Listening to music that I love, in a house that's clean is supposed to make me be motivated to write about one of my very overdue Governor General winners...Ha! I've been procrastinating by reading newspaper articles, showering, playing hand after hand of solitaire. However, I got an email from The Globe and Mail regarding a piece not by Lynn Crosbie, but about her. I had to read it, and THAT was what motivated me to write. I think Lynn Crosbie is one of the most brilliant writers out there, and whenever I get a chance I read her weekly piece in The Globe, a cutting look at society and celebs in our crazy facebook-obsessed world. This article that was about her poetry, however, was about a found poem in her novel Paul's Case, about the Paul Bernardo murders. I probably will never read the book, unfortunately, not for lack of wanting to engage with her prose, but because the subject matter is a little tough for me. The found poem, was so killer(literally), that I felt compelled to put on Tori Amos, and plow through some writing. Maybe at some point, I can be my own version of Lynn, cuttingly writing about books, in a way that makes OTHER people read them.:)

Didn't someone tell me recently that books are dead?

Alan Sullivan's Three Came to Ville Marie, won the Governor General in 1943. The copy I read is the second book that was retrieved from Oklahoma, this one from Oklahoma City University Library. This book is in such rough shape it has a sticker on the front that says that it is too fragile for the bookdrop. Lovely. It's also quite a few weeks overdue at this point. All the more reason to write about it.:) Sullivan's novel is interesting because it is about Canada before it actually really became Canada. It is about Quebec when it is still called New France, when the Iroquois Nation was constantly fighting the Hurons and the French for territory, when the English were encouraging this all, and biding their time, waiting for when it would be their turn to do the shit-kicking. A few years prior to Sullivan's publication, in 1939, Franklin D. McDowell published a novel entitled The Champlain Road, which won the Governor General that year. It is another book that has gone off the radar, and it is, ironically enough, about the same time period, though it is more about the relationships between the priests sent to convert the Natives, rather than the average person trying to make a life for themselves, which is more what Alan Sullivan's work is about.

This is a pretty interesting time period, one that not too many people concern themselves with, I assume, hence the reason why these books are not talked about or read, but it's a formative piece of Canadian history, and how can we know where we're going if we don't know where we've been? I think settling an area is so crucially significant to how an area/country becomes itself, and for whatever reason, westward expansion is what the Americans especially and Canadians as well, focus a lot of their attentions on. Well, the first non-Native people had to arrive sometime, and someone should talk about it at some point...

Three is about three people, Paul de Lorimier and Jules and Jacqueline Vicotte, and how the interconnection of their lives leads them to the New World. The novel's backdrop is first the farmlands of Brittany, but then the realm of courtly intrigue, and finally everyone makes it to the wilderness of the LaChine region of Quebec. Paul de Lorimier is a farmer in Castellon, a wealthy farmer, who is due to marry the daughter of the local aristocrat, named Jacqueline. He is hopelessly, helplessly in love with her, but she is not so enamored. At the start of the novel, she is still sitting on the fence, so to speak, and is not sure if she wants to marry Paul or not. Her mother wants her to, her father(much in the guise of Elizabeth Bennett's father in Pride and Prejudice)wishes for her to marry for love and do what she wants. This is when Jules Vicotte arrives into town, an old school chum of Paul's. Paul is at once overjoyed to see his friend(Paul has no family at all, his parents are both long deceased, and his only "father" as it were is the local Abbe, a good friend and confidante), but soon, Jules will betray Paul by whisking Jacqueline off of her feet. When Paul surprises the two together in a passionate embrace, he throws Jules into Jacqueline's family pond. This leads to a duel(when do we read books that have duels in them anymore? How sad...), in which Paul is unable to hurt his friend(out of a sense of loyalty, etc.) and leaves mid-duel in disgrace. It is after that when he is brought to Versailles and given audience to the King's mistress. It is she, who after speaking with men who have just returned from New France, including Frontenac himself, suggests that Paul start a new life for himself in the wilderness of what is now known as Quebec. There is brief thought of him entering the priesthood, but he instead chooses to be a farmer in Lachine, Quebec, which, back then, was complete and total wilderness(this is the late 1600's remember), but has now been incorporated into the city of Montreal as its own borough, bordered by the borough of LaSalle, and the city of Dorval(which houses one of the city's largest airports). On a complete and total side note, this is all reminding of me of when Emily and Chris and I went to Harlem to visit Alexander Hamilton's house...back in the day(hey! He was part of a duel too!!!), he had tons of land and his house was in the country, now his house is bordered by some of the shittiest parts of New York City...

