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Micheline's Blog

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Tag Archives: Regionalism

Maria Chapdelaine

20 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

colonisation, coureur des bois, faire de la terre, Louis Hémon a visitor, lumberjack, making land, Regionalism, roman de la terre

The Chapdelaine Farm, by Clarence Gagnon

The Chapdelaine Farm by Clarence Gagnon

This post was published on 26 January 2012. It was one of two posts on Maria Chapdelaine. These earned me an invitation, by Montreal’s Writer’s Chapel Trust, to the unveiling of a plaque honouring Louis Hémon. Unexpected events prevented me from attending, but I am thankful for the invitation and regret not attending.
See Related Post: Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine.

Louis Hémon[i]

This is the first post I wrote on Maria Chapdelaine. I went on to write a second one.

French author Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913) moved to Canada in 1911. By then he had already published several books. As for his Maria Chapdelaine, he wrote it during the winter of 1912-1913, sent his manuscript to France and started travelling west.

Hémon died in a train accident at Chapleau, Ontario.  Had he travelled a little further he would have met the descendants of voyageurs, Métis, and aristocrats referred to as “The French Counts.”[ii] They had settled in the Assiniboia region: Count Henri de Soras, the Marquis de Jumilhac, Viscount Joseph de Langle, Count de Beaulincourt and others.

Church at Peribonka by Clarence Gagnon

Historical Background: two choices

  • L’Exode or Exodus[iii]

Louis Hémon came to Quebec during a period of its history when there was very little work for French-speaking Canadians inhabiting Quebec and Acadia. This period of Canadian history is called the Exode. Nearly a million French Canadians and Acadians moved to the United States where they could work in factories.

  • The Curé Labelle: colonisation

This could not be the Church’s best choice. One priest, the famed Curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891), was the chief proponent of colonisation. He urged French-Canadians to settle north and “make land,” faire de la terre, faire du pays, as their ancestors had done. This was their mission.

—ooo—

Making Land: Samuel’s Choice

So making land had been Samuel Chapdelaine’s choice. He had taken his family to the Lac Saint-Jean area where he and his sons were turning inhospitable land into arable soil. I should think Hémon named Samuel Chapdelaine after Samuel de Champlain, whom we could call the founder of New France.

Louis Hémon in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

When Louis Hémon arrived in Canada, 1910, he lived in Montreal. But two years later he travelled north and stopped at Peribonka, in the Lac Saint-Jean area. At first, he worked as a farmhand, helping “settlers,” but, as noted above, he spent the winter of 1912-1913 writing Maria Chapdelaine.

Hémon had sent his manuscript to France but he never savored the success of his novel. It was serialized in France in 1914 and published by J. A. Lefebvre in Quebec in 1916, with black and white illustrations by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. It was an  international bestseller. An English translation, by W. H. Blake, was published in 1921.

Maria Chapdelaine

There is a summary of Maria Chapdelaine (just click on the title) on the website of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, housed in Kleinburg, a village just north of Toronto. Clarence Gagnon‘s (8 November 1881 – 5 January 1942) 1933 illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine are part of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

Napoléon Laliberté by Clarence Gagnon

A Summary of the Plot

However, I will summarize the summary.

Maria is the daughter of a “settler.” She is a little plump, but beautiful. One Sunday, the day on which parishioners get together and chat, Maria meets François Paradis. François is a sort of coureur des bois, voyageur, canoeman, lumberjack: the mythic fearless pioneer.

When François meets Maria, he is attracted to her and tells her that he will stop by her family’s farm before escorting Belgian travelers who are looking for fur. Maria and François fall in love. They will be married when he returns from the logging camp. However, he dies in a blinding snowstorm attempting to visit with Maria on New Year’s Eve.

Eutrope Gagnon and Lorenzo Surprenant: the other suitors

Maria has two other suitors: Eutrope Gagnon, a settler and neighbour, and Lorenzo Surprenant, who has travelled from the United States to find a bride. What Lorenzo has to offer is an easier life: no black flies, no back-breaking labour, milder weather, nearness to a Church and to stores. She is genuinely tempted to marry him, despite the fact that she is not in love with him. For Maria, love died the day François died.

However, she rejects Lorenzo. She will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a settler, and will live as her mother lived. When she is making her decision, she hears voices telling her that in Quebec, nothing must die and nothing must change: « Au pays de Québec rien ne doit mourir et rien ne doit changer… »

The names are all symbolic: Paradis for paradise; Surprenant; for surprising or amazing; and Gagnon for winning.

Beaver Coin

My summary of Maria Chapdelaine may have diminished Maria’s suitors. But Hémon makes them very real and anxious to live their lives, which means taking a wife. Although it is a simple novel, finding a more focused, but somewhat stylized, account of life as it was in 1912 would be difficult.

Hémon describes Québec as un pays, a country. In 1937, Félix-Antoine Savard will feature le délié, a person who is no longer tied (lié) to the land and is therefore looked upon as a man who sold himself: un vendu. (See Menaud, maître-draveur, Wikipedia.)

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

pu-logo

 

 

 

Folklore: À la claire fontaine, Université de Moncton, Male Choir

(please click to hear the song)

Maria Chapdelaine can be read online. It is a Gutenberg Project e-book.
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, FR) [EBook #13585]
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, EN) [EBook #4383]
Maria Chapdelaine PDF FR
Canadian literature: The Montreal School, 1895–1935
First serialized in Le Temps (1914) (Paris)
Published in book form in 1916 (Montreal)
Translated into English in 1921 (W. H. Blake)
Translated into all the major languages
 
____________________
[i] “Louis Hémon.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261010/Louis-Hemon>. 
 
[ii] Ruth Humphrys, “Dr Rudolph Meyer and the French Nobility of Assiniboia,” The Beaver (The Hudson’s Bay Company: Outfit 309:1, Summer 1978), p. 16-23. 
 
[iii] Maurice Poteet (ed.), Textes de l’Exode (Montréal: Guérin Litérature, coll. Francophonie, 1987).
 
Johannes Brahms: Drei Intermezzi, Op. 117, No. 2 
 
The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon

The White Horse by Clarence Gagnon

© Micheline Walker
26 January 2012
WordPress
 
 

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Maria Chapdelaine

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

colonisation, coureur des bois, happiness unattainable, Louis Hémon a visitor, lumberjack, Regionalism, roman de la terre, to make land

The Chapdelaine Farm, by Clarence Gagnon
The Chapdelaine Farm, by Clarence Gagnon

Louis Hémon[i]

This is the first post I wrote on Maria Chapdelaine. I went on to write a second one.

French author Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913) moved to Canada in 1911. By then he had already published several books. As for his Maria Chapdelaine, he wrote it during the winter of 1912-1913, sent his manuscript to France and started travelling west.

