{"id":667,"date":"2007-10-04T02:35:53","date_gmt":"2007-10-04T06:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=667"},"modified":"2018-08-16T02:04:38","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T06:04:38","slug":"15347-%c2%a0%c2%a0-adjutor-rivard-chez-nous-our-old-quebec-home-tr-w-h-blake-ill-a-y-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=667","title":{"rendered":"15347. (Adjutor Rivard) Chez Nous, Our Old Quebec Home [tr. W. H. Blake, ill. A. Y. Jackson]"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was anoth\u00ader delight\u00adful find in the Good\u00adwill book bins. Rivard\u2019s 1914 mem\u00adoir of life in late nine\u00adteenth cen\u00adtury rur\u00adal Que\u00adbec was once well-known, even in Europe. Rivard was admit\u00adted to l\u2019 Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise<\/em> on the strength of it. Yet it was writ\u00adten in the full-blood\u00aded, earthy Cana\u00addian lan\u00adguage, rife with archa\u00adic Nor\u00adman and Celtic influ\u00adence (A del\u00ade\u00adga\u00adtion from the Scot\u00adtish Par\u00adlia\u00adment, this year, was boulever\u00ads\u00e9<\/em> when accost\u00aded by a pla\u00adtoon of fran\u00adcoph\u00ado\u00adnes from rur\u00adal Que\u00adbec sport\u00ading kilts, spo\u00adrans and bag\u00adpipes). Rivard was an accom\u00adplished philol\u00ado\u00adgist, and like Mark Twain, a metic\u00adu\u00adlous observ\u00ader of dialect. This Eng\u00adlish trans\u00adla\u00adtion sort of sug\u00adgests it, but it can\u2019t put across the pecu\u00adliar feel\u00ading of \u201cla bor\u00add\u00e9e de ce soir a presque abri\u00e9 les balis\u00ades<\/em>\u201d, or \u201cc\u2019est matin pour les li\u00e8vres<\/em>\u201d, any more than a trans\u00adla\u00adtor can ren\u00adder the feel\u00ading of Huck Finn\u2019s speech\u00ades into Latin. But this trans\u00adla\u00adtor is con\u00adsci\u00aden\u00adtious, and does a pret\u00adty good job.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cornelius<\/a>

Cor\u00adnelius Krieghoff \u201cEar\u00adly Cana\u00addi\u00adan Home\u00adstead<\/em>\u201d (1859)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Sad\u00adly, the book is for\u00adgot\u00adten. Que\u00adbec was so eager to jet\u00adti\u00adson its rur\u00adal past that the lit\u00ader\u00adary expres\u00adsion of it fell into obscu\u00adrity. Even Louis H\u00e9mon\u2019s work isn\u2019t much read any\u00admore. To find fic\u00adtional explo\u00adrations of pio\u00adneer and farm life writ\u00adten in French, and still in print, you have to go to Man\u00adi\u00adtoba, to the plays of Andr\u00e9 Paiement in North\u00adern Ontario, or the Aca\u00addian lit\u00ader\u00ada\u00adture of the Mar\u00aditime provinces. What a pity. There are pas\u00adsages in this book that, even in trans\u00adla\u00adtion, have great charm:<\/span><\/p>\n

To him who has skill to light his pipe with a coal and who loves to smoke and med\u00adi\u00adtate by a stove\u2019s door, this guardian deity of the place affords as good coun\u00adsel as the open fire. Seat\u00aded in a chim\u00adney-cor\u00adner, one sets forth\u00adwith to dream\u00ading, to the build of his cas\u00adtles in the air; and sad\u00adly watch\u00ades them dis\u00adsolve away with the dying embers, the mount\u00ading blue, the per\u00adish\u00ading spark. But in front of the stove door a man must think. His mind runs to things of weight\u00adier consequence.
\n<\/em><\/span>
\n or,<\/span><\/p>\n

So much for the short cut through the wood. The path to it was rough and stony, but our bare feet had fol\u00adlowed many anoth\u00ader, and more\u00adover there were com\u00adpen\u00adsa\u00adtions \u2015 the cur\u00e9\u2019s orchard was not beside the road for noth\u00ading! Your apple is a fruit of com\u00admon prop\u00aderty; and, fur\u00adther\u00admore, did we not dri\u00adve home the bea\u00addles\u2019 cow with our own? This estab\u00adlished a kind of lien on the cur\u00e9\u2019s apples, and we picked till our pock\u00adets bulged. Big green apples with a touch of red on the sun\u00adny side, run\u00adning with juice, hard as stones.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

One chap\u00adter is devot\u00aded to the con\u00adceit of farm imple\u00adments recit\u00ading their autobiographies.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve saved the best thing about the book till last. After World War II<\/span>, Cana\u00addian pub\u00adlish\u00aders became noto\u00adri\u00adous for pub\u00adlish\u00ading some of the ugli\u00adest books on earth, with drea\u00adry-look\u00ading cov\u00aders, bad print\u00ading, and an over\u00adwhelm\u00ading atmos\u00adphere of drab dull\u00adness that matched the edi\u00adto\u00adr\u00adial tastes. I could swear that Willy Loman worked as an edi\u00adtor for every Cana\u00addian pub\u00adlisher in the fifties. But in the 1920\u2019s and 1930\u2019s, things were very dif\u00adfer\u00adent. Cana\u00adda pro\u00adduced very hand\u00adsome books, then. This one, print\u00aded in 1924, is by no means the best exam\u00adple. It\u2019s mere\u00adly typ\u00adi\u00adcal. The let\u00adter\u00adpress print\u00ading is gor\u00adgeous, on the lev\u00adel of the Kelm\u00adscott Press of the Arts &<\/span> Crafts move\u00adment. And it\u2019s pro\u00adfusely illus\u00adtrated with beau\u00adti\u00adful engrav\u00adings by A. Y. Jack\u00adson, one of Canada\u2019s great\u00adest artists. As a mat\u00adter of fact, just after writ\u00ading these words, I found the book list\u00aded in the cat\u00ada\u00adlog of a San Fran\u00adcisco art col\u00adlec\u00adtor for $42, with the nota\u00adtion \u201cThis is a book wor\u00adthy of being added to any dis\u00adcrim\u00adi\u00adnat\u00ading col\u00adlec\u00adtion. Nice to pos\u00adsess and a plea\u00adsure to peruse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was anoth\u00ader delight\u00adful find in the Good\u00adwill book bins. Rivard\u2019s 1914 mem\u00adoir of life in late nine\u00adteenth cen\u00adtury rur\u00adal Que\u00adbec was once well-known, even in Europe. Rivard was admit\u00adted to l\u2019 Acad\u00e9mie fran\u00e7aise on the strength of it. Yet \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bt-reading-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8823,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions\/8823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}