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Tag Archives: Gabrielle Roy

La Question des écoles / The Schools Question. 2

28 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Bilingualism, Confederation, Quebec

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Canadian Parents for French, Clandestine Schools, French Immersion schools, Gabrielle Roy, Hugh MacLennan, Laurier-Greenway Agreement, The Commissioner of Official Languages, The Thornton Act, The Tin Flute, Two Solitudes

Maison d’enfance (Childhood House) de Gabrielle Roy, à Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba

—ooo—

I cannot accomplish much at this moment, but I am sending you a photograph of Gabrielle Roy’s childhood home in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba. I mentioned short stories written by Gabrielle Roy, the author of Bonheur d’occasion, a novel published in 1945 and translated as The Tin Flute. The novel tells the story of a family living in Saint-Henri, Montreal, the poorest area of Montreal in 1945. The novel’s central irony is that World War II will “save” the family. Rose-Anna will receive a few hundred dollars a month.

Bonheur d’occasion (second-hand happiness) and Hugh MacLennan‘s Two Solitudes (1945) have been considered mirror narratives expressing the tragic repercussions of the separation of Canada’s two founding nations, after the First Nations.

Résistance: Clandestine Schools outside Quebec

There was resistance to the uniform school system created by Sir John A. Macdonald in provinces other than Quebec. As humble as it was, the Laurier-Greenway Compromise of 1989 made it possible to use French as the language of instruction in several Manitoba schools. But the Laurier-Greenway Compromise was short-lived. In 1915, the Thornton Act abolished the bilingual school system in Manitoba. However, in many schools, French continued to be the language of instruction, but in a clandestine manner. The teacher spoke French, but switched to English when the Inspector visited the school. Certain immigrants also took in hand the education of their children. But it could not last.

Quebec

As for French-speaking Canadians, the Official Languages Act of 1969 was passed one hundred and two years after Confederation (1867). It was too late. Canada is officially bilingual and bicultural, but the people of Canada do not necessarily speak both French and English. In practice, Canada is a mostly English-language country, which it may remain. The Federal Government has put into place French Immersion Schools and Canada has an Office of the Commissioner of the Official Languages. (See Canada’s “Founding Mothers” of French Immersion | The Canadian Encyclopedia and Canadian Parents for French.) These schools cannot transform English-speaking Canadians into French-speaking Canadians, but gifted and motivated students do learn French. These schools also constitute a validation of the French language. Moreover, such groups as Canadian Parents for French look kindly on publically-funded separate schools in various communities, if these communities qualify.

However, it would be my opinion that one cannot expect coast to coast bilingualism. Not after 102 years. Canada is a mostly English-language country where each linguistic group should respect one another and also respect immigrants to this country. When they arrive in Canada, they are fellow Canadians.

Whether laws should enforce the use of French in Quebec is questionable. By virtue of Quebec’s Bill 22 (July 1972), French is the official language of Quebec. Bill 101 (La Charte de la langue française),1977, reinforced Bill 22. There are “sunnier” ways of preserving a language. I am borrowing the term “sunnier” from Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

But I will pause here. The concept of nationhood is complex. I have met people in whose eyes Britain won the battle, i.e. the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (13 September 1759), which means that the French have no rights, nor do Amerindians. They too were conquered. This ideology has fallen into disrepute, but it has done so… very slowly.

Conclusion

If one reads the above, one may be tempted to revisit separatism. Confederation separated Quebec. It would not be on an equal footing with other provinces. But it also separated French-speaking Canadians from English-speaking Canadians.

The people of Canada must never stop respecting one another: English speaking, French speaking, immigrants to this country, and refugees. When immigrants arrive in Canada, it becomes their country. Not that they will forget their native land. Gabrielle Roy’s Sam Lee Wong is lost in the Canadian prairies. Canadian Japanese were Canadians. But they were interned after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Maps of Canada (15 October 2020) 🚗
  • La Question des écoles/The Schools Question (24 April 2021)
  • About Confederation, cont’d (6 October 2020)
  • About Confederation (15 September 2020)
  • Sir Wilfrid Laurier: the Conciliator (15 July 2020)
  • Canadiana.1 (page)

Sources and Resources

Two Solitudes and Bonheur d’occasion: Mirror Images of Quebec | Bibliography on English-speaking Quebec (concordia.ca)
See Office of the Commissioner of the Official Languages to view a timeline of the history of bilingualism in Canada. There were noble gestures in provinces where the language of instruction could not be French.

