Some authors seem immortal, others are forgotten. What’s left after a while? In his monthly series “Faut-il relire…?”, Le Devoir, with the help of admirers and keen observers, dedicates himself to one of these writers. Today Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983) is the one whom many have long since reduced to the notable success of Bonheur d’occasion (1945). Not only was she revived a year after her death thanks to a remarkable book, La Distress et l’enchantement (1984), but this autobiography breathes new life into an equally extraordinary and long-neglected work.
“If Gabrielle Roy hadn’t entrusted her manuscripts to François Ricard, we wouldn’t be talking today. »
On this point, Sophie Marcotte, a professor at Concordia University’s Department of French Studies, is categorical. For those who were a great collaborator with the late essayist (The Lyric Generation) and professor of letters at McGill University, Ricard sees much more in Ricard than just the biographer of the Saint-Boniface, Manitoba-born writer. In fact, he took great care to complete his last work, La Distress et l’enchantement, and published several unpublished texts, all with Éditions du Boréal, including his correspondence with those close to him, thus throwing a unique light his life and his work his work.
The meeting between François Ricard and Gabrielle Roy was initially of a purely literary nature, with Sophie Marcotte referring to an essay published by Fides in 1975 in the Canadian Writers Today collection. “It was the first real synthesis of her work and she read it with great pleasure and was pleasantly surprised by the great respect she showed for her analysis. He then became something of a custodian of his writings, a collaboration not unrelated to the author’s posthumous and enduring success in These Children of my Life (1977) and The Road to Altamont (1966).
At the time of this connection, there were still some misunderstandings about Gabrielle Roy that she herself did not want to clear up or explain. This Franco-Manitoban self-described as a federalist did not wave a flag or shield, and also declined to be called a feminist. She was also uncomfortable with the idea that Bonheur d’occasion could be equated with an emblematic novel of the Silent Revolution. “She refused to be an activist for any reason,” specifies Sophie Marcotte, not wanting to engage in any debate. She dedicated her life to writing and to hell with the rest! In the politically charged context of Quebec in the 1960s and 1970s, this silence was often viewed negatively in literary and artistic circles.
Alone with her pen
This demanding position arouses great admiration in the writer Daniel Grenier, who recently published Heroines and Tombs (Heliotrope). Originally from Brossard, the UQAM graduate in Literature later lived in the Saint-Henri neighborhood of Montreal, which inspired his very first book, Despite everything, we laugh at Saint-Henri (Le Quartanier, 2012) his affiliation with the novelist.
“I never call her in this collection of short stories, not even bonheur d’occasion,” Daniel Grenier clarifies, but there are many small winks, including a nod to Mireille Deyglun (the interpreter of Florentine Lacasse in the film and television adaptation of Claude ). Fournier, 1983). It’s an initiation journey and a pilgrimage, you feel a little like Gabrielle Roy did back then, very close to this neighborhood and yet alien. »
Who, like the novelist, now lives to the end of her life in Quebec – and can see the Gabrielle Roy library from her home – encourages young and old to immerse themselves in her universe and rediscover bonheur d’occasion, “because it’s in there “. This book is all she will do later.” The way she weaves her work still surprises Daniel Grenier and admires “her desire to retire from public life to devote herself entirely to writing.” I don’t know many writers who could do the same today. Indeed, while time is busy exposing himself and giving credit to the media, it’s hard to imagine the former schoolteacher living up to those imposed numbers.
Late and triumphant arrival on stage
However, according to Marie-Thérèse Fortin, actress and former director of the Trident Theater in Quebec and the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, Gabrielle Roy is resolutely “in a writing of the intimate, of everyday life”. , in Montréal. . His conviction is based on an extensive use of his books since graduating from the Quebec Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in the 1980s and following the publication of The Distress and the Enchantment. “I thought the title was extraordinary and that’s what I experienced as an actress when I left the conservatory,” she laughs.
On a more serious note, she describes her first reading of La Distress et l’Enchantment as a “shock” and discovered a writer who was “very humanistic and very clear about the plight of women, women with large families and sacrificed destinies”. This emerges from his eponymous solo exhibition, shown in Montreal in 2018, then in Quebec and Saint-Boniface, inspired by this book (“a 600-page book transformed into a story at 60!”), directed by Olivier Kemeid , the culmination of years, or rather decades, of reflections and public readings.
Marie-Thérèse Fortin jokingly considers it a collective good fortune that Gabrielle Roy turned away from her acting dreams, the reason for her stay in Paris and London before the Second World War, “because she was a writer at heart”. However, this did not prevent it from being funny and expressive, as the actress showed on stage. “Olivier and I were inspired by an anecdote told by Jacques Godbout during a meeting in Petite-Rivière-Saint-François. A little distant at first, she began to mime, to imitate voices, to tell a journey – the actress was not far away! »
However, his theater was mostly inward, and his beliefs were most often expressed in his books. Whether it’s about social justice, peace, multiculturalism or the French language spoken across Canada by people who are “treated as inferior,” Gabrielle Roy has, in her own words, fought all his battles with a pen and nothing else . However, this did not prevent him from sometimes suffering bitterly from the lack of understanding that after the immense success of “Bonheur d’occasion”, which was crowned with the Prix Femina in 1947, further boosted sales in the bookstores and brought him financial relief that prevailed around his approach Allow him to devote himself fully to writing.
“For a long time, literary critics always began their analyzes with the words: ‘The new novel by the one who wrote Bonheur d’occasion’, emphasizes Sophie Marcotte. Thanks to Distress and Enchantment, the culmination of his literary project, many have rediscovered his work and realized they had missed something. »
Daniel Grenier sees in her an ideal “of benevolence and composure in writing” and regrets that such qualities are associated “with sentimentality and lack of depth”. “Why should we be Anne Hébert or Hubert Aquin and write in sorrow? pities the one who is also a translator. When people ask me which brand I’m sticking with, I don’t hesitate to say: Gabrielle Roy. »