Germaine Guevremont's The Outlander, originally published in French, won the Governor General in 1950 for English Literature. However, much like Ringuet's Thirty Acres, either of Gabrielle Roy's two novels, or even, I don't know, Hugh MacLennan's great masterpiece Two Solitudes, this is a novel very much rooted in French Canada. The Outlander takes place in the Sorel region of Quebec, in a small farming community, where everyone knows everyone else and everyone else's business.

I have said, I know more than once, that I love books about French Canada. I don't know why; but I love them much like I love books about the Deep South in the U.S. These people are salt of the earth; hardworking, tough as nails, early to bed early to rise, pious motherfuckers. Perhaps because they don't have very much, their feelings; their loves and their losses, especially, are deeply felt. Anger is a thunderstorm, broken hearts lead to crevasses that are like those at the bottom of the ocean, running deeper than one can imagine. French Canadians do not forget: you can even see it on the Quebec license plate. The Quebec license plate says: "Je me souviens". What do you think "Je me souviens" refers to? First of all, what does it mean? "Je me souviens" means "I remember." That is a present tense verb. Of course, this could refer to the present moment. At this moment, I remember something that happened in the past...At this moment, I'm actually remembering my life in Quebec and how much I miss it, even though I'm looking at a stunning spring day in Seattle. However, as something on a license plate that everyone in a province has, there is a collective aspect to this "Je me souviens." If everyone in Quebec is "remembering" what is that past thing that everyone in Quebec has the deep-seated potential to remember? "Je me souviens"/"I remember" is referring to remembering when Quebec belonged to the French. It has not been that long (1967?) since Canada has been its own country, but it has been a while since Quebec belonged to the French, as Canada was even split into a "dominion" of Great Britain in 1867. (Like my Canadian history? That's about it, people, though admittedly it's more than most Canadians even at times). There was a referendum in my lifetime(when I was in high school), that's how badly French Canadians can't forget and don't want to. It is a gash that I don't think will ever heal. Quebec is a little bit unique in North America, perhaps California bears some similarities to it, but not in quite the same way. Quebec is a twice conquered land. First the French came over and kicked the living shit out of the Native Americans who lived there for generation upon generation, and then the English kicked the shit out of the French settlers and claimed the land for the King. The soil of Quebec and most of Ontario for that matter, is soaked with the blood of warriors both white and native, drenched in the memory of cultures sabotaged and suppressed. In thinking of all of this, I was reminded of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Now, I'm not sure the two can be compared on exactly the same plane(one could definitely do the "my culture's conflicts suck more than your culture's conflicts" argument), but there are certainly similarities. There is the conquering of a people, there is the constant suppression of a people(this is where English Canada has eased up in the past several years, though), there is the religion question, there is deeply seated resentment and hatred. I called Jean to ask her about her opinion on this, since I don't really know anyone else besides Kate and Jean who would be as equally versed in the Middle East AND Quebec, since I don't really know anyone else out here who is really versed in French-Canadian history. I feel like I'm the only one, and most of my history that I've obtained has been through research related to the project...All of this is to say, French Canada is like an elephant. It will never forget. Anything.

To get off of that political tangent, I have to say that this is all setup for The Outlander. Guevremont's book is all about not forgetting. Not forgetting where you or your neighbors came from, not forgetting the past, but also how all of this memory can cripple us as well. The Outlander begins with a stranger entering the small town of Monk's Inlet near Sorel, Quebec. He knocks on the door and enters the home of the Beauchemin family, one of the more established, better off farming families in the town. He has dinner(supper, whatever) with the family and then he becomes their hired hand. This is a community in which the same families have lived for years and years, arguably centuries. Change does not happen quickly and is viewed with much skepticism. According to Webster's New World College Dictionary, the term "outlander" means foreigner, alien, stranger. Everything about this man is "foreign" to the people of Monk's Inlet; Guevremont goes to great lengths to describe his looks and how distinctive they are. What is hardest for the community, though, is the fact that he doesn't have a past. Well, of course he does, but it is not one that the community knows, nor does he talk about it; they only get glimpses of it through his knowledge of folk songs and through small anecdotes he gives.