Love to everyone 💕

Les Charbonniers de l’enfer: La Traversée miraculeuse
Peinture SOLITUDE (galerie-com.com)

© Micheline Walker
28 April 2021
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La Question des écoles / The Schools Question

24 Saturday Apr 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Canadian History, Confederation, Education

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Gabrielle Roy, John Ralston Saul, Le Vent du Nord's Confédération, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, Manitoba Official Language Act, Robert Baldwin, The Laurier-Greenway Agreement, The Official Language Act, The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, The Schools Question

Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine & Robert Baldwin (cover of John Ralston Saul‘s book)
Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Pinterest)
André Laurendeau & Davidson Dunton (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

—ooo—

The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-1969)

At the time André Laurendeau and Davidson Dunton conducted their inquiry on bilingualism and biculturalism, my father was one of the leaders of British Columbia’s Francophone Community and its spokesman, which I have mentioned in earlier posts. He was interviewed frequently, and was also invited to talk shows. The talk show host would take telephone calls from citizens many of whom stated that in their community very few people spoke French. Most of these callers were the descendants of immigrants to Canada who could not understand that Canada’s founding nations, after the First Nations, were France and Great Britain. In their towns, villages, or rural districts, they were the majority. Why should instruction be in a language other than theirs? The schools question is a complex issue.

So, in order to get to the source, I read large sections of the reports submitted by The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-1969). The children of several immigrants to Canada were educated in their parents’ tongue. These would be mostly immigrants to the Prairie provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, to be precise. However, results were not as expected. These immigrants and Manitoba francophones were not in a position to organize a school system. Moreover, they would be opposed by Ottawa or the premier of their province. So, I will state, once again, that the school question is a complex issue.

In Manitoba,[1] the schools question reached its apex five years after Métis leader Louis Riel was executed (1885). Louis Riel assumed that in provinces that entered Confederation the language of instruction in public schools would be either French or English. This would be true of Quebec. But, as you know, John A. Macdonald was an Orangeman and he favoured uniform schools: English-language and Protestant schools. So, in 1889, Manitoba passed the Official Language Act, which

made English the sole language of Manitoba government records, minutes, and laws. Other laws abolishing French in all legislative and judicial spheres followed leading to the disappearance of Catholic (and hence French) schools.

Laurier-Greenway compromise, University of Ottawa

However, the Laurier-Greenway Compromise of 1897 would allow some latitude, concerning the language of instruction, but barely so.

If it were in my power, I would try the sunny way. I would approach this man Greenway with the sunny way of patriotism, asking him to be just and to be fair, asking him to be generous to the minority, in order that we may have peace among all the creeds and races which it has pleased God to bring upon this corner of our common country. Do you not believe that there is more to be gained by appealing to the heart and soul of men rather than to compel them to do a thing?

‒ Oscar Skelton, Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1921)

In 1905, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier negotiated the entry into Confederation of Saskatchewan and Alberta, but he could not give immigrants schools other than uniform schools. He respected the Laurier-Greenway Compromise, which had been his initiative. However, in Manitoba, the 1916 Thornton Act reiterated the Official Language Act of 1889. As noted above, immigrants and French-speaking Canadians often took in hand the matter of education in a language other than English, as did French-Canadians in Manitoba. These citizens would face a formidable obstacle: taxation.[2]

Gabrielle Roy (Gabrielle Roy en), the “grande dame” of French-Canadian literature, wrote very touching short stories about Ukrainian immigrants: Ces enfants de ma vie (The Children of my life), Un jardin au bout du monde (A Garden at the edge of the world). Gabrielle Roy had been a school teacher in Manitoba. In Un jardin au bout du monde, she wrote a truly moving short story about a Chinese immigrant: Où iras-tu Sam Lee Wong? (Where will you go, Sam Lee Wong?)

The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism could not propose that children be educated in French in communities where there were a mere handful of families were French-speaking families. The callers who spoke to my father had a point. There were very few French-Canadian families in their area. There could not be under the terms of Confederation. Numbers count. There had to be a demand. However, had there been a demand and a school instituted, the language of instruction would have been French or English. French and English were recognized as Canada’s official languages by virtue of the Official Languages Act of 1969. If the language of instruction in certain schools was other than French or English, such schools would be private schools as were denominational schools. Immigrants also asked for denominational schools.

