I hesitated for a long time before delving into the fictional work of Jean-Pierre Charland. The latter, historian and educationalist retired from the University of Montreal, has successfully devoted himself to historical novels for the past ten years. His work, abundant, includes several “sagas” which cover all the major periods in the history of Quebec since the end of the 19th century.e century, in addition to a few side effects such as a biographical novel about Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler’s companion.
If I hesitated to dive into it, it’s because, even if I love novels and history, I still fear a little those big popular historical novels with the teleromaniac aesthetic, which the Hurtubise house was made of. a specialty. They are, in fact, often verbose and inclined to a romantic-nostalgic reading of the past which is not exempt from anachronisms. Please note: I am not saying that Charland falls into these pitfalls; I note that the genre he practices lends itself to it and that this generally takes me away from it.
Generation 1970 (Hurtubise, 2021, 368 pages), Charland’s most recent novel, however, made me succumb to temptation. The time and the subject matter appealed to me. The story begins in 1974. Jacques Charon, the main character, is twenty years old and begins studying history at Laval University. Where we could imagine a young man full of enthusiasm, in phase with a rather liberating time in our history, we find rather a student inhabited by doubt and anxiety.
Originally from the small village of Manseau, in Center-du-Québec, Charon is the son of a poor and lost farmer. The day he left for college, Charon received this warning from his father: “Are you sure? University, nobody knows about it here. It’s not for people like us. My own father, who had none of the faults of Charon’s, will serve me the same sentence, fifteen years later. This is to say if, in a still recent Quebec, the feeling of being born for a small bread was still significant in popular circles.
The main interest of Charland’s novel is there, in its way of grasping historical development and social change through a character from a modest background who embodies them on a daily basis. In the 1970s, in fact, the democratization of access to education began to be felt at the university. Young Quebeckers arrive en masse, who are the first in their family history to set foot there. For these pioneers, the experience is certainly exhilarating, but it comes with inevitable concerns.
“Several hundred, if not a few thousand rural dwellers were to flock for the return to school the next day,” writes Charland. “Colonists” from Saint-Creux-LesMeuhMeuh to participate in the knowledge banquet evoked by Plato. And incidentally, to entertain the inhabitants of this “big” city. “
Determined to succeed, Charon nevertheless feels a stranger to his new world. Listening to the conversations around him, he has the impression that the other students already know each other, because they attended the same private schools in Quebec, while he comes from another world, that of rural poverty. He overhears others talking about their vacation at the cottage or traveling, while he spent the summer at work in a factory in Laurier Station.
In class, even if he was good at CEGEP, he struggles to find his bearings. “He had the cruel impression of being the only one to have doubts,” notes the novelist in a just phrase that captures a feeling that first-generation academics – I know something about it – are many to have experienced. Charon will feel less alone by becoming friends with two other “foreigners”, Diane and Monique, married thirty-something who are secretaries, who are returning to school.
Social historian, Charland is more interested in the history of mentalities and socioeconomic conditions than in political history. In Generation 1970, the historical context is thus evoked by subtle references to realities of the time: a character eats at the hotel Le Concorde which has just opened, motorists order in intercoms at A & W, the program Call me Lise is on the air at the end of the evening, the newspapers publish sensationalist reports on the sexual freedom of CEGEP students, etc.
The story, in this novel, is above all elsewhere, that is to say in the experience of the new social reality lived by young academics who, until yesterday, would have been farmers, workers, wives at home or secretaries. . On this level, Generation 1970 is a success. By attributing a heavily dysfunctional family to his main character, Charland, however, weighs down his story a little and diverts the attention.