The town's skepticism starts to wane, however, as they accept his presence, and he becomes like a member of the Beauchemin family. He is enmeshed in the community, and even his drinking binges are overlooked in an effort not to disgrace the Beauchemins. There is also a budding romance, to an extent, with the unmarried(could argue spinster, but I really sometimes hate that term, for at my age(argh) I would be considered one of those in that day and age) daughter of the farmer next door, Angelina. Everything is shaping up pretty well, there is enough small town drama to make the book interesting, the relationship between Angelina and the stranger ebbs and flows. At the end of book one(The Outlander is divided into three parts which were originally published separately in two[don't you love crazy Quebecois literature?], it seems, the first book is called Le Survenant, the second called Marie-Didace, which is also the name of part three) the stranger decides to leave Monk's Inlet. There is some stress between Amable(son of the patriarch of the Beauchemin family, Didace...All these awesome French-Canadian names! I love it!) and the Stranger, and he also seems to have a bit of ambivalence towards Angelina. He takes off into the night, and the town is basically shattered. It doesn't perhaps seem too evident at first, I think everyone thinks the Stranger is eventually going to return, but soon it becomes clear that he is not going to, at least not for a very very long time. Parts 2 and 3 are all about the aftermath. And, boy is it crushing...and depressing. I kept wishing so hard that the Stranger would return, because things just kept getting worse and worse for everyone all around, they're so mired in their grief. Didace goes out and finds a new wife, the one that the Stranger had introduced him to, so the memory of him still lingers in the house, regardless, and the loss of him is an even bigger hole. Alphonsine, Didace's daughter-in-law feels totally upstaged by the new wife, it causes conflict between her father-in-law and her husband, as well as her. Angelina is devastated by the loss of her one real true beau. The town as a whole doesn't have the energy of the Stranger to prop it up. It's scary how much impact one person can have on a community, especially a small one. I think that this is perhaps less true now, but, there are many cases where it still is.

Part 3 is entitled Marie-Didace, referring to Alphonsine and Amable's daughter, who is the third generation Beauchemin in this work. Alphonsine became pregnant while the Stranger was still living with the Beauchemins, and there is always this hint that perhaps the child is the Stranger's but it is only a guess one can hazard, not a full blown supposition based in any kind of evidence. It is ironic that Part 3 is entitled such, because Marie-Didace, though a character in the section, does not have as vital a role as I thought she might. I thought, wrongly, that perhaps time would skip forward and she would be older(she is still very much a child in this last section), have a relationship of her own, and perhaps we would all be so lucky and the Stranger would return. NOT SO MUCH. It is pretty much a continuation of all the crap from the previous part. This is where my disappointment with Guevremont's work lies. It is a well-written book, don't get me wrong, I just wished, perhaps selfishly that there was some kind of redemptive end. This could be because life isn't always that way, although, for me, I sometimes feel like it is...redemptive, at least. I often, however, look to novels for an escape, and in this case, it did continually drag me down. Without going into too much detail, the end leaves many people dead, and hearts in ruins. On the front of my copy of the book the description above the title reads "The Canadian masterpiece that won five major national and international awards...Rich in emotion, simple yet profound, it depicts the rural French-Canadian reality with rare and poetic authenticity." It is a beautifully written book, that I think, from what I can gather, does depict the French-Canadian reality very well, especially that in the townships and beyond, but what a life...There are a few quotes that I loved, that sum up, I feel, so much of this world, of the French-Canadian farmer.

"Just like the old days, thought Marie-Amanda[only living daughter of Didace Beauchemin]. But the carefree joy of those old days had gone. Her heart was in the grip of bitter recollections: Ephrem had been drowned one day in July; he was not yet sixteen. Mathilde Beauchemin was no longer in the world to try to soothe Didace when Amable became peevish or the two men were at odds. And grandmother no longer pottered about the kitchen lamenting that pralines weren't made as they used to be.

And yet Marie-Amanda would not utter the words that might have relieved her anguish; she did not want to depress the others. She merely walked to the window and stood looking out, as though to beg the unchanging countryside for a reflection of its stability. Dusk was falling, casting a blue shadow on the snow mantling the fields, and the line of mountains, usually humped against the hollow of the sky, was now blended with the plain. Through the mist of her tears Marie-Amanda could scarcely see the landscape. She, at thirty, was already the oldest of the women in the family. It was for her, the eldest daughter, to give a good example. Was life like the river, intent only upon its course, heedless of the banks that it fertilizes or lays waste? Were human beings rushes, impotent to restrain it from obeying its own law--blue rushes, full of vigor in the morning, and by the evening shrunk into dismal husks, sapless and straw-colored? Young rushes would grow up in their place. Inexorable, the river continued on its course; neither she nor anyone could prevent it.

Little Mathilde, astonished to see her mother motionless for so long, clung to Marie-Amanda's skirts." (50)

The other quote that I particularly liked, since I think it resonates a little with my own life, is the following:

"'To become their own masters and make a new life,'--thus it was that so few Frenchmen, being by nature stay-at-homes, came to establish themselves in Canada in the early days of the colony, and that the manorial system was impossible there. He who decides to break away completely from an environment in which he cannot breathe is always an adventurer. He will not again submit himself to the yoke he has flung off. The Frenchman, once he has become a Canadian, would prefer to cultivate a hand breath of land than a seignorial estate on which he would be merely a vassal, owing loyalty, homage, and service to a master." (100)

French Canada is so very interesting...I get to write, very soon, about a book that takes place in New France(Quebec before it was Quebec!) but not before I write about an early Pulitzer winner and a collection of stories by a Canadian writer from the '60s. I am trying desperately to play catch-up so I can begin reading again.