Confederation created a uniform Canada. Yet, today’s Canada reflects the Baldwin-La Fontaine‘s great ministry, or the province of Canada when it obtained its responsible government in 1848. Today’s Canada is also in the image of Louis Riel‘s Red River. Canada was not officially bilingual and bicultural until the passage of the Official Languages Act of 1969, the culmination of The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, an in-depth inquiry. André Laurendeau died in 1968. He and Davidson Dunton remind me of Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine. They were a team, compatible, and they understood.

Traditionally, French-speaking Canadians have been Catholics and many could not accept that a French-language school should be other than Catholic. So, if my father expressed the view that the combination of language and faith hampered the creation of publicly funded French-language schools, he was criticized, if not crucified.

Le Vent du Nord

In Le Vent du Nord‘s “Confédération,” the ex-patriote who saved les Français d’Amérique would be George-Étienne Cartier, the Prime Minister of the Province of Canada East and a father of Confederation. George-Étienne Cartier was involved in the Rebellions of 1837-1838. Rebels were called patriot(e)s in both Upper Canada and Lower Canada.[3] George-Étienne Cartier was happy that his people had their Québec: their schools, their religion, their Code Civil. But Wilfrid Laurier quickly ran for office in Ottawa (1874).

In 1969, Canada reflected the Great Ministry of Baldwin and La Fontaine. In 1848, under Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, the Province of Canada was granted its responsible government and it was bilingual and bicultural Canada. (See also Baldwin and La Fontaine, Canadian Encyclopedia.) But given the terms of Confederation, Quebec was the only province that retained Baldwin and La Fontaine’s dual system of education. Louis Riel‘s Manitoba did not.

Confederation is rooted in the Act of Union, and the period extending from 1867 to 1969 seems… a pause (un pays qui fut fondé trois fois).

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Maps of Canada (15 October 2020) 🚗
  • Le Vent du Nord’s Confédération (21 April, 2021)
  • About Confederation, cont’d (6 October 2020)
  • About Confederation (15 September 2020)
  • Sir Wilfrid Laurier: the Conciliator (15 July 2020)
  • Canadiana.1 (page)

Sources and Resources

  • Laurier-Greenway Compromise
  • LaFontaine and Baldwin: 169 Years of Responsible Government | Institute for Canadian Citizenship | Institut pour la citoyenneté canadienne (inclusion.ca)
  • The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Wikipedia
  • The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, The Canadian Encyclopedia
  • The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, CBC Archives
  • The Royal Commision on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, lnternet Archive
  • The Royal Commision on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Gutenberg
  • etc

Love to everyone 💕
______________________

[1] I am excluding private schools such as St. Ann’s Academy, in Victoria, British Columbia, the school I attended. It was built before Confederation and was never a Residential School. The Sisters of St. Anne had travelled from Quebec to Victoria.

[2] Comeault, G.-L. (1979). La question des écoles du Manitoba — Un nouvel éclairage. Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française, 33(1), 3–23.
https://doi.org/10.7202/303748ar

[3] Confédération also contains a reference to the Château Clique, whose membership, rich merchants, included John Molson and James McGill. They paved the way to the Act of Union (1840).

Le Vent du Nord’s Confédération
Louis Riel (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

© Micheline Walker
24 April 2021
WordPress

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Canadiana Updated, May 30, 2012

30 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ 57 Comments

Tags

Act of Union 1840, Gabrielle Roy, Louis Riel, Maria Chapdelaine, Marie-Josephte Corriveau, Oregon Country, Tin Flute, Upper Canada

  

The Beaver

THE VOYAGEURS
 
The Singing Voyageurs
The Voyageur Mythified 
The Voyageur from Sea to Sea           
The Voyageur & his Canoe
The Voyageurs & their Employers
The Voyageurs: hommes engagés
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY AND LITERATURE 
Canada’s Honourable Allan J. MacEachen: Nationhood and Leadership
Gabrielle Roy’s Tin Flute*
 
The Canadian & his Terroir
Maria Chapdelaine*
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland (cont’d)*
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland*
La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s Old Soldier*
La Corriveau: A Legend*
The Aftermath cont’d: Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens*
The Aftermath: Krieghoff’s Quintessential Quebec
Parliament to the Rescue: the Hidden Resource
The Act of Union: the Aftermath
The Act of Union 1840-41
The Rebellion in Upper Canada: Wikipedia’s Gallery
Upper & Lower Canada ←
 
