La Presse Contest – Montreal Book Fair | Meet a character

Which fictional book character would you have liked to meet in real life and why? This is the question that high school students, CEGEP students and university students were invited to answer as part of the Meet a Character contest. More than 70 writings were submitted to us, from which the competition jury chose two winning texts. Here they are.

The girl who sees life drawn in charcoal

Threeby Valerie Perrin

Audrey Hepburn in a butterfly barrette. Or Nina Beau, more exactly. The granddaughter of the postman, the one whose long black hair falls heavily on her skin, much darker than that of her neighbours, the one who always smiles with her beautifully hemmed lips and above all, the one who analyzes people with her almond eyes charcoal color. A desert princess with a slender figure and the “voice of a smoker who never smoked”.

Nina is a somewhat strange girl, but not lonely for all that: you will never see her without Étienne or Adrien, her best friends, who are just as much a part of her as her two arms or her two legs. And then there are Louise and Virginie. And Emmanuel, too. And Lily. One might think that, with her impetuosity and radiant smile, Nina is like the star around which the others gravitate, but that’s not true. Sometimes, even, it could disappear without our noticing it… Or that we want to notice it.

Nina is also an artist, a young girl who has gold at her fingertips and who sees life drawn in charcoal. She has a head full of questions, she is curious, wants to know the how and why of everything, all the time. And then, she loves animals: dogs, cats, rabbits, and why not baboons? Baboons are always better than humans.

But Nina is not just a weak child, she is also a teenager who awkwardly puts black around her eyes while leering at the to post from Indochina pinned to the wall of her room, a young girl who is a bit lost and who doesn’t know if she wants to get married or go on an adventure with her friends but who, she is sure, will one day make art for earn a living.

Until… Until they force her to put away the charcoals and pencils. In the closet, well at the back, with all the rest of her identity, so that she no longer has any key to get out of the prison in which she has been locked up. Yes, “your life is Zola, Nina”. And it’s rarely gay, Zola.

I would like to meet Nina. I would ask her to sketch me on the spot with her charcoals, I would like to know what artist’s gaze she puts on my body, on my mind. I would like to accompany him to the municipal swimming pool and listen to him talk, his lungs filled with the smell of chlorine and peach sodas. What does she think of the little girl in the red jersey, she looks funny, doesn’t she? And the old man over there? And this one ? And this one ? I wonder what she perceives of the world around her, Nina. I want to hear her analyze the last novel she read and criticize the international news before bursting out laughing when she saw the same TV ad for the fifteenth time, the one that still makes her laugh so much despite its poor script. sought.

If, one day, you meet her in the street, you will recognize her. She’ll glare at you for scaring her dog and then you’ll watch her walk away with the grace of a ballerina, her short hair blowing in the wind. And, while you follow her with your eyes thinking that, decidedly, she emanates an extraordinary charm and liveliness, you will notice that she has something colored near her ear and you will see , flabbergasted, that she still and always wears her butterfly barrette.

Three

Valerie Perrin

Albin Michael

An encounter with yourself

The goat walker by Francine Ruel

The best analogy that has come to mind to illustrate the global reaction to the shattering effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is that of a passer-by who, looking placidly at the water of the rapids in front of him, in the space of for a moment, finds himself carried away by it. Carried away by a torrent of uncertainties and anguish which tests the swimming of the most tenacious and often completes the weakest of spirits.

This was Gilles’ post-pandemic situation which, to some extent, represents mine as well. Certainly, I had not lost my job or my accommodation, but it nevertheless seems to me that, just like him, I had lost something much more transcendent: my path. Indeed, the pandemic has left behind this feeling of weariness, futility and disorientation that is not unknown to many young people my age.

Only yesterday I was starting high school and already people are talking to me about university admissions and career choices. My 18th birthday was recently celebrated; the adult world is opening wide before me, but I can’t see anything. Well, I couldn’t see anything. Because, since reading Francine Ruel’s novel, The goat walkernothing excites me more than the idea of ​​living an experience similar to that of Gilles who, I was saying, was saved from homelessness by his grandfather Henri, a goatherd who lives on a farm in the Cantons-de- the East and who undertakes to introduce his urban grandson to a paradise of simplicity and literature.

What struck me the most about this charming character is that, in a world that constantly dwells on “It’s going to be fine”, now banal, Henri deviates from the norm by offering silence to sorrowful hearts, not an indifferent silence, but an empathetic and attentive silence.

So to speak, I would like not only to meet Henri, but to stay with him for a while, to learn to appreciate his field work, to get up at hen time and to unearth the simple pleasures of nature, since, as he puts it so well, [c]He who knows how to confront nature and make an ally of it will always manage”.

It may seem strange, but I dream of doing this “inner journey” which is about in the novel. Far from electronic devices, social networks, teenage parties, the neon lights of the city, in short, away from all the distractions of everyday life, I would become an “apprentice goatherd”, as Gilles was, so as to better discover myself. I would ask my host about his favorite works, while taking care to explore the depths of his vast library, an invaluable treasure for a reader like me. I would learn the love of “fine work” by day and enjoy the serene silence of the landscape dotted with tall oak trees by night, while sipping one of those delicious patxaran that Henri adores so much. I would know the art of milking and caring for goats. I would discover the happiness and fulfillment that Gilles experienced in his new position as a goat walker, his new raison d’être.

Obviously, mine doesn’t have to be exactly the same, but, being one of those who sometimes needs a little guidance to orient myself, I would be happy to discover a new one with the help precious to Henry. But my greatest pleasure would undoubtedly be this transfer of knowledge of which I would be the happy beneficiary, because wisdom, however difficult it may be to acquire, is transmitted much more easily in a hut surrounded by goats than in a classroom. .

In short, it is from this perspective of companionship, so important in the process of self-discovery, that I would view my meeting with old Henri so favorably. I believe that I would come out of it a new person, having drawn from such an experience, like Gilles no doubt, an ear that silence can no longer torment, a spirit that no longer trembles in the face of darkness and a heart that no longer afraid to love.

The goat walker

Francine Ruel

Free expression