A Canadian Disciple of François Mauriac: Robert Charbonneau

A CANADIAN DISCIPLE OF FRAN(:01S MAURIAC: ROBERT CHARBONNEAU ALLAN McANDREw FRENCH-CANADIAN literature has been too frequently rejected as an uninspired mosaic of poems and novels grouped around Les Anciens Canadiens, L'Hirondelle, Maria Chapdelaine, and The Golden Dog, better known as Le Chien d'or.1 As recently as 1936, A. R. M. Lower dismissed French-Canadian literature as "a matter of romantic novels, tepid poetry, or stylistic criticism."2 Professor Felix Walter corrected this view with his observation that "from the turn of the century at any rate, FrenchCanadian novelists, poets, and critics have been marching steadily away from the 'romantic,' the 'tepid,' and the 'stylistic.' j) 3 The point of view of the French-Canadian critics regarding their literature would find, I think, its most measured expression in Maurice Hebert. M. Hebert is of the opinion that, while in its ensemble French-Canadian literature merits respect, it is by no means transcendent.4 During the past ten years interesting works have appeared. Ringuet's Trente Arpents, for example, has achieved a considerable degree of popularity outside Canada. Publication in Paris gave the book the possibility of wide circulation. RingU.et, indeed, owes a debt of gratitude to the Quebec editoi·s who took no interest in his novel. Robert Charbonneau believes, nevertheless, that there is as yet no artistic tradition in Canada: the writer who seeks perfection, he says, does so only because his self-respect demands it.5 The history of the French-Canadian novel still does not dazzle our eyes with a succession of masterpieces: for that we must look to the future. Two few Quebec authors have digested Boileau's warning to the poet: Si son astre en naissant ne l'a forme poete, Dans son genie etroi t il est toujours captif. The French-Canadian author has had at times too narrow a view of morality .6 It does not seem to have occurred to him that literary morality might require that he suppress his work. lit is not my intention to lay claim toLe Chien d'or on behalf of French-Canadian literature. Kirby's novel was written in English. The work often passes, however, for a French romance, undoubtedly because of its titleJ subject-matter, and the fact of its translation by Le M,ay. 2({Unknown Quebec" (University of Toronto f!<.uarterly, Oct., 1936). 3"Letters in Canada: 1936. Part II: French-Canadian Letters" (University of Toronto f<,uarterly, July, 1937). American interest in French Canada and its culture has been productive in the past few years of concrete results, for e:xample, publications and the formation of a French-Canadian section by the Modern Language Association of America. 4Le Canadajran~ais, Nov., 1936. sconnaissance du personnage (Montreal, 1944), 107-8. usee Berthelot Brunet, Histoire de Ia lillerature canadienne-Jranr;aise (Montreal, 1946), 165-73. 42 ROBERT CHARBONNEAU 43 A major theme of the novel in Quebec has been ancestor-worship (the term is Felix Walter's) of one form or another, as seen in the h1 istor]cal novel and the roman du terroir. The novels of the past few years, however , permit one to assert that a new era lies ahead of the expanding genre. The hero is becoming socially and politically emancipated; he is no longer the symbol of his group, with his fate tied to the destiny of his race, but a man of .flesh and b~ood. Among contemporary writers, Robert Charbonneau-co-director of La Nouvelle Releve, poet, critic, and novelist-commands our attention by the break in his novels with the tradition of fiction in Quebec.7 M. Charbonneau does not preach at or exhort his compatriots to hold fast before the onslaught of the Anglo-Saxon barbarian. The omission of the patriotic tone and of parochialism might well displease some in the Province of·Quebec, but it is a happy fault which should increase the circulation of Charbonneau's novels outside that province. The tradition of the novel for Robert Charbonneau is the psychological tradition of Stendhal, Proust, and Mauriac. The course which this Canadian novelist has set himself is fraughtwith a certain peril. M. Charbonneau frequently staggers beneath the burde{l of this tradition of sustained greatness. Robert Charbonneau is a Catholic novelist after the fashion of Mauriac and Bernanos. There are in his two novels8 no demoniacal characters of the type we find in Mauriac, except Ly in lls possederont la terre, who has the destructive nature of a Therese Desqueyroux; nor do we find the saint type of Bernanos. Charbonneau's novels are linked to the works of Mauriac and Bernanos through the Pascalian formula-the helplessness of man without God and the power of man with God; the great issue is the human soul in relationship to its Maker, the drama is the utter prostration of man without Grace. In Mauriac concupiscence is the inexhaustible source of the tragic plight of a humanity denied Divine Grace. In Bernanos we see that the strong passionate nature bears within itself the seeds of saintliness which only await Love and the Grace of God in order to .fto~er. In Connaissance du personnage, Charbonneau makes his position as a Catholic novelist clear. Original sin is the basis of the human drama. The matter upon which the novelist, be he Catholic or not, will draw is ('the struggle of man against himself, against his inclination to sin or the bonds and obstacles which oppose his happiness or his pl~asure, or his struggle against God." In his two novels, Charbonneau depicts the inner conflict of egotistical and introspective persons who seek glory or perfection -that libido excellendi which Pascal in his day had ultimately recognized as the spirit which is opposed to the spirit of Christianity. The frustration and suffering of his characters, Charbonneau suggests, is the result of their lack of Grace. 