NEW FRANCE 
More on the Jesuit Relations
The Jesuit Relations: an invaluable legacy
Nouvelle-France’s Seigneurial System
Cartier, Champlain & Missionaries: a Chronology
Jacques Cartier, the Mariner
Pierre du Gua: a mostly Forgotten Founder of Canada
Richelieu & Nouvelle-France ←
Une Éminence grise: Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fonsac
 
THE BATTLES
Nouvelle-France’s Last and Lost Battle: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham
The Battle of Fort William Henry & Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran ←
 
RELATED FICTION =*
 
© Micheline Walker
May 30, 2012
WordPress
   

The Fathers of Confederation

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Posts on Canadian History, update (May 7, 2012)

07 Monday May 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, History

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Act of Union 1840, Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Canada, France, Gabrielle Roy, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, Tin Flute

Posts on Canadian History

Approaching Storm, by A. J. Casson

 
 * = novel, based on history of Canada
 ** = battles
 ← = beginning with
****************************************************
The Canadian & his Terroir
La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s Old Soldier*
Gabrielle Roy’s Tin Flute*
Canada’s Honourable Allan J. MacEachen: Nationhood and Leadership
 
Maria Chapdelaine*
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland (cont’d)*
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland*
La Corriveau: A Legend*
The Aftermath cont’d: Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens*
The Aftermath: Krieghoff’s Quintessential Quebec
Parliament to the Rescue: the Hidden Resource
The Act of Union: the Aftermath
The Act of Union 1840-41
The Rebellion in Upper Canada: Wikipedia’s Gallery
Upper & Lower Canada ←
 
Nouvelle-France’s Last and Lost Battle: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham**
The Battle of Fort William Henry & Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans**
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran** ←
 
More on the Jesuit Relations
The Jesuit Relations: an invaluable legacy
Nouvelle-France’s Seigneurial System
Cartier, Champlain & Missionaries: a Chronology
Jacques Cartier, the Mariner
Pierre du Gua: a mostly Forgotten Founder of Canada
Richelieu & Nouvelle-France ←
Une Éminence grise: Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fonsac
 
THE BATTLES
Nouvelle-France’s Last and Lost Battle: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham
The Battle of Fort William Henry & Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran ←
 
THE VOYAGEURS 
The Singing Voyageurs 
The Voyageur Mythified
The Voyageur from Sea to Sea
The Voyageur & his Canoe
The Voyageurs & their Employers
The Voyageurs: hommes engagés ←
 
© Micheline Walker
7 May 2012
WordPress
 
10 A la claire fontaine
(please click on the title to hear the music)
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Posts on Canada’s History & Literature

29 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, History, Literature

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Canada, Cardinal Richelieu, France, Gabrielle Roy, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, Tin Flute

Old Farm House, by A. J. Casson, Group of Seven

A. J. Casson at Bremner Fine Arts

I have been very busy putting together my blogs that deal with the history of Canada.  If there is an * after the title, I am speaking about a novel, but a novel that has historical value.  If there are two **, the post deals with a battle, one of the battles that lead to the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.  

My blogs are now protected by an official copyright, which indicates that they are my intellectual property.  They may be quoted, but the source has to be given.

Yet, it is important for me to provide information to people who are not in a position to seek that information.  The Internet is becoming an important source of information, information one can rely on.  For people who are not able to get out and find this information in libraries, this is marvellous. 

I often think of people whose mobility is impaired.  Why should they be deprived of informative yet entertaining  posts?  They need a presence in their lives as I need the presence of others in my life.   

So here is my Canada list, but it may not be complete.  I may have forgotten a few posts.  But we now have a little bundle, all wrapped up.  However, voyageurs posts are missing, but they will be compiled.  It’s a matter of time. 

The order of this list goes from the more recent post to the oldest.  There is a chronology. 

