The author is a historian, sociologist, writer, teacher at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi in the history, sociology, anthropology, political science and international cooperation programs and holder of the Canada Research Chair on collective imaginations.
Here is a book that will not age quickly as it is rich in reflections and lessons. The author is a literary and essayist already well known for his work, several times crowned. He offers with Near Country Geographies (Boréal) to open up literature, especially poetry, to the entire intellectual field, including the social sciences. In the eyes of the sociologist that I am, this gamble initially seemed unrealistic. I was wrong.
Depending on the guide, I found myself engaged in a luminous itinerary, full of surprises and daring turns, supported by an original thought, full of twists and refinements, animated by a great concern for clarity and served by a a language teeming with the joys of expression.
The ways of poetry
The author presents a conception of poetry that opens onto unexpected spheres, notably music (“translation… of our lives”), weighted with a “mystical significance”; languages (their polyphony, their harmonics); law (concern for reality, people, everyday life, otherness); the social and the political (the commitment to the underprivileged, the community, poetry as a way of insurrection, democratic sensibility (“the deep nature of democratic citizenship that poetry carries”).
Through these demonstrations, the essay brings out what connects these avenues. These are mainly citizenship (the poem as a “citizen act”) and the omnipresence of space, of territory, literally and figuratively, with its derivatives such as proximity, distance, limits, returns ( “the primary texture of the existence of individuals as well as of peoples is geographical”). It is in reference to these two aspects, explored at length and in various ways, that the title of the book reveals its full meaning.
To meditate
The author invites the reader to enroll in the school of doubt, permanent criticism, careful, nuanced thought, but also research, rediscovery, deep convictions and hope. To which he adds (the word does not scare him): love. All his thinking, he tells us, is an act of love.
We will want to dwell on the passages where he expresses his vision of poetry and poetry, of writing, of transcendence, where he evokes a new great Quebec narrative in the form of “an ethics of proximity”.
To meditate also, his very rich, generous reflection on what identity should be, as a continuous invention of oneself mobilizing memory and becoming (we do not possess it, we nourish it), on the good use of religion and what should be remembered from our Catholic past, which survives in various forms (example: the Christian structure of Gaston Miron’s thought), on the defense of well-understood pluralism, on the possibility and the rallying ways of a Quebec plural, on his conception of the nation, on the central place of altruism.
The book contains some autobiographical passages, always enlightening, moving too – I would have liked more. I noted statements, well-struck thoughts, which capture the attention. Here are a few :
“We have lost faith in faith. »
“The characteristic of a classic: to inspire the double feeling of having read it before and, when you come back to it, of reading it for the first time. »
“Our planet: a “grain of sand”; our history in the universe: a flash. »
“The dimensions of the territory which combine our physical being and our quality of “pioneers of signs”. »
Mirabel, where “the lost bustards land gently on the empty track”.
As Quebecers, “what are we becoming? »
Against dichotomies
Pierre Nepveu is a remarkable conciliator, an “untier” of impasses. He doesn’t like convenient binarities, polarizing thoughts, hostile to nuance, which freeze minds and things (even territories are “mediation and sharing spaces”). In short, if I had to characterize this book with a few key words, I would say: depth, richness, inventiveness, finesse, sensitivity. We are in great need of such intellectuals.
Does this book have any flaws? I would say he has a big one, that of being too small. I would have liked to continue this journey towards other horizons, other questions, other intuitions. There may be a sequel, but let’s be patient. A work of this kind is the result of many years of personal experience, research and reflection.
I admit that I may not have grasped the full meaning of some of the proposals, but above all I see in them avenues that offer themselves to my reflection. I also, of course, have objections, but they are minor and not worth dwelling on. Moreover, the author likes to leave the path of development for a few moments to take secondary paths that seem to lead us astray. But it is always to make us discover another dimension of his subject. The reflection then rediscovers the main vein, enriched by its detour.
Finally, in social and political matters, several promising reflections do not lead to presentations that we would like to be more detailed, more concrete. I do not blame the author for this; his rich excursions outside of poetry almost make us forget that he is not a sociologist or a political scientist, but a literary man.
I would be remiss if I ended this commentary without again emphasizing the rather rare quality of language in this work. A rich, flexible language, devoid of jargon, which does honor to Quebec letters.
It will be understood that I really liked this book.
Note that I made a point of writing this text before reading Christian Desmeules’ text and Louis Cornellier’s column in The duty of April 30 and 1er may. We basically come together.