Hémon died in a train accident at Chapleau, Ontario.  Had he travelled a little further he would have met the descendants of voyageurs, Métis, and aristocrats referred to as “The French Counts.”[ii] They had settled in the Assiniboia region: Count Henri de Soras, the Marquis de Jumilhac, Viscount Joseph de Langle, Count de Beaulincourt and others.

Church at Peribonka, by Clarence Gagnon

Historical Background: two choices

  • L’Exode or Exodus[iii]

Louis Hémon came to Quebec during a period of its history when there was very little work for French-speaking Canadians inhabiting Quebec and Acadia. This period of Canadian history is called the Exode. Nearly a million French Canadians and Acadians moved to the United States where they could work in factories.

  • The Curé Labelle: colonisation

This could not be the Church’s best choice. One priest, the famed Curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891), was the chief proponent of colonisation. He urged French-Canadians to settle north and “make land,” faire de la terre, faire du pays, as their ancestors had done. This was their mission.

—ooo—

Making Land: Samuel’s Choice

So making land had been Samuel Chapdelaine’s choice. He had taken his family to the Lac Saint-Jean area where he and his sons were turning inhospitable land into arable soil. I should think Hémon named Samuel Chapdelaine after Samuel de Champlain, whom we could call the founder of New France.

Louis Hémon in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

When Louis Hémon arrived in Canada, 1910, he lived in Montreal. But two years later he travelled north and stopped at Peribonka, in the Lac Saint-Jean area. At first, he worked as a farmhand, helping “settlers,” but, as noted above, he spent the winter of 1912-1913 writing Maria Chapdelaine.

Hémon had sent his manuscript to France but he never savored the success of his novel. It was serialized in France in 1914 and published by J. A. Lefebvre in Quebec in 1916, with black and white illustrations by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. It was an international bestseller. An English translation, by W. H. Blake, was published in 1921.

Maria Chapdelaine

There is a summary of Maria Chapdelaine (just click on the title) on the website of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, housed in Kleinburg, a village just north of Toronto. Clarence Gagnon‘s (8 November 1881 – 5 January 1942) 1933 illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine are part of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

Napoléon Laliberté, by Clarence Gagnon

A Summary of the Plot

However, I will summarize the summary.

Maria is the daughter of a “settler.” She is a little plump, but beautiful. One Sunday, the day on which parishioners get together and chat, Maria meets François Paradis. François is a sort of coureur des bois, voyageur, canoeman, lumberjack: the mythic fearless pioneer.

When François meets Maria, he is attracted to her and tells her that he will stop by her family’s farm before escorting Belgian travelers who are looking for fur. Maria and François fall in love. They will be married when he returns from the logging camp. However, he dies in a blinding snowstorm attempting to visit with Maria on New Year’s Eve.

Eutrope Gagnon and Lorenzo Surprenant: the other suitors

Maria has two other suitors: Eutrope Gagnon, a settler and neighbour, and Lorenzo Surprenant, who has travelled from the United States to find a bride. What Lorenzo has to offer is an easier life: no black flies, no back-breaking labour, milder weather, nearness to a Church and to stores. She is genuinely tempted to marry him, despite the fact that she is not in love with him. For Maria, love died the day François died.

However, she rejects Lorenzo. She will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a settler, and will live as her mother lived. When she is making her decision, she hears voices telling her that in Quebec, nothing must die and nothing must change: « Au pays de Québec rien ne doit mourir et rien ne doit changer… »

The names are all symbolic: Paradis for paradise; Surprenant; for surprising or amazing; and Gagnon for winning.

Beaver Coin

My summary of Maria Chapdelaine may have diminished Maria’s suitors. But Hémon makes them very real and anxious to live their lives, which means taking a wife. Although it is a simple novel, finding a more focused, but somewhat stylized, account of life as it was in 1912 would be difficult.

Hémon describes Québec as un pays, a country. In 1937, Félix-Antoine Savard will feature le délié, a person who is no longer tied (lié) to the land and is therefore looked upon as a man who sold himself: un vendu. (See Menaud, maître-draveur, Wikipedia.)

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

pu-logo

Folklore: À la claire fontaine, Université de Moncton, Male Choir

(please click to hear the song)

Maria Chapdelaine can be read online. It is a Gutenberg Project e-book.
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, FR) [EBook #13585]
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, EN) [EBook #4383]
Maria Chapdelaine PDF FR
Canadian literature: The Montreal School, 1895–1935
First serialized in Le Temps (1914) (Paris)
Published in book form in 1916 (Montreal)
Translated into English in 1921 (W. H. Blake)
Translated into all the major languages
 
____________________
[i] “Louis Hémon.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261010/Louis-Hemon>. 
 
[ii] Ruth Humphrys, “Dr Rudolph Meyer and the French Nobility of Assiniboia,” The Beaver (The Hudson’s Bay Company: Outfit 309:1, Summer 1978), p. 16-23. 
 
[iii] Maurice Poteet (ed.), Textes de l’Exode (Montréal: Guérin Litérature, coll. Francophonie, 1987).
 
Johannes Brahms: Drei Intermezzi, Op. 117, No. 2 
 
The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon

© Micheline Walker
26 January 2012
WordPress
 
 

Micheline's Blog

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Posts on Quebec Regionalism, Roman de la terre, Roman du terroir…

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Regionalism

≈ Comments Off on Posts on Quebec Regionalism, Roman de la terre, Roman du terroir…

Tags

Claude-Henri Grignon, Félix-Antoine Savard, Germaine Guèvremont, Le Survenant, Maria Chapdelaine, Patrice Lacombe, Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, Regionalism, Ringuet's Thirty Acres, Trente arpents

Boy with Bread, by Ozias Leduc
— Boy with Bread, by Ozias Leduc (8 October 1864 – 16 June 1955)
 
 
I believe this is the complete list of posts on regionalism, “roman de la terre,” “roman du terroir” I have written so far. They are at times repetitive because I do not know whether or not someone has read earlier posts. Maria Chapdelaine was written by Louis Hémon, a Frenchman, or an outsider. However, it is the one novel interested persons should read. Menaud, maître-draveur (a draveur is a river driver taking lumber logs to their destination) is a very poetical novel. 
 
Louis Hémon, the author of Maria Chapdelaine, sees Quebec as eternal. Such hope is not expressed by Félix-Antoine Savard whose 1937 novel, Menaud, maître-draveur, is embedded in Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine. Foreigners have come… 
 
As you will notice, I did try to give more descriptive titles to older posts, but failed miserably. Fortunately, my cat said: enough!  He’s in charge, so what could I do. Lists were my solution. 
  