7Ibid., 172-3. 8IIs possMeront Ia terre (Montreal, 1941); Fontile (Montreal, 1945);. 44 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY The reader is struck by the absence of reference in these novels to the problems of French-Canadian survival. In fact, apart from the religious atmosphere, which we recognize as being French-C::anadian, and the occasional details of manners, one is apt to forget the setting. This "casual". manner of Charbonneau must not be imputed to a betrayal of his group but to his conception of"the novel as an artistic creat!on. Cr.eation is an _important word in Charbonneau's critical vocabulary. Man is the object of the novel; according to Charbonneau, the novelist must concern himself with the revelation of a human soul. "It is no longer a question in the first place of telling a story, of describing a milieu, of setting forth a philosophical or moral conception, but of creating characters." Pontile, however, is to some extent an etude de moeurs. Charbonneau paints, with very much more elaboration than in Ils possederont la terre, the background against which we see his characters. The title-Pontilemakes clear this greater preoccupation with manners, for Fontile is the name of the city in which the action o{both novels. takes place. The inner and personal conflict of Julien, the hero of Pontile, is given relief through the depiction of the moral climate of Fontile. CI1arbonneau, however, does not seem sure of the· dosage _de moew·s permissible in the noveL A comparison of Pontile with the version. he published in his review in 1944-5 shows Charbonneau's hesitation on this point. When does the depiction of manners become mere padding? Opinion will vary. It does seem that the anecdote related by Mareux to Julien about their College days and Mareux's "shot-gun" marriage with Charnel's daughter are padding despite the influence of these events upon Julien's story. However, the sister of Bonneville, the journalist, has undoubtedly been suppressed as a character because Charbonneau did not know what to do with her. The sense that Charbonneau gives to the cr"eation of characters is hostile to their construction from observed verities as in the case of Duhamel whose characters, according to CharbonneauJ lack spiritual density; Charbonneau stresses the mystery in which are enveloped the people who surround us in real life. For him the truth of a man's soul can rarely, if ever, be seized because of the multitude of factors which stand between a man and his actions. Consequently the novelist, he feels, must create "living beings who are men whom we may know in their conscience, as God knows them.'' Characters must be "autonomous" beings '.'endowed with a free will and with a conscien·ce." Since Charbonneau is so precise in laying down the qualities required of the novelist it becomes all the more imperative to assess him in the light of his own values. His analysis of character is infer~or to that of Mauriac and Bernanos. He lacks the remorseless analysis of the former, and he does not approach the "brave disorder" of the latter. The truth is that Charbonneau's "imitation:· of the two great French Catholic novelists is weakest where failure is the. most serious: he does not really succeed in creating characters. His men and women, nevertheless, remain interesting ROBERT CHARBONNEAU 45 failures. His characters would, perhaps, have · achieved real life had he used more energy in exploiting the situations in which he has placed them. There is an episodic quality to both novels which is as puzzling as it is irritatir1g to the reader, who is constantly bewildered by Charbonneau's choice of material that is abandoned before it leads anywhere. Charbonneau's method of character analysis is loose, and its effect is confusing. The reader is not prepared to sacrifice to the principle of "autonomy" his understanding of why a personage behaves as he does. One is constantly baffled in lis possederont Ia terre by Edward's rapid shift from one interest or course of action to another. At one moment Edward and Andre are on the train en route to Ethiopia. His mind fired by the reading of a few pages of Ulysses, Edward talks at length about his childhood to Andre. Edward does not reach Ethiopia; he does not even go aboard ship. f!