PhilPaine.com

Michel Trem­blay is a giant in Cana­dian lit­er­a­ture, but anglo­phone read­ers are gen­er­ally only famil­iar with his plays. Les Belles-Soeurs (“The Sis­ters-in-Law”) trans­formed french-lan­guage the­atre in Cana­da. He was def­i­nite­ly a van­guard, writ­ing vivid­ly in a col­lo­quial Cana­dian, and explor­ing new sub­ject mat­ter. Over the years, Trem­blay built up a huge cor­pus of work, includ­ing many nov­els and tele­vi­sion dra­mas in addi­tion to the plays, a “comédie humaine” from the sinews of Mon­treal. Trem­blay is an odd­ity, an open­ly gay author who is best known for his under­stand­ing of women. Sat­is­fy­ingly com­plex roles for female actors are hard to find on the stage, and Trem­blay has earned their grat­i­tude and respect.

This is the first of his nov­els that I’ve read. The main char­ac­ter is a singer whose career stalled after a sin­gle album. The book focus­es on the peri­od in the ear­ly 1960s when Montreal’s music scene was espe­cially vital. Félix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault, Monique Leyrac, Clé­mence Desrochers, Claude Léveil­lée and oth­ers were cre­at­ing fab­u­lous songs, many of them with extra­or­di­nar­ily beau­ti­ful lyrics*. Trem­blay inter­weaves his­tory and fic­tion del­i­cately. The prose style is very, very Cana­dian, anchored in real speech and real thought, with­out any affec­ta­tions. The peo­ple are com­plete­ly believ­able. The sto­ry is struc­tured as an album: ten songs, ten sit­u­a­tions, ten med­i­ta­tions on what might have been. It explores some­thing hard­ly touched on by writ­ers, the soul search­ing of a life that is nei­ther trag­ic nor tri­umphant, but caught, like most of us are, some­where in between.

*Per­haps the most famous song from that peri­od was Gilles Vigneault’s “Mon Pays”. This is some­what of a digres­sion, but the lyrics of that song might con­vey the inten­sity of feel­ing in the music of that time, and it is cru­cial to under­stand that to appre­ci­ate Tremblay’s novel.

Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver
Mon jardin ce n’est pas un jardin, c’est la plaine
Mon chemin ce n’est pas un chemin, c’est la neige
Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver

Dans la blanche cérémonie
Où la neige au vent se marie
Dans ce pays de poudrerie
Mon père a fait bâtir maison.
Et je m’en vais être fidèle
A sa manière, à son modèle
La cham­bre d’amis sera telle
Qu’on vien­dra des autres saisons
Pour se bâtir à côté d’elle.

Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver
Mon refrain ce n’est pas un refrain, c’est rafale
Ma mai­son ce n’est pas ma mai­son, c’est froidure
Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver.

De mon grand pays solitaire
Je crie avant que de me taire
A tous les hommes de la terre
Ma mai­son c’est votre maison.
Entre mes qua­tres murs de glace.
Je mets mon temps et mon espace
A pré­parer le feu, la place
Pour les humains de l’horizon
Et les humains sont de ma race.

Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver
Mon jardin ce n’est pas un jardin, c’est la plaine
Mon chemin ce n’est pas un chemin, c’est la neige
Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver

Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’envers
D’un pays qui n’était ni pays ni patrie
Ma chan­son ce n’est pas une chan­son, c’est ma vie
C’est pour toi que je veux pos­séder mes hivers

This is very hard to trans­late. The words blow like a snow­storm in French, and a lit­eral trans­la­tion can con­vey the ideas, but not the emotion:

My coun­try is not a coun­try, it’s winter.
My gar­den is no gar­den, it’s the plain.
My road is not a road, it’s the snow.
My coun­try is not a coun­try, it’s the winter.

In the white ceremony,
where the snow weds the wind
In this land of pow­der crystals
My father built his house.
And I will be faithful
To his man­ner, his example
My guest room should be filled
And oth­ers will come from dif­fer­ent seasons
To build next to it.

My coun­try is not a coun­try, it’s the winter.
My refrain is not a cho­rus, it’s a blizzard.
My house is not a house, it’s the frost.
My coun­try is not a coun­try, it’s the winter.

From my vast lone­ly land
I’ll cry out just once before going quiet,
To all the men of this Earth:
“My house is yours.
Between these four walls of ice
I set aside this time and space
For all human­ity, from all horizons
Because all humans are my race.

My coun­try is not a coun­try, it’s winter.
My gar­den is no gar­den, it’s the plain.
My road is not a road, it’s the snow.
My coun­try is not a coun­try, it’s the winter.

My coun­try is not a land, no, the reverse
Of a land, nei­ther coun­try nor fatherland
My song is not a song, it’s my life.
It’s for you that I want to pos­sess my winters.