General

  • Colonization & the Revenge of the Cradles
  • Alexis de Tocqueville on Lower Canada
  • The End of Regionalism in Quebec Fiction & Marc-Aurèle Fortin (list of all Canadiana posts)
  • The Regionalist Novel in Quebec: Survival
  • The Canadien’s Terroir
  • Claude-Henri Grignon: Notre culture sera paysanne, ou ne sera pas (1941, letter to André Laurendeau)
  • New France: “Once upon a time…”

Fiction

  • Germaine Guèvremont’s Le Survenant (1945)
  • Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Part Two) (1938)
  • Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Part One) (1938)
  • Félix-Antoine Savard: Menaud Maître-Draveur: a Metaphysical Land (1937)
  • Claude-Henri Grignon: Séraphin, Un Homme et son péché, or Heart of Stone (1933)
  • Louis Hémon: Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine (1914; 1916)
  • Louis Hémon: Maria Chapdelaine (1914; 1916) (Louis Hémon)
  • Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau‘s Charles Guérin (1846) DCB/DBC
  • The Honorable Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau (Biography) Dictionary of Canadian Biography
  • Patrice Lacombe‘s La Terre paternelle (1846) Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Resources

  • Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCE/DBC)
  • The Canadian Encyclopedia
  • Encyclopædia Britannica
 
Armand Bastien
Frescoes/Fresques by Ozias Leduc
Young Student, by Ozias Leduc

Young Student, by Ozias Leduc

© Micheline Walker
15 January 2014
WordPress

Micheline's Blog

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Menaud, maître-draveur: a Metaphysical Land

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Regionalism

≈ Comments Off on Menaud, maître-draveur: a Metaphysical Land

Tags

1937, Clarence Gagnon artist, Félix-Antoine Savard, French-Canadian literature, Menaud maître draveur, Regionalism, Saguenay River, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

Village de Baie-Saint-Paul en hiver (Charlevoix), Clarence Gagnon

Maison à Baie-Saint-Paul, 1924, Clarence Gagnon (La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff)

In 2005, Félix-Antoine Savard‘s 1937’s Menaud, maître-draveur[i] (Master of the River) was selected as one of Canada‘s ‘100 Most Important Books’ by The Literary Review of Canada. The popularity of Savard’s novel is increasing.

Unless otherwise indicated, the artwork featured in this post is used with permission from La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff.

 
 

Félix-Antoine Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur and Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine, are intertwined as in a liturgical responsory, expressing legitimate nationalism, attachment to one’s root, and somewhat aggressive nationalism.

The Voice of Quebec: Maria Chapdelaine & Menaud

As Maria is trying to decide whether she will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a cultivateur (a farmer) or leave for the United States as Lorenzo Surprenant’s wife, she hears inner voices, one of which is the voice of Quebec. The voix du Québec directs Maria to live as her mother lived. Jack Warwick[ii] has defined this voice as “l’appel du Nord,” the call of the north. The voice Maria hears resembles that her father, Samuel Chapdelaine, also heard when he went north to “make land.” I should think it is also the voice Menaud is listening to and has always heard. Menaud is the main character in Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur (1937).

In Maria Chapdelaine, the voice of Quebec is a mélopée (from the Greek melopoia), a recitative and monotone chant. Still, in Menaud, l’appel du Nord is a tearful lament and, at other times, a visceral and angry scream. Menaud loves the land he has inherited from his forefathers. He loves its smell, voice, wind in the willows, rough shape, and majestic Saguenay River.

So Menaud lives up the Saguenay River, as do Samuel Chapdelaine and Savard. Félix-Antoine Savard, an ordained priest, was born in Quebec City (1896), but he was raised in Chicoutimi and died (1982) in Charlevoix, where he had founded the parish of Clermont.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Menaud’s Story: the Plot of the Novel

Menaud is, first and foremost, a draveur or river driver. He has driven wood down the river all his life, dancing atop the wood boxed in so it is transformed into somewhat fragile rafts. But Menaud is also an agriculteur, a voyageur, a coureur des bois and a hunter. A widower, he lives in his grey house with Marie, his daughter, and Joson, a son he will lose to the river but not the Saguenay. Joson, Menaud’s son, drowns in the Malbaie (formerly: Murray Bay).

Le Délié: the first Suitor

Menaud and his neighbours in Mainsal (the main sale means: dirty hand) are on the verge of losing access to their mountain, a mountain that has provided sustenance since the early days of New France. The mountain has been rented out to Englishmen by le Délié (the unattached). Lier is to bind, as in to link.

The same Délié has also made plans to marry Marie when winter comes. He tells Menaud that, as his father-in-law, he will be allowed to go to the mountain. Menaud is mourning his son and knows his daughter plans to marry le Délié. Having lost his son, he is about to lose his daughter. Finally, he and his people have lost their mountain, not so much to Englishmen as to le Délié’s greed and lack of respect for his roots. The mountain did not belong to anyone, but le Délié would be renting it, making money. We are witnessing faithlessness.

Alexis le Lucon: a second suitor

Fortunately, Alexis le Lucon, who tried to rescue Joson, finds a place in Marie’s heart. She chases away le Délié and tells Alexis le Lucon that it might be pleasant to live peacefully “here” (icitte):  « Il y a de la bonne terre, avait-elle dit; ce serait plaisant de vivre icitte tranquille ! »  (There is good land, she had said; it would be nice to live here quietly.)

« Je n’ai plus que toi » (I have no one left but you)

Then, as her father enters into a delirium bordering on dementia, Marie tells Alexis that she has no one left but him. « Je n’ai plus que toi[,] » (p. 211) and that, if he loves her (avoir de l’amitié [love as it was then called]), he will continue, as did Joson, as did Menaud. « Alors, si tu as de l’amitié  pour moi tu continueras comme Joson, comme mon père ! »  He opened his arms and made himself a refuge, she cried for a long time with her head leaning against his face: « Puis, dans le refuge des bras qu’il ouvrait, longtemps elle pleura contre son visage. » (p. 212)

Félix-Antoine Savard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Félix-Antoine Savard: biographical notes[iii]

Félix-Antoine Savard, OC MSRC (August 31, 1896 – August 24, 1982) was a priest, a poet, a folklorist and, in 1945, a few years after the publication, in 1937, of Menaud, maître-draveur, he became Professor of Literature at l’Université Laval, in Quebec City, and served as Dean of his Faculty from 1950 to 1957. He was a member of the Order of Merit of Canada and the Royal Society of Canada.

Menaud, maître-draveur earned Savard a medal from the French Academy, l’Académie française, an honour he richly deserved given his exceptional command of the French language and proficiency as a writer. Menaud, maître-draveur changed the course of Savard’s life. From a parish priest, he was transformed into an academic and a very productive poet and novelist. See Wikipedia‘s entry on Félix-Antoine Savard. It has a list of his works and a list of his awards.

Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur, a novel, is successfully embedded in Hémon’s poetical Maria Chapdelaine but further poeticized. Although Félix-Antoine Savard was born in Quebec City, his family moved to Chicoutimi, up the majestic Saguenay River near Lac Saint-Jean. That is Maria Chapdelaine’s country, filled with raftsmen, whom Savard often visited, lumberjacks, coureurs des bois, men like Maria’s François Paradis. He was also acquainted with men, cultivateurs, who tilled an inhospitable land tirelessly. In other words, Savard knew the people and the region that led Louis Hémon to write his eternal Maria Chapdelaine, published in 1914.

Moreover, Father Savard occupied various ecclesiastical positions in Charlevoix as a priest and founded a parish in Clermont. Savard calls Charlevoix his land, a metaphysical land. In 1989, it was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.[iv]  You may remember that Du Gua de Monts, under Tonnetuit and Gravé Du Pont, tried to establish a settlement at Tadoussac, now a town located at the confluence of the St Lawrence River and the Saguenay. Savard died in 1982 at Charlevoix. He was 85.

A Distinct Novel of the Land

Menaud, maître-draveur differs from Patrice Lacombe‘s La Terre paternelle and Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau‘s Charles Guérin.

  • First, it is both a novel and a poem. As a poem, it is a formulaic poème en prose. It contains a recurring refrain, and the refrain is borrowed from the novel’s source, Maria Chapdelaine:  « Nous sommes venus il y a trois cents ans et nous sommes restés. » (Menaud, p. 31)[v] (We came three hundred years ago and we stayed.)  Menaud has his daughter Marie read passages from Maria Chapdelaine to him, which comforts him. Louis Hémon wrote: « Au pays de Québec, rien n’a changé. Rien ne changera. » (p. 194) (In the land of Quebec, nothing has changed. Nothing will change.) Louis Hémon also wrote: « Ces gens sont d’une race qui ne sait pas mourir…  Nous sommes un témoignage. » (Maria Chapdelaine, p. 194):  “These people belong to a breed that does not know how to die…  We are a testimonial.”

I have translated the word “race” by “breed,” which is the word’s meaning in the current context.

  • Second, Menaud is un homme du Nord, a voyageur, a coureur des bois, and perhaps an explorer. He is, at any rate, bigger than life and, therefore, a mythic figure. He has lived dangerously and, by dint of doing so. However, he is now an older man, suddenly feeling young again, putting on his snowshoes and walking in the direction of the Royaume [kingdom] du Saguenay, as that region is often called. The snow is thick, so he gets tired and can’t continue. He takes off his snowshoes and sends Baron, the dog, to fetch help. Alexis finds him, but Menaud’s legs will no longer take him very far. So Menaud is not a typical farmer.
  • But there is a third dimension, a dimension I have introduced: nationalism, but nationalism with a slightly different twist. There is much nostalgia, but more importantly, there is a French Canadian, le Délié (the unattached), who has rented the mountain and will collect the rent. So, Menaud, maître-draveur features a new breed of men: the capitalist. Money is now the motive. Le Délié is, therefore, a “vendu” (a sold man). Was that mountain for him to rent out? We are entering a new world in which Menaud’s profound pride in his land and lineage will not be taken into account no more than ecological concerns. It is the world we live in.

Alexis’s last words in Savard’s novel are: “Ce n’est pas une folie [Menaud’s dementia or madness] comme une autre! Ça me dit, à moi, que c’est un avertissement.” (It is not just another madness. What it tells me, what I hear, is a warning.) (p. 231)

As for my post, I will close it by quoting the most nationalistic statement in Maria Chapdelaine and repeated in  Menaud, maître-draveur. I will close, but I prefer not to comment except to say that estranged people are cutting down the rainforest and letting the planet melt. Not to mention that we can no longer afford our father’s house. It was too expensive.

Autour de nous des étrangers sont venus, qu’il nous plaît d’appeler des barbares ; ils ont pris presque tout le pouvoir ; ils ont acquis presque tout l’argent ; mais au pays de Québec rien n’a changé.  Rien ne changera. » Maria Chapdelaine. p. 194; Menaud, maître-draveur, p. 32 and elsewhere.[vi]  

(Around us, foreigners have come, whom we call barbarians; they have taken nearly all the power; they have acquired almost all the money: but in the land of Quebec, nothing has changed. Nothing will change.)

—ooo—

[i] Félix-Antoine Savard, Menaud maître-draveur, (Québec: Librairie Garneau, 1937).  The novel has been translated by Alan Sullivan as Boss/ Master of the River (Toronto, Ryerson Press, 1947).
[ii] Jack Warwick, L’Appel du Nord dans la littérature canadienne-française : essai (Montréal : Hurtubise/HMH, 1972).
[iii] “Canadian literature.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.            
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/91950/Canadian-literature>.
[iv] “As early as 1760, Scottish noblemen Malcolm Fraser and John Nairn hosted visitors at their manors. For much of its history, Charlevoix was home to a thriving summer colony of wealthy Americans, including President William Howard Taft.” (Wikipedia)
[v] All my quotations are from Félix-Antoine Savard, Menaud, maître-draveur (Montréal & Paris: Fides, 1973[1937]).                           
[vi] Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine (Montréal, Bibliothèque québécoise et Fides, 1990 [1914]).
 
Menaud_1937 
© Micheline Walker
14 June 2012
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Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ Comments Off on Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

Tags

1914, Clarence Gagnon, illustrations, Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine, Quebec, Quebec seen by a Frenchman, Regionalism, roman de la terre, roman du terroir

Revised on 14 January 2014
Images by Clarence Gagnon

Péribonka

The next step in our examination of regionalism in Quebec literature is Maria Chapdelaine.  I have published a short post on Maria Chapdelaine, a novel written by Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913), a Frenchman born in Brest.  After studying law and oriental languages at the Sorbonne, Hémon moved to London and, in 1911, to Quebec, Canada.  In 1912, he spent several months working with cultivateurs, or farmers, in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, up the beautiful Saguenay River.  He  lived in a community called Péribonka and spent the winter of 1912-1913 in that community, writing his novel.

Having completed his manuscript, Hémon sent it to France and started travelling west, probably to Edmonton, where French citizens had settled at that time.  Hémon was killed in a train accident on 8th July 1913, at Chapleau, Ontario.  He did not live to see Maria Chapdelaine become a bestseller.  It has been translated into more than 20 languages in 23 countries and it has been made into three movies.[i] 

The plot is simple. But, although Maria Chapdelaine is a roman du terroir, it differs substantially from Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle and from Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin. Louis Hémon did not feel dispossessed of his ancestral land and betrayed.  And he had not transformed the insurrections of 1837-1838 into an ethnic conflict, which they were not, at least initially.

pu-logo

The artwork featured in this post are illustrations for Maria Chapdelaine, executed by Clarence Gagnon and housed at the McMichael Museum, in Kleinburg, Ontario.

