Some authors seem immortal, others sink into oblivion. After a while, what remains? In his monthly series Should I re-read…?, The duty revisits one of these writers with the help of admirers and attentive observers. Today, place to Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983), the one that many have long reduced to the considerable success of Second-hand happiness (1945). A year after her death, not only was she going to live again thanks to a remarkable book,Distress and Enchantment» (1984), but this autobiography would also breathe new life into an equally exceptional and long-neglected work.
“If Gabrielle Roy hadn’t entrusted her manuscripts to François Ricard, we wouldn’t be talking to each other today. »
On this point, Sophie Marcotte, professor in the Department of French Studies at Concordia University, is categorical. The one who was a great collaborator of the late essayist (The lyrical generation) and professor of letters at McGill University sees in Ricard much more than the biographer of the novelist born in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba. Indeed, he took great care to complete his ultimate work, distress and enchantmentand to publish several unpublished texts, all with Éditions du Boréal, including his correspondence with his relatives, thus casting a unique light on his life and his work.
The meeting between François Ricard and Gabrielle Roy was initially strictly literary, Sophie Marcotte referring to an essay published in 1975 by Fides in the collection Canadian Writers Today. “It was the first real synthesis of her work, and she read it with great pleasure, pleasantly surprised by the great respect for her analysis. Thereafter, he became in a way the guardian of his writing, a collaboration which is not unrelated to the posthumous and lasting success of the author of These children of my life (1977) and The Altamont road (1966).
At the time of this association, some misunderstandings persisted around Gabrielle Roy, which she herself no longer sought to dissipate or explain. This Franco-Manitoban described herself as a federalist, but waved neither a flag nor a sign, also refusing the label of feminist, very uncomfortable also with the idea that one could assimilate Second-hand happiness to an emblematic novel of the Quiet Revolution. “She refused to be an activist, regardless of the cause, specifies Sophie Marcotte, and did not want to be involved in any debate. She dedicated her life to writing, and to hell with the rest! In the politically charged context of the 1960s and 1970s in Quebec, this silence was often badly perceived within literary and artistic circles.
Alone with her pen
This demanding position arouses much admiration from the writer Daniel Grenier, who recently published Heroines and tombs (Heliotrope). Originally from Brossard, this graduate of UQAM in literary studies later lived in the Saint-Henri district of Montreal, which inspired his very first book, Despite everything, we laugh at Saint-Henri (Le Quartanier, 2012), fully assuming her affiliation with the novelist.
“I never name her in this collection of short stories, nor Second-hand happiness, specifies Daniel Grenier, but there are plenty of little winks, including a reference to Mireille Deyglun (the interpreter of Florentine Lacasse in the film and television adaptation of Claude Fournier, in 1983). It’s an initiatory journey and a pilgrimage, feeling a bit like Gabrielle Roy at the time, very close to this district, and yet foreign. »
The one who now lives in Quebec, like the novelist until the end of her life — and can see the Gabrielle-Roy library from her home — encourages young and old to dive into her world and rediscover Second-hand happiness “because there is in this book all that she will do later”. The way she weaves her work still amazes Daniel Grenier, admiring “her desire to withdraw from public life to devote herself exclusively to writing. I don’t know many writers who could do the same today. While the time is unpacking of oneself and confidences in the media, it is indeed difficult to imagine the former schoolteacher to comply with these imposed figures.
Late and triumphant arrival on stage
However, Gabrielle Roy is resolutely “in a writing of the intimate, of the daily life”, according to Marie-Thérèse Fortin, actress and former director of the Trident theater, in Quebec, and of the Center du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, in Montreal. . His conviction is based on a deep frequentation, inhabited by his books since his graduation from the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Québec, in the 1980s, and in the wake of the publication of distress and enchantment. “I found the title extraordinary, and that’s exactly what I experienced as an actress when I left the Conservatory,” she laughs.
In a more serious tone, she calls her first reading of distress and enchantment, discovering a writer “very humanist and very lucid about the condition of women, those with large families and sacrificed destinies”. This is what emanates from his solo show of the same name presented in Montreal in 2018, then in Quebec and Saint-Boniface, inspired by this book (“a 600-page book transformed into a story that has 60! “), staged by Olivier Kemeid, the culmination of years, or rather decades, of reflections and public readings.
Jokingly, Marie-Thérèse Fortin 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 “. This did not prevent it from being funny and expressive, as illustrated by the actress 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 trip – the actress was not far away! »
However, his theater was above all interior, and his convictions, most often expressed in his books. Whether it’s social justice, peace, multiculturalism, or when it comes to the French language spoken across Canada by people “treated as inferiors”, in her own words, Gabrielle Roy delivered all his fights with his pen and nothing else. This did not prevent him from suffering, sometimes bitterly, from the incomprehension that persisted around his approach after the immense success of Second-hand happinesscrowned with the Prix Femina in 1947, further boosting bookstore sales and providing him with financial comfort that would allow him to devote himself entirely to writing.
“For a long time, literary critics always began their analyzes by saying, ‘The new novel from the one who wrote Happiness second hand”, emphasizes Sophie Marcotte. Thanks to distress and enchantment, the culmination of his literary project, many have rediscovered his work, recognizing that they had missed something. »
As for Daniel Grenier, he sees in her an ideal “of benevolence and serenity in writing”, regretting that such qualities are associated “with sentimentality, a lack of depth”. “Why should we be Anne Hébert or Hubert Aquin and write in suffering? deplores the one who is also a translator. When people ask me which brand I’m staying at, I don’t hesitate to say: Gabrielle Roy. »