbacks, at $27.95 it seems a touch pricey, but just think of the storage costs that have run up these past 27 years.

A trio of others, The Whip Angels, Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk and Glassco's completion of Aubrey Beardsley's Under the Hill, are all being exploited available through various POD publishers. But, honestly, no one wants to find something that looks like this under their tree.

Not Only Chic, but Well-read

A photograph of Yves Thériault, André Langevin and Jean-Charles Harvey, stumbled upon early this week in the 28 November 1954 edition of Chic, Montreal's 'Journal de la Femme'. The weekly devoted a two-page spread, 'LES ECRIVANS CANADIENS FONT FACE LEUR CHER PUBLIC', to a 14 November gathering of 'romanciers et quelques romancières du Canada français' at the Windsor Hotel's Rose Room. Judging by the photographs, our romancières were severely outnumbered; not one features a female novelist. Here's Thériault again, looking a touch less shifty, standing between Robert Élie and Roger Viau:


Other photos capture Eugène Cloutier, Bertrand Vac, Guy Boulizon and Jean Bruchési. In short, a lot of men who appear happy to be surrounded by the stylish women of the Société d'étude et de conférences, including vice-president Miss Louise McNichols and president Mrs Redmond Roche, shown here with the dowdy Father Marie-Ceslas Forest.

Father Forest served as professor at the Dominican College of Ottawa and the Université de Montréal, was an early supporter of women's suffrage and wrote Le divorce (1920). His papers are held at the Université of Montréal. Much less can be said about Chic. Quebec's Bibliotèque et Archives nationales holds only eleven issues, the final being the edition in which these photographs appeared. Though the newspaper states otherwise, the BAN claims that it was published by Merlin, the company best known for Allô police.

Cardinal Villeneuve's Folly

Les Demi-civilisés

Jean-Charles Harvey

Montreal: Éditions du Totem, 1934

Seventy-five years ago today Jean-Marie-Rodrigue Villeneuve, Archbishop of Quebec, had Les Demi-civilisés placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, thus ensuring that there will always be those who make a special effort to track it down. Not always an easy thing to do. While Cardinal Villeneuve's condemnation most assuredly helped spur sales – the 3000 copy print run sold out in a matter of weeks – it also meant that the novel, Harvey's second, remained out of print until 1962, when a revised edition was published.

In his 'CONDEMNATION DU ROMAN "LES-DEMI-CIVILISES"', the Cardinal cites article 1399, 3°, of the Code of Canon Law, which calls for the banning of works that 'purposely attack religion or good morals'. In fact, both are left unscathed; the reader finishes the novel with virtue intact. Harvey doesn't attack religion, but the Church. His demi-civilisés are not the uneducated, but their repressors: an alliance of clergy, politicians and businessmen.

The Globe and Mail, 30 April 1938

A pariah to some, a hero to others, Harvey did maintain a certain profile, and was sought out as a speaker. Pierre Chalout of Le Droit called him the 'grand-père de la révolution tranquille', yet during the final years of his life Harvey fell out of favour with a thud. His promotion of bilingualism and defence of federalism, as articulated in Pourquoi je suis anti-séparatiste (1962), alienated a great many Quebec intellectuals. Thirty-two years after his death, Quebec City has no rue Harvey, nor does Montreal. All but one of his books is out of print.

Les Demi-civilisés is one of a very small number of Canadian novels to have received two English language translations. The first, by Lukin Barette, is saddled with the rather unfortunate title Sackcloth for Banner (Toronto: Macmillan, 1938). As if that weren't bad enough, it may well be the worst translation yet made of a Canadian novel. Barette omits passages, changes names, invents dialogue and commits what amounts to a rewrite of the final two chapters. All is set right with Fear's Folly, John Glassco's 1980 translation, published two years later by Carleton University Press.

Object and Access: Sadly, predictably, all but absent from our public libraries. A decent copy of the first edition is currently listed online at US$30.00. An incredible bargain. English-language editions aren't dear. As Sackcloth for Banner, it goes for between C$60 and C$135. Fear's Folly is usually on offer for about C$15.

Freedom to Read Redux

A few days after the end of Freedom to Read Week and my little rant, I note that Jean-Charles Harvey's account of the suppression of Les Demi-Civilisés has been added to Jean-Louis Lessard's excellent Laurentiana blog. A reminder of a dark time not long past.

Freedom to Read

Jean-Charles Harvey

Bootlegger d'intelligence en période de prohibition

The first day of Freedom to Read Week arrives and thoughts turn away from Paris to works suppressed closer to home. It seems each year we're reminded of Margaret Laurence and the Peterborough Pentecostals, the twisted thinking that places Harry Potter as an agent of atheism and those who fear brainwashing in children's books featuring two daddies. All worthy of attention, of course, but where is the context? We remember the recent decades, providing equal weight to each attempt at suppression, while ignoring past. Thus, the 'Challenged Books and Magazines List' presented by the organizing committee elevates a matter worthy of nothing more than a few words in a community newspaper:

Findley, Timothy. The Wars.

1991 - In Lambton County (ON), a high school student asked that the novel be removed from the English curriculum.

Cause of objection - A passage describes the rape of a Canadian soldier by his fellow officers during World War I. The book was said to pressure students to accept homosexuality.

Update - The school board upheld use of the book at the OAC (formerly Grade 13) level.

Not to say that underage high school students don't pose a real threat to our civil liberties, it's just that I can't help but wonder at the exclusion of works that were challenged by even greater forces. Why no mention of F. R. Scott's skillful defence of Lady Chatterley's Lover before the Supreme Court? Where is Jean-Charles Harvey, whose anti-clerical novel Les Demi-Civilisés cost his position as editor-in-chief of Le Soleil, the post of provincial librarian and the directorship of the Quebec's Office of Statistics?

Figures like Scott and Harvey brought us to where we are today, a time in which stories about gay fathers can be bought in bookstores, a time when thwarted characters can say 'God damn' in a novel. There is drama in their stories, recognition to be made and gratitude to be paid.