However, Hémon worked with men like Maria Chapdelaine’s father, Samuel Chapdelaine a name not coincidentally resembling that of the Father of New France, Samuel de Champlain.  These otherwise unemployed men were trying to transform rebellious soil into arable land.  They had gone north, as the colourful curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891) advocated, and were “making land” (faire de la terre).[ii]  Father Labelle preached “colonisation.” That was the “patriotic” alternative to leaving for the New England states.

Maria’s ‘Choices:’  F. Paradis, L. Surprenant & E. Gagnon

As indicated in my post, Hémon gives Maria Chapdelaine three suitors: François Paradis, Lorenzo Surprenant and Eutrope Gagnon.  François dies in a snow storm, which was to be expected.  In traditional Quebec society, happiness was viewed not only as impossible, but as dangerous.  Lorenzo Surprenant has come north to find a wife and take her down to the United States, but Maria turns him down.  She will marry a neighbour, Eutrope  Gagnon, and live as her mother lived.  The names of the suitors are revealing: Paradis is paradise, Surprenant, surprizing, and Gagnon, close to the verb gagner: to win.  Hémon’s novel is somewhat stylised.

Maria Chapdelaine also differs from La Terre paternelle and Charles Guérin in that, unlike Chauveau’s Charles Guérin, it does not feature an ‘ugly’ Englishman: Mr Wagnaër. As for La Terre paternelle, although the novel does not feature an explicit ‘ugly’ Englishman, Jean Chauvin fails where an Englishman would have succeeded.  I believe this is the reason why Lacombe views cities as unhealthy.  

 —ooo—

Our next regionalistic novel is Father Félix-Antoine Savard‘s (August 31, 1896 – August 24, 1982) Menaud maître-draveur, 1937 (translated as Boss of the River, or Master of the River by Alan Sullivan (1947).  It earned Savard a Medal from the French Academy.  

To view more illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté,
please click on the following link: http://www.archiv.umontreal.ca/exposition/louis_hemon/oeuvre/oeuvre_page2-3.html
 
_________________________  

[i]  1934: Maria Chapdelaine, directed by Jean Duvivier, starring Madeleine Renaud and Jean Gabin (France); 1950: The Naked Heart, directed by Marc Allégret, starring Michèle Morgan (France); 1984, Maria Chapdelaine, directed by Gilles Carle, starring Carole Laure (Québec).

[ii] Curé Labelle, a legendary figure, is featured in Claude-Henri Grignon’s (Sainte-Adèle, 8 July 1894 – Québec, 3 April 1976) novel Un homme et son péché (1933).  Grignon’s novel was transformed into a very popular serialized radio and television drama.   A film adaptation, entitled Séraphin: Un homme et son péché, Séraphin: Heart of Stone, was released in 2003, but it had been filmed in 1949.  Séraphin is a miser and he is cruel to his wife Donalda.

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon 
 
 
thedayafterthestorm300© Micheline Walker
7 June 2012
WordPress 
 
revised
14 January 2014
 
 
 
 
Related Posts:
  • Maria Chapdelaine
  • Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle (3 June 2012)
  • Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin (5 June 2012)

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Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Second Part)

12 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Canadian History, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ Comments Off on Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Second Part)

Tags

Dr Philippe Panneton, Euchariste Moisan, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor Coté, Regionalism, Ringuet, the Great Depression, Thirty Acres, Trente arpents, United States

 
Hauling Logs, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (National Gallery of Canada)

Hauling Logs, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 1924
(National Gallery of Canada)

Hauling Logs
Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869 – 1937)
 

Thirty Acres (Trente Arpents)

by Ringuet (pseudonym of Philippe Panneton), 1938
translated by Felix and Dorothea Walter 
 

Fall

The fall chapters of Trente Arpents start with he a praise of life on one’s thirty acres.  It is a “un chemin paisible et long,” (a lengthy and peaceful road) despite various difficulties: storms, winter.

[l]à-dessous, toujours, la terre constante, éternellement virginale et chaque année maternelle. (p. 149)

(And underneath, the soil forever faithful, eternally new and each year maternal.)
 

The land has a persistent face:  “un visage (a face) persistant,” (p. 149) but as he praises the land’s persistence and fertility, Euchariste is confronted with a series of unfortunate events, some of which he has helped create…

Oguinase

Oguinase becomes a priest, but he does not live in a lovely parish and he works too hard.  When Euchariste visits him, he is coughing and weak.  He will soon die of tuberculosis.  During Oguinase’s last visit home, he tells his sister Lucinda that she should not be sleeveless in the presence of an ordained priest.  She feels offended and is not seen again.

The Conscription Crisis of 1917

Then comes conscription: World War I.  Suddenly, these farmers remember pre-Revolutionary France:  Christ and the King:  “la France du Christ et du Roi.” (p. 158)  They remember a somewhat revisionist Rebellion of 1837, called ’37.  Would that they had a leader and were their own masters!  The past is mythified.

Éphrem

Euchariste had hoped his son Éphrem would settle of his own thirty acres.  There is money at the notary to buy “la terre des Picard,” the Picard’s farm, and Euchariste has even thought of a possible bride.  There is no room for him on Euchariste’s thirty acres.  The land cannot accommodate several sons.  Yet Éphrem is not ready to become a farmer.

C’est vrai que not’ terre elle est bonne, mais elle n’est pas ben grande! (p.163)

(It’s true, our land is good, but it isn’t very large.)
 

Éphrem eventually decides to leave for the United States.  His uncle, Alphée Larivière (Walter Rivers), who visited during the summer, has found work for him in Lowell, Massachusetts.  Later, Éphrem marries an Irish woman and moves to White Falls.

Phydime Raymond vs Euchariste Moisan

Oguinase dies, which saddens Euchariste immensely, and he then gets embroiled in an expensive legal battle with his neighbour Phydime Raymond.  Decades ago, Euchariste sold a small piece of his thirty acres to Phydime, but Phydime is now taking more land that he bought.

Étienne: “le seul maître” 

Matters do not improve.  Having been burdened with legal fees Eucharist never thought would be astronomical, misfortune does not relent.  One night Eucharist’s barn burns to the ground and he suspects that Phydime set fire to it.  There are losses but the farm animals are safe.  They had been removed immediately and a new barn is built but not according to Euchariste’s wishes.  It is built according to Étienne’s standards.  Étienne loves the land.  Each year, it grows more and more into “a spouse and a lover:”

épouse et maîtresse, sa suzeraine [like a feudal lord] et sa servante, à lui Étienne Moisan. (p. 165)

Napoléon or Pitou: the arrangement

An arrangement is made.  Étienne will run the farm with Napoléon, called Pitou.  A new house will be built for Pitou and his family.  All is arranged, except that Euchariste is in the way.  It would now be convenient for him to live elsewhere. However, the notary leaves town taking with him Euchariste’s savings.  He is dispossessed.

