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1

Les tourments de l’absence dans Gazole de Bertrand Gervais

100%

Kapołka K.

Quêtes littéraires

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2012

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issue 2

152-161

EN

In his novel entitled Gazole (2001), Bertrand Gervais, a Quebec writer, takes up the issue of suicide and its psychological and social impact. The main character, Lancelot Tremblay, whose job is to write lyrics for a rock band Le Livre des Morts (Eng. The Book of the Dead), hangs himself in his apartment. His naked body with an erect penis is discovered by the other members of the band Gazole and Pyramide. Their reactions to this deadly act are, however, different. Submerging himself in mourning, Pyramide withdraws emotionally from his relationship with his girlfriend Gazole, who, deeply touched by her partner’s newly developed indifference to her, delves into an investigation into the causes of Lancelot’s suicide. Being increasingly fascinated by the figure of Lancelot, Gazole reconstructs a new picture of him. Pieces of memories conjured up by those who knew Lancelot, like incomplete pieces of a puzzle, make Gazole form a romantic image of his absence. The mysterious and tragic figure of the young poet who chose to extinguish himself fires the woman’s imagination, who fantasizes about a sentimental and erotic relationship with him. An emptiness created by the suicide forces the woman to ponder over the nature of death, an eternal absence. Obsessed with this imaginary presence of Lanelot, Gazole has to set herself free from its influence, which causes her to flirt with a razorblade in a bathtub. The foray into Lancelot’s suicide gives Gazole an insight into her own true identity. Gazole discovers her internal feminine strength and frees herself from the shackles of Lancelot’s mental and sexual hold.

FR

In his novel entitled Gazole (2001), Bertrand Gervais, a Quebec writer, takes up the issue of suicide and its psychological and social impact. The main character, Lancelot Tremblay, whose job is to write lyrics for a rock band Le Livre des Morts (Eng. The Book of the Dead), hangs himself in his apartment. His naked body with an erect penis is discovered by the other members of the band Gazole and Pyramide. Their reactions to this deadly act are, however, different. Submerging himself in mourning, Pyramide withdraws emotionally from his relationship with his girlfriend Gazole, who, deeply touched by her partner’s newly developed indifference to her, delves into an investigation into the causes of Lancelot’s suicide. Being increasingly fascinated by the figure of Lancelot, Gazole reconstructs a new picture of him. Pieces of memories conjured up by those who knew Lancelot, like incomplete pieces of a puzzle, make Gazole form a romantic image of his absence. The mysterious and tragic figure of the young poet who chose to extinguish himself fires the woman’s imagination, who fantasizes about a sentimental and erotic relationship with him. An emptiness created by the suicide forces the woman to ponder over the nature of death, an eternal absence. Obsessed with this imaginary presence of Lancelot, Gazole has to set herself free from its influence, which causes her to flirt with a razorblade in a bathtub. The foray into Lancelot’s suicide gives Gazole an insight into her own true identity. Gazole discovers her internal feminine strength and frees herself from the shackles of Lancelot’s mental and sexual hold.

2

On the Threshold: Haunting Transgressions in Gaétan Soucy’s The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

99%

Szatanik Z.

Avant

|

2017

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vol. 8

|

issue 2

EN

The main aim of this article is to show how Gaétan Soucy’s 1998 bestselling novel The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches both extends and complicates the Canadian Gothic tradition. The first part focuses onCanada as a “haunted culture,” and attempts to identify the ghosts which hauntCanada and make themselves manifest in the nation’s gothic literature. I ponder the postcolonial character of Canadian Gothic, and reflect on the representations of monstrous nature inCanada’s early fiction. A short section is devoted to the characteristics of French-Canadian Gothic. The second part of my article proposes a reading of Soucy’s novel which concentrates on gothic transgressions the story revolves around. One of my assumptions is that the novel invites ecocritical and ecofeminist interpretations, and that its representations of nature also reveal the subversive character of the text whose narrator, by her own admission, locates herself on the threshold of things.

3

On the Threshold: Haunting Transgressions in Gaétan Soucy’s The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

99%

Szatanik Z.

Avant

|

2017

|

vol. 8

|

issue 2

EN

The main aim of this article is to show how Gaétan Soucy’s 1998 bestselling novel The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches both extends and complicates the Canadian Gothic tradition. The first part focuses onCanada as a “haunted culture,” and attempts to identify the ghosts which hauntCanada and make themselves manifest in the nation’s gothic literature. I ponder the postcolonial character of Canadian Gothic, and reflect on the representations of monstrous nature inCanada’s early fiction. A short section is devoted to the characteristics of French-Canadian Gothic. The second part of my article proposes a reading of Soucy’s novel which concentrates on gothic transgressions the story revolves around. One of my assumptions is that the novel invites ecocritical and ecofeminist interpretations, and that its representations of nature also reveal the subversive character of the text whose narrator, by her own admission, locates herself on the threshold of things.

4

Entre théâtre, opéra et roman: le cas de Michel Tremblay

85%

Kyloušek P.

Svět literatury – Časopis pro novodobé literatury (World of Literature – Journal for Modern Literatures)

|

2015

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vol. Special Issue: Le monde de la litérrature

21-33

EN

In the frame of Quebec literature, Michel Tremblay’s poetics is an attempt to transfiguration of plebeian axiology in high literature, universal in scope. The slang of the Montreal periphery (so called joual) and its speakers, which are mostly marginal characters, are highlighted by the application of the principles of religious drama, Greek tragedy and opera as the constituent parts of Tremblay’s theater and prose. To identify and illustrate these principles at different structural levels, the paper analyses the novels Le Premier Quartier de la lune (1989), Le cahier noir (2003), La Traversée de la ville (2008) and the drama Sainte Carmen de la Main (1976).

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1 Kyloušek P.

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Les tourments de l’absence dans Gazole de Bertrand Gervais

On the Threshold: Haunting Transgressions in Gaétan Soucy’s The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

On the Threshold: Haunting Transgressions in Gaétan Soucy’s The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

Entre théâtre, opéra et roman: le cas de Michel Tremblay