Five years after pitching the idea to Antoine Tanguay, founding president of Éditions Alto, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Audrée Wilhelmy (white resinGrasset) says she did not think the project Clairvoyants. A literary oracle would see the light of day: “From an editorial point of view, it’s still a huge challenge! »
Bringing together 14 authors — Mélikah Abdelmoumen, Stéfanie Clermont, Hélène Dorion, Louise Dupré, Dominique Fortier, Marie-Andrée Gill, Karoline Georges, Véronique Grenier, Catherine Lalonde, Perrine Leblanc, Catherine Leroux, Chloé Savoie-Bernard, Élise Turcotte and Christiane Vadnais — under the direction of Audrée Wilhelmy, Clairvoyantsrevisits the art of divination, more specifically cartomancy. Deceased last November 30Marie-Claire Blais was also to participate in the project.
In addition to the explanatory booklet, where the 15 oracles each define a figure, a place and an object, we find in the box 45 cards designed by photographer Justine Latour.
No need to be a specialist in the matter to know that the whole thing has nothing to do with the tarot of Marseilles nor that of the Egyptians. “The Tarot de Marseille is very restrictive in the aesthetics of the object and in the scope of the cards, which have a very strong meaning; however, I wanted female writers to have creative freedom. If I had given them cards from the Tarot de Marseille, it would have been a bit harder to bear. I wanted it to be timeless and ageographic, but for us to be in a nordicity, a rural and northern Quebec environment. By creating new cards, I was able to create a kind of object which can also fulfill the divinatory function and the narrative function”, says Audrée Wilhelmy, who was able to count on the judicious advice of her father, creator of board games. for her family.
By appealing to all these women, the project director first promised them good working conditions, both in terms of tariffs and in terms of creativity or deadlines.
“I wanted to make sure they had a lot of freedom. I am thinking among others of Justine; I really didn’t want to direct his work one way or another. In all, around fifty women took part in this project: the 15 authors, the 15 dancers who served as models, the make-up artists, the hairdressers, the artistic director, the photographer, the girls from Alto, the Web design girls, actresses who read the cards. That’s a lot of women! Antoine is practically the only man in the project. »
If she wanted to create a feminine universe, it is primarily because women, more than men, are attracted to the art of divination.
“It’s feminist in approach, but it’s not militant. It’s just a project that is driven by my own feminism, which highlights the voice of women in literature and the arts. Since I spoke about the project, I realize that there are a lot of people who have a divinatory practice, but it is always very private and often very filial. The question of transmission is very important: it is often knowledge acquired from another woman, from a grandmother, from an aunt. »
creative play
Although she has no divinatory practice, unlike several of the writers she surrounded herself with, the novelist says she has always been fascinated by the subject. “It’s not so much the cartomancy as the narrative dimension of these objects, which tell stories, which allow stories to be told, that interests me. Basically, the tools given to us by the maps and the texts that accompany them allow us to seek answers that we already carry within ourselves. In this sense, I believe in it in a very pragmatic way”, explains the one who has awarded herself the cards of Mother Earth, the River and the Tree.
In fact, don’t fortune-tellers tell us what we want to hear by quickly gleaning elements that we reveal to them without our knowledge? “I think it is. In a way, the person serves to reveal things that are already there. I looked in the cards as one looks in a mirror. »
In recent years, the occult sciences have been gaining popularity, especially among young people. According to Audrée Wilhelmy, this renewed interest in astrology, magic and cartomancy is due to a loss of meaning. “As soon as there is no longer any meaning, that religion is not there to give comforting answers, we try to recreate forms of rituals, relationships to the sacred outside of religion. These are ways of trying to decode a meaning larger than the pragmatic world. I have the impression that it may also be a form of introspection, like the one towards which a shrink leads us. The current context is unfortunately conducive to this need. I think climate issues are a lot in there. »
Presenting Clairvoyants to different people, the novelist was able to witness the beneficial effect of cartomancy during a reunion with friends after two years of a pandemic. “Playing with two people is serious, but with several people, it’s funny because it becomes like a board game. People ask their friends personal questions; it’s like a candid and joyful way to dive into the sphere of intimacy, to approach serious questions without it being too overwhelming as an environment. »
While the author perceives cartomancy as a fictional tool that allows us to reflect on our relationship to reality, to the world, by creating our own stories, with Clairvoyantsshe brings us back, so to speak, to reconnecting with the oral tradition.
“Literature has taken us away from this initial function of storytelling, legends, oral tradition. With this project, I wanted literature to find a playful and more accessible side. This is why there is an interpretative dimension in literary texts, but there is also a narrative dimension because I wanted us to be able to tell stories out loud. My hope is also that people who choose this project for its divinatory dimension will then want to discover the works of these exceptional writers. It would be a mission accomplished,” concludes Audrée Wilhelmy.