Winter

When the winter of his life begins, an impoverished Euchariste gives his land and his possessions to Étienne.  In exchange, he will receive an allowance, a rente (a pension).  But he is nevertheless again dispossessed, “land and beasts, gains and debts.”  He is blinded by tradition: from father to son.

Il se ‘donna’, terre et bestiaux, avoir et dettes. (p. 219-20)

(He ‘gave’ himself, land, beasts, assets and debts.)

Euchariste has therefore lost his home.  Étienne is now the only master: “seul maître.”  (p. 220)  He has already moved into the large house, which he hopes his father will soon leave.  After all, Étienne is the new owner.

The Holiday in the United States: The “Exode”

Euchariste is therefore sent on a “holiday” to the United States to visit Éphrem who works in a factory and lives in White Falls.  Euchariste is completely disoriented.  Moreover, his daughter-in-law does not speak French, nor do his two grandchildren.  Not once does his daughter-in-law express pleasure at his being in their household.  In fact, Sunday mass becomes Euchariste’s only respite.

Sundays: the only day

Sunday is the only day Euchariste meets a few persons who do not feel at home in the United States.  It has been a long and disappointing holiday, all the more since Étienne has not been sending the monthly allowance, la rente (the pension), he had promised he would give his father in return for ownership of Euchariste’s lost thirty acres.

Going home has therefore become difficult.  In fact, Euchariste has no home and, suddenly, the market crashes and he is “needed” in the United States.  The factory where Éphrem has been working for six years is letting people go or making them work on a part-time basis.

The Great Depression: Euchariste returns to work

Therefore, an older and sadder Euchariste wants to work again, possibly for a farmer.  Éphrem finds a job for his father, that of night watch in a garage.  But, Euchariste hesitates to accept this position, not because he will not work on a farm, but for fear of falling asleep for a moment and being remiss in his duties.  Times have changed!

Ce qui le terrifiait au début, c’était la crainte de s’endormir, de manquer un instant à son devoir de surveillance. (p. 268)

(What terrified him at first, was fear that he would fall asleep and fail for a moment to be vigilant, which was his duty [devoir]).   
 

He earns fifteen dollars a week, but Éphrem takes ten of the fifteen dollars.  Moreover, Étienne also wants money.  It is as though there had been no arrangement between Étienne and Pitou.  Euchariste is therefore needed not only in the US but also in Canada.  His daughter Marie-Louise is sick.  She is dying of tuberculosis and needs medical care, which is expensive.  She soon dies.

* * *

At the end of the novel, Euchariste is depicted as a very frail old man huddling near a little stove in the garage where he works.

Yet, although it is sad, the end is also poetical.  Ringuet takes us away from the plight of one man to the plight and joy of mankind, or from the particular to the general.  He writes that every year spring returns and that, every year, the land is generous.  The land is always the same, toujours la même, not to the same men, men pass, but to different men:

…à des hommes différents…
…une terre toujours la même.
 
Suggested reading:
 
The Canadian Encyclopedia
Ringuet (Athabaska University)
 

—ooo—

 
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893)
Andante Cantabile
Yo-Yo Ma, Cello
 
 
After the Breakup, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (National Gallery of Canada)

After the Breakup, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 1914 (National Gallery of Canada)

© Micheline Walker
July 28, 2012
WordPress 
 
revised
January 12, 2014
 
After the Breakup
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Regionalism in Quebec’s Literature: Thirty Acres

12 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, French-Canadian Literature, Régionalisme

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Clarence Gagnon, cultivateur, habitant, Regionalism, roman du terroir, Trente arpents

 
Oxen Ploughing, by Clarence Gagnon, 1902 (National Gallery of Canada)

Oxen Ploughing by Clarence Gagnon, 1902 (National Gallery of Canada)

Clarence Gagnon (1881 – 1942)

“It was not the over-sensitivity of the misunderstood that made me move to Paris… Over there, I paint only Canadian subjects, I dream only of Canada. The motif remains fixed in my mind, and I don’t allow myself to be captivated by the charms of a new landscape. In Switzerland, Scandinavia-everywhere, I recall my French Canada.”  (Clarence Gagnon)

I am republishing two posts that describe regionalism and the period when Quebeckers were leaving for the United States looking for employment.

Ringuet, or Dr Philippe Panneton, is the writer I am featuring.  He is the author of Trente arpents (Thirty Acres).  The novel was published in 1938, when the habitant had become a “cultivateur.”  Colonisation had ennobled his work.

You will note a considerable degree of acceptance.  The protagonist’s wife, Alphonsine, gives birth year after year, but her husband, Euchariste Moisan, sees the birth of children as Alphonsine’s inescapable fate.  She has to have “son nombre,” her number. Therefore, Euchariste is somewhat indifferent.  Yearly pregnancies and the death of children do not seem to affect him.  Life goes by as inexorably as the seasons.  Euchariste does not welcome changes: machines.

Euchariste also accepts the curé‘s, or parish priest, request.  He will contribute a son to the Church.  This was normal.  Whenever a child showed intellectual promise, he was chosen by the parish priest and eventually entered the Grand Séminaire.  Oguinase’s destiny is to become a priest.

Another son, Éphrem, is somewhat rebellious and is influenced by a relative who has left Canada for a more comfortable life in the United States.  This relative has even changed his name.

I have chosen this particular post as it documents the rise and fall of the habitant turned cultivateur.

So good morning to all or you.

The Lake, Séminaire Saint-Sulpice, Montreal Clarence Gagnon 1917

The Lake, Séminaire Saint-Sulpice, Montréal by Clarence Gagnon, 1917 (National Gallery of Canada)

© Micheline Walker
12 January 2014 
WordPress
 
Séminaire Saint-Sulpice

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The End of Regionalism in Quebec Fiction & Marc-Aurèle Fortin

15 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Claude-Henri Grignon, Germaine Guèvremont, LIST OF POSTS, Menaud maître draveur, Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, Regionalism, roman de la terre, Séraphin: un homme et son péché, terroir, Trente arpents

 
Sainte-Rose Village, by Marc-Aurèle Fortin, 1930

Sainte-Rose Village by Marc-Aurèle Fortin, 1930

Marc-Aurèle Fortin  (14 March 1888 – 2 March 1970)
 
Artwork: with permission from La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff
Le Devoir: Marc-Aurèle Fortin (article on current exhibition) 
 
Gabrielle Roy’s Tin Flute (city novel)*
Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau: Happiness Unattainable (poetry)
 
REGIONALISM IN QUEBEC FICTION
Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Ringuet’s Trente Arpents (2)*
Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Ringuet’s Trente Arpents (1)*
Menaud, maître-draveur: a Metaphysical Land, Félix-Antoine Savard*
Germaine Guèvremont’s Le Survenant*
Claude-Henri Grignon: Notre culture sera paysanne, ou ne sera pas (article)
Séraphin, Un Homme et son péché, or Heart of Stone, Claude Henri Grignon*
Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine, Louis Hémon*
Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: The Honorable Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau
Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle
The Canadien’s Terroir
The Regionalistic Novel In Quebec: Survival 
New France: Once upon a time… (roots of regionalism) ←
* Fiction
 