* * *     

Gabrielle Roy’s Tin Flute* 
Parliament to the Rescue: the Hidden Solution (modified title)
La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s Old Soldier*
The Rebellion in Upper Canada: Wikipedia’s Gallery
The Act of Union: the Aftermath
The Act of Union 1840-41
Upper & Lower Canada
The Aftermath: Krieghoff’s Quintessential Quebec
The Canadian & his Terroir*
Maria Chapdelaine*
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland (cont’d)*
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland*
La Corriveau: A Legend*
The Aftermath cont’d: Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens*
Nouvelle-France’s Last and Lost Battle: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham**
The Battle of Fort William Henry & Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans**
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran**
Nouvelle-France’s Seigneurial System
Jacques Cartier, the Mariner
Pierre du Gua: a mostly Forgotten Founder of Canada 
Richelieu & Nouvelle-France
Une Éminence grise: Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fonsac
 
THE BATTLES
Nouvelle-France’s Last and Lost Battle: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham 
The Battle of Fort William Henry & Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran 
                                                                                
 
A. J. Casson, The White Pine
 
Johannes Brahms – Lullaby
(please click on the title to hear the music)
 
 
 
 
 
April 29, 2012
Micheline Walker©
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Gabrielle Roy’s The Tin Flute

30 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada

≈ 370 Comments

Tags

Bonheur d'occasion, French-Canadian literature, Gabrielle Roy, irony, poverty, Saint-Henri, the Great Depression, war as salvation

Gabrielle Roy by Yousuf Karsh

Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002)

Bonheur d’occasion (1945) is one of the finest novels written in Canada.  Its author, Gabrielle Roy, is often referred to as “la grande dame” of Canadian Literature in French. In 1947, Bonheur d’occasion was first translated into English by Hanna Josephson.  Josephson’s The Tin Flute is a slightly abridged version of Bonheur d’occasion.  In 1980, Roy’s novel was re-translated by Alan Brown, again in a slightly abridged version.  It was then made into a film in 1983, the year Roy died.

Gabrielle Roy CC [Companion of the Order of Canada], FRSC [Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada] (22 March 1909 – 13 July 1983) was born in Saint-Boniface, a French-Canadian community that is now part of Winnipeg.  First, she worked as a school teacher and has written fine short stories about her teaching days.

Le Restaurant Philibert by Miyuki Tanobe (1983)

Miyuki Tanobe
Galerie Valentin

Bonheur d’occasion (FR), literally second-hand happiness was published in 1945, but it takes the reader back to the last days of Great Depression and the beginning of World War II.  By 1945, Roy had moved from Manitoba to Montreal and worked as a journalist.  Moreover, the last roman du terroir, regionalism, Ringuet’s Trente Arpents, had been published.

The Tin Flute (EN), a novel, is about a family living in Saint-Henri, in slums, on the wrong side of the track.  On the other side of the track, one goes up a hill to Westmount.  Given its nearness to the very centre of Montreal, Saint-Henri is now being gentrified.  It was a very poor area of Montreal.

Rose-Anna

Rose-Anna is the main figure.  She is married to Azarius Lacasse and is the mother of several children one of whom, Daniel, she carries in a little sleigh all the way up to a clinic.  He is dying of leukemia and is sent to a hospital.

Ironically, Daniel spends the last days of his vanishing life in a comfortable bed and a warm room, cared for by doctors and nurses who speak very little French but whom he just loves.  In fact, that episode, or those episodes, Daniel’s last days, epitomize the novel in that they constitute a fine example of Roy’s chief tool as the author of Bonheur d’occasion: irony.  One is happy when one is about to die.  Death is the solution.

Florentine

But let us walk back down the hill to Saint-Henri.  Rose-Anna has an adult daughter, Florentine, who works as a waitress at the restaurant counter of a dime store: le Quinze-Cents or the Fifteen Cents.  Florentine is a little thin, but she is very attractive. The money she earns helps the impoverished Lacasse family and her father has a job.  When Rose-Anna walks into the Quinze-Cents, Florentine is surprised to see her but treats her to a meal.  Before leaving the store, Rose-Anne buys a tin flute for Daniel.  So now we know why the novel was translated as The Tin Flute.

The Trip to the cabane à sucre (maple syrup)

However, everything goes wrong when, one day, Azarius tells Rose-Anna that they may borrow his employer’s truck and go visit her family who live in the country.  It’s maple sugar season.  Azarius had not been allowed to use the truck, so he loses his job.

Florentine and Jean Lévesque

In the meantime, Florentine has fallen in love with Jean Lévesque who has a profession and is employed.  She starts to dream.  During a visit to the Quinze-Cents, Jean tells Florentine to join him at the movie house, which she does, but he stands her up.  Later he comes to visit her at the family’s home and seduces her.

