The Recent Development of the French-Canadian Novel

THE RECENT DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRENCH-CANADIAN NOVEL GUY SYLVESTRE THE literary life of Canadians is in no way limited to the publication and assimilation of the works of our best writers and thus it is not necessarily the most representative books of our native authors which are the most widely read and constitute the spiritual nourishment of our community. Our two cultural groups are the inheritors of great previously established cultures and it is a fact that the Canadian general public reads and discusses the works of the mother countries' writers, as well as the best-sellers south of the border, in preference to those of Canadian writers. Since our early days-and this is a normal development in a community emerging from colonial status to full nationhood-French Canadians have looked to Paris rather than to Montreal or Quebec, as English Canadians have looked to London or New York rather than to Toronto, Vancouver, or Winnipeg, for intellectual nourishment. For some years, however, and particularly since the last war, we have been less indifferent to the efforts of our best authors. In isolating us from Paris, and in making more difficult cultural imports from London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, the war had the effect of forcing us, almost in spite of ourselves, to take more thought of our national values, and the unprecedented success achieved abroad by some of the best novelists and poets of the two languages gives reason for hope that their works will eventually be accorded as much attention at home as those of the major foreign writers. Yet it is still true that the general public in Canada prefers the works of great (and sometimes lesser) French, English, and American authors to even the best of our native books. Publishers and booksellers in Montreal and Toronto produce and sell many more European or American books than Canadian, which is natural if one considers the obvious superiority of the major European and American authors over ours. This is a situation which, I submit, is a happy one inasmuch as it contributes to the enrichment of our two cultures and the maintenance of the necessary interchanges between fathers and sons; but at the same time it is an unhappy one inasmuch as it perpetuates a colonial complex which we must overcome if we are to reach full maturity in the cultural as well as the political fields. Now, it is beyond question that we should endeavour to become 167 Vol. XXI, no. 2, Jan., 1952 168 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY more and more familiar with the great works of all nations; but, if we have much to learn from them, we must also be strong enough to assimilate only what suits us and to refuse what is unsuitable. The recent growth of our literature is accompanied by an inner crisis, the most obvious symptom of which is the perennial debate between those who would like to see our writers take a place in one of the various European literary schools and those who urge us to find in ourselves the necessary powers to create a distinctive literature. If we are to create a great and distinctive literature, we must not retire within ourselves but we must also not blindly swallow whatever comes from abroad; we must make every effort to discover and express what has a universality of appeal in our indigenous traditions and ways of life. If our literature is at once profoundly human and authentically Canadian, it will succeed in becoming part of the cultural birthright of the Western world. I do not believe it yet has; but some recent works indicate that the day when it will succeed may not be very far off. By speaking and writing the same language, our French-Canadian writers are closer to the authors of France than to any others. Vet by means of this common speech, the contemporary French and French-Canadian writers have to express realities, events, and individual as well as collective feelings and ideals which are at times quite dissimilar. It is obviously not possible to forget in a day the European inheritance, but three hundred years of life on this new continent...