Back to the story/plot synopsis. I like Paul de Lorimier a lot. He reminds me of myself in some ways, a broken person who is looking to start a new life, but who has many inherently wonderful characteristics that he doesn't necessarily believe in. Paul picks up his own manservant and two native slaves(slaves that he doesn't want but feels compelled to have due to social norms) and begins creating a thriving farm. Little does he know, that the Iroquois nation, which has been quiet for so long, is planning a large revolt, using his slaves as spies/plants, in that regard leaving his farm as the only safe one. Paul doesn't know this as he leaves his farm with a local priest for a trip. He discovers as he cruises down the St. Lawrence, farm after farm burnt to the ground, men and children scalped, burned, crucified; pregnant women with their stomachs cut out, unborn babies in the dirt next to them. You may think this is gruesome, terrible; but I am also forced to think about all of the other atrocities that have been committed by the White majority in wars for civilizations. The natives were rightfully threatened, and then launched back in full attack. WWYD?

Paul and the priest are attacked, and left for dead. It is when they are floating in their own bloodbath that a new ship, sailing from France, carrying Jules and his wife, Jacqueline, discovers their bodies. Jacqueline was the apple of the King's eye, as he was looking for a new mistress. His permanent mistress wanted to get Jacqueline out of the way, and the King wanted to get Jules out of the way, so they both got sent to New France by the King's mistress, unbeknownst to the King...but that is the other plot of the story.

Plot summary and detail can go on forever, so I think I will stop it now. When the three are reunited together, it makes for more plot intrigue, but it also shows the reader who the characters really are. These are the true pioneers of North America, people who fought every single day to stay on their land, who had to be brave. At least, Paul is this man. He is a fucking survivor, and proves himself as he etches a stronghold for himself in the turmoil of late 17th c. Quebec. Jules is a gentleman, who is very upset to be in Quebec, feels it beneath him at first, but then realizes that he is not cut out for it, and that New France takes no prisoners. It is Jacqueline who is the one who changes the most, but, for the better. There are two quotes that I love, that stay with me always...but are not from this book. One is from a Jeanette Winterson novel called Lighthousekeeping, in which one of her characters says, "You can't be another person's honesty, but you can be your own." The other is from the first Harry Potter movie, in which Dumbledore says to Harry, "It is not our abilities that show who we truly are, it is our choices." It is when Paul goes off to defend New France against the Iroquois people and lives through harrowing torture, while Jules, well...I shall leave you to discover that, that shows the reader who Paul really is.

I suppose I have to say that I'm not necessarily in agreement with colonization and westward expansion in the way in which it was done. Perhaps I'm too much of a peace-lovin' freak to think that you can move somewhere else and not have to convert people or kick them out, you can just live next to them and co-exist. I can't say that I totally disagree with it though, because had colonization and westward expansion not happened, I would probably not be living in the city of Seattle writing about books that took place hundreds of years ago. I am one of those people who moved out West from the East, following the Oregon Trail, looking for a life that was better, or at the least so very different that it would allow me the chance to be my own honesty. I made an almost entirely clean break; I moved out here with a down payment on an apartment, no job, not knowing a soul. Nearly 5 years later I'm closing in on Pulitzer/GG number 100, with a decent job working for a major corporation, in a lovely apartment, finding myself with a life that seems to have taken me totally by surprise. It's a good life, it's not always an easy one, but it is mine.

Paul de Lorimier is one of the literary heroes of colonization, and a man who should be remembered in the prize list, for he is one of, what would eventually be, the first French Canadians. Why this book is forgotten and shelved away in the annals of dust-covered former award winners escapes me, except perhaps for the fact that people are too obsessed now with what is new and different that they have a hard time being reminded of the history that got us here. When I picture Lachine, the Lachine before it became Montreal(like Hamilton's house before Harlem), I will picture the little village of Ville Marie, with Paul de Lorimier standing in front of his small log house, flowers blooming in the front, fields full of crops in the distance, holding a musket in his hand, his quiet eyes searching, his face aged from torture and hard work, but his body stalwart and calm. It is an image that I will hold for myself whenever I need to be reminded of who I am and where I come from.