Ironically, Florentine gets pregnant not long after telling her pregnant mother that this must end.  They can’t afford more babies.  Rose-Anna says:  “What do you want, in life one does not do as one wants, one does as one can.”

Qu’est-ce que tu veux, Florentine, on ne fait comme on veut dans la vie; on fait comme on peut.[i]

Azarius unemployed

As for Azarius, he now spends the day with the “boys,” in a restaurant.  It’s their meeting-place and, together, they talk as though they could save the world, so they think.

La belle maison du coin triangulaire by Miyuki Tanobe

Florentine and Emmanuel Létourneau

Florentine is being courted by another man: Emmanuel Létourneau.  He comes from an upper middle-class family and wants to marry Florentine.  She loves Jean Lévesque, but Emmanuel is now her only salvation.  Although he is about to leave for Europe, as are his friends, they marry.  She will get money every month and will live in a nice apartment.

Azarius’s salvation

One day, after they have moved into a humbler home—the Lacasse move every year to avoid the raise in rent or possible eviction—Azarius comes home wearing a military uniform.  Like his son Eugène, Azarius has enlisted.  The family now lives next to the railway tracks.  When she sees her husband, Rose-Anna screams, but the deafening din of a train that seems headed for their house muffles her voice.

War kills. It is perdition.  But it ‘saves’ Azarius and some of the boys.  Rose-Anna will receive a pension cheque every month.   Let me quote Michèle Lacombe who writes that “[t]he inhabitants greet the war as a source of salvation, rescuing them from unemployment.”

Lorne Pierce Medal

Bonheur d’occasion is an extremely compelling novel.  Roy has managed to convey to the reader the degree of despair, and sometimes hope, of her characters.  Roy has also managed to reveal to her readers the compassion she feels for her characters.  I have seldom read so masterfully, yet subtly ironic a novel. However, Rose-Anna is not a mater dolorosa. On the contrary, few characters in Canadian Literature in French are as lucid and combative as she is. But what can she do?

Bonheur d’occasion, The Tin Flute earned Gabrielle Roy a major French literary prize, the Femina (France).  It also earned her the 1947 Governor General’s Award for fiction as well as the Royal Society of Canada’s Lorne Pierce Medal.  It sold more than three-quarters of a million copies.  In 1947, the Literary Guild of America made The Tin Flute its book of the month.  Madame Roy could barely believe the reception given the novel.  She had to leave for Manitoba to avoid the attention.

In short, if Canada is still looking for its great novel, it may have been written 1945.

—ooo—

Eric Satie, 18 Première Gymnopédie Gn. 
(please click on title to hear music)

___________________________

[i] Gabrielle Roy, Bonheur d’occasion (Montréal: Boréal, 1998[1945]), p. 89.

[ii] Michèle Lacombe, “Bonheur d’occasion”                             <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/bonheur-doccasion>.

[iii] David M. Hayne and Kathleen Kellett-Betsos, “Canadian literature.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2012.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/91950/Canadian-literature>.

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Katrina, Irene, Rita and Katia & the Titanic

04 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Election, The United States

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Benjamin Guggenheim, Bonheur d'occasion, Gabrielle Roy, God and disasters, hurricanes, John Jacob Astor, Lt Gen Russel L Honoré, The Tin Flute, the Titanic, WordPress

Der Untergang der Titanic

Engraving by Willy Stöwer: Der Untergang der Titanic

I’ve just reread one of my favorite short stories. It’s about the Titanic and was published in 1955 by Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983) in a collection of short stories entitled Rue Deschambault, the name of Gabrielle Roy’s street in Saint-Boniface, a French-language part of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The story’s narrator, young  Christine, is huddled with her parents and two visitors, monsieur Élie and his wife, in the family kitchen, next to a large stove. Outdoors, a bitter winter storm rages, but despite the storm, uncle Majorique, a raconteur or story teller, comes knocking at the door. Consequently, Le Titanic has a child narrator, as well as a story teller: innocence and experience!

Uncle Majorique has credibility and loves progress. He owns every volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica and looks forward to the day man will land on Mars and the Moon. So he speaks of the Titanic in a somewhat detached manner, but, as his name suggests, Majorique, he embellishes the prairie storm by telling the story of the Titanic, making the Titanic a rather oversized metaphor.