List of Posts

This is an updated list of my posts on Quebec. I am now preparing a post on Trente Arpents (Thirty Acres), a novel published in 1938 by Ringuet.  The literature that follows Trente Arpents is about life in cities or small towns.  Trente Arpents reminds me of a typical Balzac novel:  the rise and fall of…  Euchariste Moisan inherits thirty acres, marries, raises a family, but there is a sudden dégringolade.  Everything goes wrong…

Village in Quebec, by Marc-Aurèle Fortin, 1926

Village in Quebec by Marc-Aurèle Fortin, 1926

A Rainy Road Marc-Aurèle Fortin c. 1925-1928

A Rainy Road by Marc-Aurèle Fortin,
c. 1925-1928 (National Gallery of Canada)

A Rainy Road
Marc-Aurèle Fortin (biographical notes)
 
Three Conferences, Confederation and Now: Civil Unrest
From Coast to Coast: The Iron Horse, Part 2
From Coast to Coast: The Iron Horse, Part 1
From Coast to Coast: Louis Riel as Father of the Confederation
From Coast to Coast: the Fenian Raids
From Coast to Coast: the Oregon Country
Nouvelle-France’s Seigneurial System (listed twice)
La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s Old Soldier*
Parliament to the Rescue: the Hidden Solution
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 
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 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 VOYAGEURS
 
In these Fairylike Boats…
The Singing Voyageurs
The Voyageur Mythified 
The Voyageur from Sea to Sea           
The Voyageur & his Canoe
The Voyageurs & their Employers
The Voyageurs: hommes engagés (hired men)
 
THE BATTLES
Nouvelle-France’s Last and Lost Battle: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham Battle of Fort William Henry & Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran

Saint-Siméon, by Marc-Aurèle Fortin

Saint-Siméon, by Marc-Aurèle Fortin (Photo credit: Google images)

© Micheline Walker
15 July 2012
WordPress
 
 
45.408358 -71.934658

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The Regionalist Novel in Quebec: Survival

27 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Literature

≈ Comments Off on The Regionalist Novel in Quebec: Survival

Tags

Claude-Henri Grignon, Félix-Antoine Savard, French-Canadian literature, Germaine Guèvremont, Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine, Philippe Panneton, Regionalism

Mild Spring by Claude A. Simard, R.C.A. (2010)

(Claude A. Simard is featured with permission from La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal)

Today, I will start and perhaps finish writing about our last Regionalist Novel in Quebec: Ringuet‘s Trente Arpents. If you are interested in French-Canadian literature and use my posts as further information on both Canadian literature and history, you may wish to keep the list below. There are other romans de la terre or romans du terroir, or novels of the land (regionalism), but the works listed below are fine representatives of this school, and some are classics. The theme underlying these novels is survival, as in Margaret Atwood‘s Survival.

Classification: The Canadien runs out of Land

I do not want to put these novels into little boxes, but a moderate degree of classification is necessary. Maria Chapdelaine, by Louis-Hémon, a Frenchman, tells the entire story. However, it does not convey the despair of those French-Canadians who had to leave Canada because they the thirty acres allotted their ancestors in the seventeenth century had shrunk. The exodus was a tragic and quasi-genocidal episode. Quebec could not afford to lose close to a million inhabitants.

The finest depiction of the Exodus is Ringuet’s (Dr Philippe Panneton)  Trente Arpents or Thirty Acres.

Ideological Texts

1. In La Terre paternelle, French-Canadians are told that it is better to stay on the land. The same advice is given in Charles Guérin, were it not that Charles Guérin, Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau‘s novel, also brings up the thorny matter of the lack of professions available to French-Canadians living in Quebec.

2. Un Homme et son péché (Les Belles histoires des pays d’en haut), by Claude-Henri Grignon, is about a séraphin, a miser. But it features real-life who advocate colonisation: faire de la terre (making land). “Notre culture sera paysanne… ” supports that ideology.

Poetical

1.  In Menaud, maître-draveur, Félix-Antoine Savard‘s novel, no explicit ideology is expressed, but Englishmen will be renting the mountain so they can harvest its riches. Menaud feels dépossédé (disowned). A French-Canadian no longer “tied” (lié) to the land, le Délié, will be pocketing the rental money. Savard’s novel is a masterpiece. It is a poetical, evocative, and “green” novel. Do not abuse nature.

2.  Le Survenant (and its sequel: Marie-Didace), Germaine Guèvremont‘s novel is also very poetical. It has a bucolic and, at times, spell-binding quality. The land is rich and it still feeds French-Canadians. In The Outlander (Le Survenant), the central character, is both liked and feared.

Patrie Littéraire (after Lord Durham’s Report)

La Terre paternelle and Charles Guérin are Patrie littéraire novels. They were written in the wake of Lord Durham’s report, who described French-Canadians as having no history or literature.

Radio and Television serials

Un Homme et son péché* (Radio and TV) and Le Survenant* (TV) were serialized and extremely popular.

The “Bad” Englishman and the “Vendu” (sold)

The “bad” Englishman is Wagnaër in Charles Guérin and the “vendu,” le Délié in Menaud, maître-draveur.    

  • La Terre paternelle, Patrice Lacombe (1846) ←
  • Charles Guérin, Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau (1846)
  • Maria Chapdelaine, Louis-Hémon (1914)
  • Un Homme et son péché, Claude Henri Grignon (1933)*
  • Notre culture sera paysanne ou elle ne sera pas (We will be peasants or we will not be), Public letter to André Laurendeau, an article published in L’Action nationale, n° 6, juin 1941, pp. 538-543. 
  • Menaud, maître-draveur, Félix Antoine Savard (1937)
  • Trente Arpents, Ringuet (Dr Philippe Panneton) (1938)
  • Le Survenant, Germaine Guèvremont (1945)*
  • The Canadian & his “Terroir”

I will be writing about Laurendeau, l’Action nationale, Refus global, etc.

 —ooo—

Gilles Vigneault sings Gilles Vigneault: Mon Pays

© Micheline Walker
17 June 2012
WordPress
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Germaine Guèvremont’s Le Survenant

24 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in French-Canadian Literature, Regionalism, Roman de la terre

≈ Comments Off on Germaine Guèvremont’s Le Survenant

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Canada, Claude-Henri Grignon, French-Canadian literature, Germaine Guèvremont, Regionalism, Television Series

le_survenant_by_mister_dragonspit-d6gen3e

Le Survenant, Deviant Art

Given the more intimiste and poetical quality of her novels, Germaine Guèvremont’s (born Grignon) Le Survenant, published in 1945 and its sequel, Marie-Didace (1947), Germaine’s  television series could not be as popular as Un Homme et son péché, Les  Belles Histoires des pays d’en haut, or Séraphin: Heart of Stone, the title of the 2002 movie’s based on Un Homme et son péché. Le Survenant was nevertheless an extremely successful television series.