<.ue diable allait-iJ jaire dans cette galere? Edward's ideas turn from Ethiopia to the Seminary where he does not remain long. His mother and Dorothee ask for an explanation of his return home. Edward is unwilling to give reasons for his surprising behaviour. He thinks: <(Comment raconter cela?" Charbonneau has not solved the problem of ''how to tell that." He never makes the behaviour of his personages inevitable despite his tireless probing into their thoughts and feelings. In Pontile, Charbonneau is chiefly concerned with one character, Julien Pollender. Despite the analysis, Julien, like the personages of lls possederont !a terre, remains a pale and enigmatic :figure. These characters are nearly all shadow and of little substance. Charbonneau's occasional use of a word which is vague in its context is not unrelated to his looseness of analysis. In Pontile, after noting the inferiority complex and the introspection of his hero as a child, we learn that Julien yearned after glory when still very young. "I desired to escape through it [glory] from my inner demon." The words "demon interieur" are so vague that one pauses over them. Precisely what does Charbonneau mean? The methods of biblical exegesis, however suitable to a Milton, for example, are trying in a modern novel. Does Charbonneau mean that the pursuit of glory will free his hero from his sense of uselessness? An examination of the novel in La Nouvelle ReJ'eve shows that Charbonneau's :first version read : "I desired to escape through it from the milieu o( merchants in which I was born." Charbonneau leaves himself open to a further reproach....:._[rom this writer at least-that his novels give off a vague aura of the library, for at times the shadow of French literature, in which he is obviously steeped, lies heavily on the pages of his novels. In Connaissance du personnage; Charbonneau comments on Valery's confession that he would be unable to write a novel because he would not be able to put into the mouth of a character phrases like "Bonjour, Monsieur," with any conviction. Valery's discomfort over the use of hackneyed expressions shows, according to·Charbonneau, that he would have been a mediocre novelist for he did nqt 46 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY realize that it is the "spiritual or carnal density" of the personages which gives life to such phrases. Charbonneau's characters have very little . "spiritual or carnal density" whenever their intellectual tendencies are stressed. Some of the reality they possess fades away to be replaced by an . inelasticity which could unwittingly become comic. Charbonneau renders a great service to French-Canadian letters by his insistence that the novelist must not close his eyes to evil on the pretext of avoiding scandal. The French-Canadian novel has lacked vigour because of excessive prudishness. ·This does not mean that the scruples of French-Canadian novelists are ill-founded in substance, but it does suggest one reason, at least, for the lifelessness of many of their productions. Charbonneau, in his essay on Mauriac, states that "the novelist must perforce busy himself with evil, because drama is always born of disorder, even the inner drama of holiness which is the contest between Grace and [our] instincts, between the supernatural and nature." It would be untrue, however, to suppose that there is much t'evil" in Charbonneau's novels. They are marred by a fatal timidity which prevents him from facing the scarlet sins like a Mauriac. It is interesting to note that in his novel.s Charbonneau deals with the adolescent. He believes--and it is evident in: the novels-that the explanation of much of the mystery of man is to be found in his childhood. Adolescen ·ce has never been a theme of major importance in French literature . Marivaux, it is true, concerned himself with very young men and women. Manon Le.rcaut is a drama of frustration and amorality. The immortal prigs-Paul and Virginia-represent Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's contribution to the study of youth. But though the juvenile is not-entirely absent, he is usually set against a background of weary humanity. He moves in an adult world relieved only occasionally by flashes of youthful freshness. Fournier's_Le Grand Meaulnes is the first novel of importance which is recognized as the novel of adolescence. P. eyre in Hommes et oeuvres du XX 6 si'ecle characterizes Fournier as the "romancier du r~ve· et de l'aventure, evocateur de son enfance." Fournier made his novel the synthesis of his childhood memories and aspirations. The adventure he relates, set in the countryside of his childhood, is purely psychological; and the world in which it takes place, while real, is fresh, young, and mysterious : everything is transfigured with discreet poetry. This is not the world of Robert Charbonneau·. He and Fournier do stand. together, however, in portraying the disparity between the world of dreams and that of reality. Nowhere in Charbonneau do we find the touching regret of an Yvonne de Galais: "Et peut-etre que je ne puis rien faire pour lui?" Meaulnes is unable to accept the happiness at hand: he is the prisoner of his dreams. Charbonneau has a darker view of life than Fournier despite the tragedy of the Frenchman's life. In Pontile, our attention is focussed on Julien's childhood and youth as we follow his awkward and anguished ROBERT CHARBONNEAU 47 attempts to adjust himself to life. There is a fatality in the life of man which is not easy to accept however true it be that man creates his own fate and is therefore responsible for the denouement which overtakes him. So it is with Julien. His efforts to free himself from Fontile are ineffectual, for the ·bonds which tie him to his milieu are further tightened by his election to parliament. Julien drives his car