—ooo—

The story of the Titanic differs substantially from accounts of natural disasters. The sinking of the Titanic is a man-made tragedy and the chief sin is vanity: hubris.  The Captain did not decrease the speed at which the ship was travelling. Yet, he knew there were icebergs in the vicinity. Icebergs are mountains of ice only the top of which is visible. They are therefore an invisible danger. Moreover, given the presumed invincibility of the ship; given also that its owners, The White Star Line, had not put the required number of lifeboats on deck, humans had played God.  About 1,500 people died during that fateful night, 15 April 1912.

There are very few links between the sinking of the Titanic and the prairie storm except that both are images of humankind’s vulnerability.  However, in both cases, we see the hand of a punitive God.  Indeed “the poor people were rich.” It was very  “wrong”, says Majorique, for them (an all-inclusive “them”) “to believe they were sheltered from God’s anger.”

Earlier in the story Christine mentions that above her mother’s sewing machine there hangs a picture of a severe God hovering above the Holy Family:  Mary, Joseph and Jesus, who resemble ordinary people.

In 1955, a French-Canadian family might indeed have seen the hand of a punitive God in the sinking of the Titanic and it might also have seen the hand of God in  natural disasters, such as Katrina and Irene. I remember being warned by a priest that if I wore shorts during the summer, I would go to Hell and my thighs would be burnt by Satan. As a result, God was terrifying to me.

—ooo—

However, the reason I am writing this blog is encapsulated in one sentence. When Christine hears that there were rich people on the Titanic, she says, as quoted above: “So the poor people were rich! (Ainsi les pauvres gens étaient riches!).” Sincere compassion for those who suffer is expressed in most of Gabrielle Roy’s works and, in Le Titanic, the compassionate character is the child narrator.

“Hammerstein!…  Vanderbilt!…”  says one of the friends of the family, monsieur Élie, trivializing the sinking of the Titanic. These names do not appear on the Titanic’s passenger list. However, among the lives reaped by the sinking of the Titanic are those of Benjamin Guggenheim and Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, both of whom were in their mid-forties, 46 and  47. Astor put his pregnant eighteen-year old wife in a lifeboat and Benjamin Guggenheim acted likewise. He made sure his mistress was ensconced in a lifeboat.

Some men may have jumped into the few lifeboats, but, theoretically, only women and children were permitted the relative security of lifeboats.  So Benjamin Guggenheim and John Jacob Astor IV both died in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic and their death was as painful, cruel and useless as the death of the poorer passengers, including servants and members of the liner’s staff.

In other words, rich or poor, we are all alike and, if anything is wrong, it is as Majorique put it. It was wrong (mal) of them “to the think they were sheltered from the wrath of God (de se croire à l’abri de la colère de Dieu).”

—000—

We are nearing the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Flying airplanes into the towers of the World Trade Centre was a man-made disaster that killed indiscriminately. The terrorists were human beings who debased themselves. But what of the United States’ reaction: two wars, torture and near-bankruptcy.

In the end, Bin Laden was found and killed by commandos, the élite Navy Seals. All that was needed were highly–trained commandos and a dog named Cairo.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/08/08/getting-bin-laden

And now, just after the debt-ceiling crisis has been temporally resolved, the hurricane season is proving deadly and repairs will be expensive. But, please do not deplete social programs to finance the repairs. It is time for the US to make the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes and to promote a sense of “common purpose” (US Army Retired Lt General Russel L Honoré’s wording).

—ooo—

All are at risk.  It’s the human condition. However, nothing prevents the US from fixing its problems without prompting anxiety attacks among grandmothers, the disabled, the veterans, the children, and destabilizing an increasingly global economy.

I have empathy for President Obama, and I agree with Lt General Russel L Honoré, (ret). It may not be a bad idea to send to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, those politicians who do not have a sense of responsibility, no more than a sense of nationhood. If Camp Shelby doesn’t suffice, have them roll up their sleeves and help Irene’s, Katrina’s, Rita’s and Katia’s victims.

Make the Titanic unsinkable.

P. S.  Gabrielle Roy is the author of the internationally-acclaimed 1945 novel Bonheur d’occasion (The Tin Flute)

Céline Dion
“My heart will go on”
from The Titanic

 

 

 

©  Micheline Walker
4 September 2011
WordPress

 

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