Le Conte fantastique québécois au XIXe siécle ed. by Aurélien Boivin, and: Anthologie de la nouvelle et du conte fantastiques québécois au XXe siécle ed. by Maurice Emond, and: Conteurs québécois 1900–1940 ed. by Adrien Thério (review)

HUMANITIES 181 devrait servir de voie d'acces aux oeuvres originales, c'est son systeme de references par trop sommaire. Dans les quelques lignes de presentation de chaque poete, on trouve les titres et la date de publication de leurs recueils, mais il n'y a aucune reference a la fin des poemes de telle sorte qu'on ne sait de quel recueil ils sont tires. Cela est d'autant plus genant qu'on annonce dans l'introduction que l'anthologie comporte de nOIDbreux inedits: Ie lecteur sera bien en peine de les identifier ... Le livre de LeBlanc et Beausoleil contribuera certes a faire connaitre l'Acadie et sa litterature au Quebec et ailleurs; et Dieu sait qu'il y a la un long chemin aparcourir puisque, triste ironie, les editeurs franc;ais et quebecois eux-memes n'ont pas su reconnaitre Ie titre de la revue acadienne de creation litteraire, Eloizes (de l'eclair de la foudre et prononce 'eloese') et ils l'ont transforme partout en Ie douteux prenom feminin d'Elolzes. (RAOUL BOUDREAU) Le Conte fantastique quebecois au XIXe siecle. Edited by Aurelien Boivin Fides, Bibliotheque quebecoise 1987. 448. $7.95 Anthologie de la nouvelle et du conte fantastiques quebecois au XXe siec1e. Edited by Maurice Emond Fides, Bibliotheque quebecoise 1987. 288. $4.95 Conteursquebecois 1900-1940. Edited by Adrien Therio Presses de l'Universite d'Ottawa, Cahiers du Centre de recherche en civilisation canadienne-fran<;aise 26. x, 230. $24.95 The recent publication of these three anthologies provides an insight into the evolution of short fiction, both fantastic and 'realistic,' in Quebec between 1837 and 1986. All three of the anthologists are eminently qualified for their task. Aurelien Boivin has done considerable research in the realm of the nineteenth-century Quebec literary tale (Le Conte litteraire quebecois au XIXe siecle: Essai de bibliographie critique et analytique, Fides 1975), while Maurice Emond has written extensively on contemporary Quebec fantastic literature. Adrien Therio has prepared a previous anthology of twentieth-century Quebec short stories (Conteurs canadiensfran ~ais: Epoque contemporaine, Deom 1965). Boivin's anthology is certainly not the first to deal exclusively with Quebec short fiction of the nineteenth century: E.-2. Massicotte published his Conteurs canadiens-franfais du XIXe sieclefor the first time in 1902. However, although Boivin's anthology contains stories by many of the authors found in Massicotte, Boivin's collection is limited to the fantastic tale, and presents many works not found in Massicotte. The anthology contains twenty-five stories by fourteen different authors. Boivin has 182 LETTERS IN CANADA 1988 included well-known tales, such as Honore Beaugrand's 'La Chassegalerie ' or tUne nuit avec les sorciers,' and an excerpt from Philippe Aubert de Gaspe's Les Anciens Canadiens. Other selections come from such familiar nineteenth-century authors as Louis Frechette and Pamphile Lemay. The reader will also find lesser-known stories, such as Wencelas-Eugene Dick's 'Un episode de resurrectionnistes' or Guillaume Levesque's 'La Croix du Grand Calumet.' The most obvious weakness of this collection is an unfortunate omission: the word anthologie does not appearin the title ofBoivin's work. This oversight creates the impression that Boivin has written a theoretical work, dealing with the genre of the fantastic. While this is not the case, Boivin's anthology does contain a twenty-three-page introduction, enti- . tled 'Le Conte fantastique au XIxe siecle: essai de classification.' This section explains the criteria used in selecting stories to be included, as well as providing an overview of the contents of the book. In his introduction, Boivin divides nineteenth-century Quebec tales into three categories: supernatural tales, anecdotal ones, and historical ones. After explaining that he has excluded the latter two categories from his anthology, Boivin notes that the fantastic tales included could also be termed surnaturels: Beaucoup plus interessants sont les contes de la premiere categorie que nous avons appeles surnaturels mais qui n'en sontpas moins fantastiques pour autant. lIs regroupent tous les recits de notre corpus OU se manifeste un etre ou un phenomene surnaturel quelconque, vrai ou faux, accepte ou explique. The use of the term surnaturel, implying as it does a religious element, is probably justified in the case of Boivin's corpus: the tales he has included often deal with supernatural apparitions after a failure to follow the strictures of the Church. However, the anthologist does not appear to have consulted any theoretical works dealing with the fantastic, and has based his classification of the stories selected on purely thematic criteria, grouping fantastic tales according to the type of supernatural being found in the story. Despite this somewhat shaky theoretical basis, the stories Boivin has presented do show a considerable thematic homogeneity. Many, including Aubert de Gaspe's 'L'Etranger,' present the character of the devil, while others, such as Honore Beaugrand's·'La Bete agrand'queue,' deal with monstrous apparitions traditionally believed to pursue lapsed Catholics. Emond's anthology, published in the same series as Boivin's, features more recent fantastic stories which do not necessarily uphold a traditional moral code. Emond's collection contains twenty stories by twelve different authors. Although not the first anthology of recent fantastic short stories by