into the country after his triumph in order to be alone with his thoughts. He steps out of his car, surveys the trees swaying gently in the breeze, the river, low at this season, and reflects: "They reminded me of my ambitious dreams, my anguish to act, my impatience to model life." In Ils possederont Ia terre, ~dward and Ly leave on the train for the West and a new life. But they leave behind a suicide and parents in a furore, and they take with them a heavy score of incompatibility to be settled in the sequel. I have already indicated that Charbonneau does not approve of his characters. Like some of Mauriac,s personages they are dissatisfied with themselves. In the case of Julien, Charbonneau brings about a pact between him and Christ. Andre Laroudan, Edward Wilding, and Julien Po1lender are the principal characters in Charbonneau's novels; morally speaking, they res~nible each other basically, and yet they remain three different types of young men. The fire of self-analysis of the adolescent does not concern us here. We merely note that it is excessive in them. The student of the Catholic novel, having obse.rved the self-dissatisfaction of these young men, will take due cognizance of the foJlowing facts. Both Edward and Julien -are tormented by religious anxiety. Edward has been brought up in hatred of sin with the notion of damnation ever present in his mind. For him and Julien confession is associated with a degree of anguish close to nightmare. The fear of God has been inculcated into Andre as a child to such an extent that no room is left for love. The word love is significant in terms of the fate which Robert Charbonneau metes out to his characters. As Andre contemplates his failure in life he thinks "of the gesture which would have changed all these reverses into success, which would have incr"eased ·a hundredfold his strength and would have magnified him above himself: le don de soi." This don de soi, charity, is not offered by Edward, who, however, came _very close to it; and his life will be burdened by a marriage with a woman he does not love, a woman whom} in fact, he fears. Andre and Edward remain earth-bound: "ils possederont la terre." Julien Pollenderl at the age of thirty, is a near failure: he has not achieved anything and his initiation into the world of affairs is halting and unwilling. There is a woman in his l~fe also. Happily for him his capacity to s,engager, to commit himself, is less atrophied, despite his egotism, than is the case with Andre.- Armande, who is close to death, offers her life for him: the offer is accepted and Julien is delivered from his obsession and pride. The chapter in which Julien sums up the anguish which quits. -48 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY him through his pact with Christ-the result of Armande's intercession, as he later discovers-is turgid. One is prepared to accept Charbonneau's belief that the mystery of man is profound; one is less willing to accept mysteriousness from Charbonneau. The reader is also puzzled after this chapter (xvr) to discover Julien's cruel confession: "Yes, I did not care about Armande's illness; she was going to 'die, whereas I had to live...." .This is an upsetting revelation from a man who has concluded a pact with Ch!ist! Charbonneau in his revision of Pontile has not always succeeded in maintaining an even tone of coherence-especially in the last part of the novel. In the first version of Pontile Julien's comment on Armande's illness is made after his reconciliation with the girl-following upon a break in their relations-but before the conclusion of his pact with Christ. Strangely enough Charbonneau now places the pact with Christ before Julien's misunderstanding with Armande! Charbonneau's point of view and presentation of character are then Mauriacian: he is concerned with men who are dissatisfied with themselves, who lack Grace, and whose fate is either frustration or redemption. · Charbonneau by this attitude to life unites his characters. Externally the dissimilarity between Andre, Edward, and Julien is pronounced. Andre yearns for domination-here provided by wealthwhich is but a lesser form of the desire for perfection. His adolescence comes to an end in the sense that he adjusts himself to his milieu, not without a struggle, and limits his desires to what lies more in the power of the average m'an. Andre is the most earthy of the three in his mode of living. Edward is mystic by temperament. As he has no economic preoccupations, his desire for perfection seeks fulfilment in the realm of the spirit. The priest- -hood seems to be his vocation. He fails, however, to find in the novitiate the answer to his problem, and withdraws. Like Icarus he is fated to be dashed to the ground. His fate-marriage with Ly Laroudan-is cruel. -JuJien is tormented by his desire for glory in literature. His milieu is unsympathetic and confining. He is not understood by his family. After three years spent in literary circles-a strange republic of letters, indeed, where this provincial poet dines and wines friends who secretly poke fun .at his talent-he returns to Fontile to try to live, as he puts it, like a man l()f Fontile, aware that he has no real talent. He does make the effort to .s'engager (commit himself) to life in Fontile. He is still a victim of pride, ibut