Chaos in Babel: Reconfiguring Biblical Archetypes in Monique Bosco's Babel-Opéra

Although not very well known in Francophone literature, Monique Bosco was a prolific author of numerous novels, short stories, and poems, and was recognized as one of the key Jewish writers in Montreal, a small minority group of immigrant intellectuals who wrote in French. Bosco was born in Austria in 1927 but spent many years in France, where she was raised and educated; she later settled in Montreal in 1948. As a reflection of her own experience, many of her texts follow the trajectory of displaced Jews in their quest to settle in North America, thereby inevitably encountering cultural and religious alienation. In many of Bosco's works, readers can observe a particular fascination with the ancient past, especially a preoccupation with the Old Testament and such biblical archetypes as Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Moses, Miriam, Job, and Lot's wife. However, Bosco deviates from the traditional representation of these biblical figures, as she revises them to reflect the contemporary crisis of exile and geographical displacement—seminal elements associated with the Jewish Diaspora.

This study considers selected biblical archetypes in Babel-Opéra to examine how the biblical past, grounded in the Old Testament, affects social problems that the Jewish migrant population confronts today. Above all, the theme of wandering, rooted in the Book of Genesis, is directly related to the contemporary crisis of Jewish exclusion and loss of identity in the new homeland, Quebec. To trace the origins of these overarching Jewish themes, Bosco relies on the story of the Tower of Babel, which, in her version, is emblematic of the chaotic migrant experience. This analysis also focuses on Bosco's innovative use of gender reconfiguration as she rewrites biblical history by shifting some religious masculine figures into the feminine to give voice to biblical women. Since the text is fragmented and contains a variety of literary genres, the analysis focuses on noteworthy parts of the prose sections, non-chronologically, given the jagged composition of the text. These sections, Métamorphoses, Shoah, Exode, and Apocalypse, are of textual importance because they allow the reader to trace the protagonist's peregrinations from Europe to Quebec.

To begin the study, it is important to look at the complex structure of Babel-Opéra, since the architectural frame reflects many of the thematic elements outlined above. At first glance, the text resembles the intricate and hybrid structure of an opera. There is a brief preface, the ouverture, an introductory chapter called Babel-Opéra, a series of choruses composed in verse (with designated vocal parts for men, women, and children), and a diverse collection of prose selections mentioned above. The narrative weaves in and out of these irregular prose sections: some are numbered, some are lengthy, and others are extremely abbreviated. Structurally, the author frames these prose parts by inserting unrelated biblical quotations, which reflect, in part, the experiences of the protagonist and her mother in their journey from the old world to the new land of Canada. Moreover, the prose sections are interrelated as individual segments, mirroring the overarching textual theme of exile. Interestingly, the finale as closure refers once again to the biblical story of the Tower of Babel to create a cyclical, hermetic structure. Throughout the body of the text, Bosco rewrites the narrative of the Tower of Babel to reflect the plight of the Jewish people from their dispersal in the ancient past to the contemporary crisis of exclusion in urban contexts.

In the preface that introduces the revised Tower of Babel tale, the author directs the focus to God, thus establishing a relationship between the protagonist and her interlocutor, God. Composed in verse, the preface is entitled ouverture and contains such familiar themes that traverse Bosco's works as abandonment, betrayal, and suffering. Bosco's narrator, Myriam, begs God to listen to her:

Il n'y a plus de mots pour t'implorer.mais il faut rompre ce mortel silence.Ô dieu, écoute.Écoute, du plus profond de nos douleursla lamentation ancienne, millénaire.

(9)¹

Myriam's personal invocation to God shows a secularization of...