Dictionnaire des œuvres littéraires du Québec, IV, 1960–1969 by Maurice Lemire et al. (review)

HUMANITIES 471 more than seventy Quebec novels published in France from 1945 to 1975, together with a representative selection of French critical articles about them. Unfortunately, the author seems unaware of previous investigations such as Denis Bouchard's'Anne Hebert en France,' included in his Une lecture d'Anne Hebert: la recherche d'une mythologie (1977). More serious is the absence ofany index in a volume containing hundreds ofreferences to some fifty novelists; readers interested in a single Quebec writer must search the entire book for information. Despite a few shortcomings, Le Roman quebecois en France is an important study for students of the modem Quebec novel, for specialists interested in the 'literary institution' of contemporary Paris, and for comparatists concerned with literary relations between Quebec and France. (DAVID M. HAYNE) Maurice Lemire et al. Dictionnaire des reuvres litteraires du Quebec, IV, 1960-:1969 Fides. lxiii, 1123, illus. $75.00 For nearly fifteen years, Maurice Lemire and his colleagues at Universite Laval (Gilles Dorion, Andre Gaulin, Alonzo Le Blanc, and their research associates) have been patiently building the literary monument that is the Dictionnaire, the fourth volume of which came out last year. Working one's way through the book, one relives the excitement of the 1960s, that heady decade ofrapid change in Quebec society accompanied/stimulated by unparalleled literary and artistic creativity. As in the other volumes, there is a valuable introduction, which begins with a synthesis of the changes, institutional and psychological, of that decade ('Une periode de mutation profonde: la Revolution tranquille'), followed by more detailed overviews of the various genres - the novel, poetry, drama, and the essay. As usual, one finds much of value here in orienting oneself to the individual articles. There is, however, a paradoxical use of some reductionist (and inexact) labels that seem to have their origin in the pre-1960 periods characterized, according to Marcel Rioux in Les Quebecois, by a stress on differentiation rather than healthy selfaffirmation . Thus the frequent use here (and in some of the individual texts) of terms like 'image anglaise,' 'symboles anglais,' 'Anglo-Saxons' for 'anglophones,' 'canadien(ne)-anglais(e),' 'Canadiens anglais.' In the very useful synchronic-diachronic table, the inefficacy of such labelling becomes manifest when one finds listed, under the heading 'L'Amerique anglo-saxonne,' such personalities of diverse ethnic (and racial) origins as Leonard Cohen, Herbert Marcuse, Jack Kerouac, Noam Chomsky, George Ryga, Martin Luther King, Allen Ginsberg, and Ivan Illich. A corollary to this type of somewhat traditional vision, it seems to us, is a tendency to understate the negative features of 'Ie duplessisme' and to 472 LETTERS IN CANADA 1984 play down aspects of auto-alienation in such areas as the deficiencies of the pre-1960 Quebec educational system, and the very limited teaching of Franco-Canadian literature at all levels, including the university. On the other hand, the introduction is wanting in not bringing into sharper focus the extremely significant shift in self-image from 'Canadien fran~ais' to 'Quebecois' in the period under study. The introduction does, however, have an especially impressive text on 'L'Essai' by Gilles Dorion, and Alonzo Le Blanc's rehabilitation of the dramaturgy of Marcel Dube is welcome. There are numerous excellent articles under the various rubrics. In the area of poetry, the most memorable are: L'Age de la parole (Marcel Duciame), L'Arbre blanc (Suzanne Paradis), L'Inavouable (Andre Brochu), Memoire (Andre Gaulin), Poemes de la froide merveille de vivre (Alexandre Amprimoz), Pour chanter dans les chaines (Claude Beausoleil), Le Premier Mot (Cecile Cloutier - a veritable poem itself), Ruts and Or Ie cycle du sang dure donc (Jean Fisette), and Terre Quebec (Maximilien Laroche). Well ' crafted, too, were the following texts on drama: Les Beaux Dimanches and Les Belles~Sreurs (Alonzo Le Blanc), Le Chemin du roi, Hamlet prince du Quebec (Denis Saint-Jacques), Doublejeu ijean-CIeo Godin), and Woufwouf (Gilbert David). In the novel category, the following stand out: L'Aquarium , Jimmy (Gilles Dorion), L'Avalee des avales (Bernard Dupriez), La Route d'Altamont (Antoine Sirois), Trou de memoire ijoseph Melan~on), and Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuei (Annette Hayward). Gabrielle Fremont's text on the hybrid Les Voyageurs sacres...