a "victim" who is active. He stands in relationship to Andre and Edward as do the heroes of sevente~nth-century French tragedy to the ;passive heroes of Renaissance tragedy. Julien does, however, become humanized by his love for Armande. _ He is getting outside himself, as it were, so that Grace can enter through the breach so created. Bernanos remarks in hi_s Journal d7 un cure de campagne that most of us live on the surface of ourselves: we do not cngager our being and our deep sincerity. Julien observes that each day he discovers his share of the pact with Christ with fright. ROBERT CHARBONNEAU 49 Dorothee, Ly, and Armande play decisive roles in the lives of the heroes of lls possederont Ia terre and of Pontile. Dorothee is the most elusive of the three. Ly is a dangerous woman with vulgar tastes. Incapable of love, she lives for love. Armande is gay and charming. Her illness, which culminates in death, directs her attention to spiritual problems. Julien calls her a saint because of her intercession on his behalf. Dorothee's moral portrait is all the more interesting because of the discretion with which she moves through the novel. The destined bride of Edward, she loves two men and marries neither of them. Julien, in a moment of indiscretion which Charbonneau has thought better of~ explains. the enigma of her personality thus: "She carried with her the disenchantment of a virgin widow...." Dorothe~, like Edward and Andre, is earth-bound and she lacks that "politeness of the heart which is charity." She has but one spontaneous impulse to action in the course of the novel. She would have liked to throw herself into Andre's arms when he returned to her. Needless to say she did nothing of the kind and consequently deserved Julien's epithet. Dorothee experienced the need of being loved. Unfortunately Andre was incapable of the .decisiveness which would have won the girl. The :first relations between these young people ended in the same fashion. Dorothee used to listen patiently to the recital of Andre's despair. When Andre attempted to embrfl,.ce her, however, she burned her hand with her cigarette without a word. This detail is not to suggest youthful awkwardness but rather her morality, for her ((grey eyes shone with incandescent purity." This you~g woman who, incidentally, detested Jews~ succumbed to nervous reaction upon her return home and required cold compresses on her brow. The ridiculousness of this episode is attenuated,. somewhat, by the struggle between the two adolescents who are seeking each other on "different planes." Charbonneau at times comes dangerously close to the extravagant in the expression of ideas and in the depiction of things which in themselves are beyond reproach. Julien permits himself an observation so prudish in character that one is quite unprepared to accept what one would not have questioned otherwise. "I supposed that his Catholic upbri11ging," he remarks of one of his friends, "almost identical with mine, had kept him apart from any sexual adventure." One can find pontifical observations even in Mauriac; while they have not the leaden and platitudinous tone of Balzac at his worst, they detract from the artistic perfection of his ~ark. lYlauriac remarks in La Pharisienne that the misfortune of men is the result of their inability to remain chaste and that a chaste humanity would be free from the evils with which we are overwhelmed. Mauriac is too much the artist to yield to the temptation ·of writing tracts despite his. innate tendency to the lay sermon. In his biographical writings he gives freer rein to his style in the exposition of his religious ·and moral beliefs. In his Commencements d'une vie, Mauriac tells us that he and his brothers got up so THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY and kft the performance of tableaux vivants in the Theatre de la Gaite in Bordeaux. In FontileJ Julien describes his reactions to a "burlesque show." He had the force of character to leave; but what a departure! "I had stood up reeling under the strength of my emotion and had proceeded to the exit. Outside, joy had swollen my breast." In th~ final analysis it must remain always a question of "when to repress, and when indulge our flights." It has been a common belief that art in Canada must seek to exploit the "Canadian" in order to create a tradition worthy of the destiny which, we are told, lies ahead of this country. The Canadian artist, handicapped by the primacy of Anglo-American and French literatures, has sought his salvation in the depiction of what may well prove to be in the end only transient features of Canadian life. The shooting of a gangster in downtown Toronto or the problems of a Jewish lawyer and his Montreal sweetheart , remain in the final analysis documents for the social archaeologist of the future. Robert Charbonneau challenges with his two novels the deep-rooted belief that the French-Canadian novelist must sing of the soil and of the national virtues to create real French-Canadian literature. His answer is that the artist must deal primarily with the realm of the universal emotions before he opens the door to any kind of particularism. The greater preoccupation with manners !n Pontile suggests an· effort of reconciliation on his part between psychological analysis and the particular. ...