The 138 30-minute televised episodes ran from 30 November 1954 to 30 June 1959 on Télévision de Radio-Canada. We rushed to the living-room the moment we heard its theme: Greensleeves. In 1957-1958, it was presented under a different title, Au Chenal du Moine. Its sequel, Marie-Didace, ran from 25 September 1958 to 25 June 1959 32 60 minute episodes.

Germaine Guèvremont: the author

  • Le Survenant, 1945
  • sequel: Marie-Didace, 1947
  • not quite a roman du terroir, roman de la terre, regionalism (mostly synonyms)
  • Eric Sutton, translator (The Monk’s Reach) London, New York & Toronto
  • also translated as The Outlander, a combination of Le Survenant and Marie-Didace in the United States
  • a popular television serial (1954 – 1959)
  • a film adaptation: Éric Canuel‘s Le Survenant (2005) FR

Germaine Guèvremont’s Le Survenant, 1945

It is possible to see glimpses of Le Survenant as a television serial on a Cinéma québécois site, but the character’s accent makes it difficult to understand the words and the television clips are very old. A little updating would benefit the site, but I would nevertheless recommend it as well as a Télé-Tag and the IMBd site. In 2005, the novel was made into a movie, not a great movie, no more than Séraphin: Heart of Stone, but a respectable movie. 

The Plot

On a fall day, a man knocks on Didace Beauchemin’s door. No one knows anything about him and he does not seem to remember his own past. We suspect, however, that he was brought up in an anglophone or bilingual milieu. He often says “Nevermind” (spelled differently) and he is obviously a well-educated “god-of-the-roads” (grand-dieu-des-routes).

Didace Beauchemin

When he arrives, unexpectedly, at Didace’s house, le survenant is hungry and asks to join the family at the dinner-table. Later, he explains that he will earn his keep by working for Didace who is a well-to-do, solid, and very likable  “cultivateur” (the renamed habitant).  Didace has a son, the rather limp Amable, and a daughter-in-law, Alphonsine, both of whom live upstairs in Didace’s large house. They live upstairs. They have no children. So Didace is disappointed. How will there be continuité, a concern for French Canadians. He would therefore like le survenant to be his son.

Jean Coutu, as Le Survenant

Jean Coutu, as Le Survenant

Angélina Desmarais

Angélina Desmarais, who limps a little and keeps turning down potential husbands, falls in love with le survenant. The feeling is mutual, but Angélina knows that he will leave. She has no illusion. However, le survenant is rejected by many of the inhabitants of le Chenal-du-Moine. He is not one of theirs.

A year after his arrival, le survenant leaves, without saying good-bye, not even to Angélina.

A Discovery:The Outlander’s identity

However, going through old issues of Le Soleil, Quebec City’s main newspaper, le curé, the parish priest, finds a note.  The Espéry de Lignères family members are looking for a relative: Malcolm Petit de Lignères or Marc Delignières, as he had transformed his name.  Malcolm or Marc was brought up by a great-grandfather, Malcolm McDowey and disappeared when studying Law at McGill University. He is heir to a fortune.

Guèvremont does not take us further. At any rate, Didace wants to speak to the curé about his plans to marry an Acadian woman who will bear him a fine daughter: Marie-Didace.

Comments

  • Le Survenant has appeal as a suspense story. We keep going from chapter to chapter and from episode to episode wondering who he is.
  • Moreover, the novel opposes a nomadic individual and sedentary ones. That creates tension. French Canada had voyageurs and coureurs des bois and it had farmers. In Louis Hémon‘s Maria Chapdelaine, François Paradis is nomadic as opposed to Eutrope Gagnon, a farmer.
  • The inhabitants of Le Chenal du Moine are a closely knit society, almost impenetrable, which also creates tension. What if le survenant were an Englishman?  At that time, there still was motivation, on the part of certain officials, to assimilate French-speaking Canadians.[i] 
  • Finally, as a remembrance of times past, the novel exudes nostalgia. The action takes place in 1910 when French-speaking Canadians were about to experience the beginning of their industrial revolution. Actually, it did not happen until the 1960s.

Le Survenant is a Proustian novel, a remembrance of things past. We are in a small village, le Chenal du Moine, near Sorel, now Sorel-Tracy and Guèvremont makes us hear the birds and she takes us down the river in a row-boat: no motor! Her characters speak the French they brought to New France, they gather in huge kitchens, close to their cast iron stove. You should have seen my grandmother’s, not to mention her house.

A Roman de la Terre

Le Survenant is considered a roman de la terre, but it is not Claude-Henri Grignon‘s Un Homme et son péché, featuring real-life characters advocating colonisation. Moreover if the Beauchemin family members are “crushed, never to rise again” Britannica, quoted below), it is not so much that they are running out of land. It is, quite simply that they are entering a new world, but Guèvremont remembers.

Allow me to quote The Encyclopædia Britannica’s entry on Germaine Guèvremont.

“Germaine Guèvremont, née Marianne-Germaine Grignon (born Apr. 16, 1893, Saint-Jérôme, Que., Can.—died Aug. 21, 1968, Montreal), was a French-Canadian novelist who skillfully recreated the enclosed world of the Quebec peasant family.

Grignon, educated in Quebec and at Loretto Abbey, Toronto, married Hyacinthe Guèvremont, a Sorel, Que., druggist; they had a son and three daughters. She worked on Le Courrier de Sorel and as correspondent for the Montreal Gazette before moving to Montreal in 1935. In Montreal, Guèvremont contributed sketches of rural life to the monthly magazine Paysana. En Pleine Terre (1942), a collection of her realistic stories of rural French Canada, was followed by the related novels Le Survenant (1945), which inspired a French-Canadian television series, and its sequel, Marie-Didace (1947). The two novels show a family crushed, never to rise again, after a season of hope. The two novels were translated and combined as The Outlander (1950) in the United States and Canada and as Monk’s Reach (1950) in the United Kingdom.”[ii]

_________________________

[i]  The Royal 22nd Regiment, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_22nd_Regiment

[ii] “Germaine Guèvremont.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 24 Jun. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/248407/Germaine-Guevremont>.

theme: Le Survenant (Greensleeves/Mantovani)
theme: Un Homme et son péché , Les Belles Histoires des pays d’en haut (Nostalgie [Glazunov])

Alexander Glazunov‘s Petit Adagio was the musical theme of the television series based on Le Survenant. (The Seasons, Autumn Op. 67)

 
 
images
© Micheline Walker
24 June 2012
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updated
13 January 2014
 
 
 
 
 
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