HUMANITIES 183 Quebec authors, it contains none of the works which appeared in Andre Carpentier's collection of Dix contes et nouvelles fantastiques par dix auteurs quebecois (Quinze 1983). The selections presented by Emond vary from the Kafka-like atmosphere of Claudette Charbonneau Tissot's 'Mutation' to the more traditional demonic motif found in Daniel Sernine's 'Belpheron.' Andree Maillet's 'Les Doigts extravagants' recalls, in presenting the motif of the detached hand, nineteenth-century French fantastic stories such as Nerval's 'La Main de gloire' and Maupassant's 'La Main.' Interestingly enough, Maillet's short story deals, as do Michel Belil's 'Eux,' Andre Carpentier's 'La Bouquinerie d'Outre-Temps,, and Claude Mathieu's 'L'Auteur du "Temps d'aimer,'" with the question of literary creation itself. Each of these four stories describes an author whose literary production is influenced by inexplicable forces. Emond has also included three stories by Michel Tremblay, youthful works interesting largely for the insight they provide into the early development of the well-known playwright and novelist. Emond is at some pains to emphasize the limited scope of his anthology, referring to it in his introduction as 'petite' and 'modeste.' His introduction is thus much more circumscribed than Boivin's, although he does discuss certain characteristics of the fantastic. Emond terms the fantastic the consummate evanescent genre, a remark that recalls Tzvetan Todorov's observation: 'Le fantastique mene ... une vie pleine de dangers, et peut s'evanouir a tout instant' (Introduction a la litterature fantastique, Paris, Seuil1970, 46). However, although Emond also adopts Todorov's classificatory scheme when he describes the fantastic as situated midway between Ie merveilleux and l'etrange, he fails to recognize Todorovas a source. Emond has organized his selections according to alphabetical order. While this is, of course, a perfectly acceptable approach, it does not allow the reader to trace the evolution of the fantastic genre. In opting for a chronological order of presentation, Therio's anthology, like Boivin's, does allow us to observe this evolution. Therio does not have to face the thorny question of defining the fantastic, but an introductory note addresses another terminological difficulty, that of the distinction between the conte, the court recit, and the nouvelle. Therio makes it clear from the outset that the word conteurs in the title of his anthology is meant in the widest possible sense, and includes all three types of stories. Conteurs quebecois, 1900-1940 offers selections ranging from the agricultural messianism of Adjutor Rivard's 'Le Travail' and Frere MarieVictorin 's 'Ne vends pas la terre ...' to the more subtle psychological analysis of Marie Le Franc's 'Florence' or 'Katherine.' Other stories, such as Sylva Clapin's 'Un vieux' and Harry Bernard's 'Le Professeur d'italien,' are based on a classic comic misunderstanding. The reader will note some 184 LETTERS IN CANADA 1988 links between Therio's anthology and those prepared by Boivin and Emond: Louis Dantin's 'La Messe de Florent Letourneau' presents, like many of the stories found in Boivin's anthology, the supernatural punishment inflicted on a character who has deviated from orthodox Catholic observances. Clement Marchand's 'La Montre' also shows some resemblance to the fantastic tale. All in all, Therio presents twenty-five stories by fourteen different authors, including, as do Boivin and Emond, short biographical and bibliographical notices. A minor shortcoming of Therio's anthology should be noted: it includes a considerable number of typographical errors. For instance, a bibliographical reference on page 10 should read 'Librairie Deom' (and not 'Libraire Deom'), whereas a biographical notice on the following page should refer to 'une librairie' (and not 'un librairie'). However, these mistakes do not of course interfere seriously with the usefulness of Therio's anthology. Boivin and Therio both attribute the popularity of the short story in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Quebec to the moral dilemma posed in a conservative society by the novel, presenting as it did a love story. This reason can, of course, have little to do with the continuing popularity of the fantastic short story in contemporary Quebec, as is evidenced by Emond's anthology. Whatever the reasons behind the development of short fiction in Quebec, these collections present an interesting sample of the genre over a considerable time span, and will be of interest to many readers. In publishing these three anthologies, Aurelien Boivin, Maurice Emond, and Adrien Therio have made the gamut of Quebec short stories of the last 150 years, from the fantastic to the realistic and the humorous, much more accessible. (MARY ELLEN ROSS) Pierre Hebert, avec la collaboration de Marilyn Bazczynski. Le Journal intime au Quebec: Structure, evolution, reception Fides, 209. $19.95 broche Apres une introduction ou l'auteur opte pour la lith.~rature 'personnelle' plutot 'qu'intime,, entend reviser Ie 'pacte autobiographique' de Philippe Lejeune et propose des 'jalons pour une typologie des genres personnels ,' la premiere partie de I'ouvrage porte sur l'analyse de Ia reception du journal intime et sur I'histoire de la subjectivite au Quebec. Vne seconde partie, definitivement plus originale, propose une narratologie du journal intime, explorant dans trois journaux Ie statut du recit (Henriette Dessaulles), la question du narrataire (Lionel Groulx) et les structures actantielles (Saint-Denys Garneau). Vne bibliographie fait Ie point sur Ie corpus quebecois, sur les etudes quebecoises et inter- ...