Le zouave qui aimait les vélocipèdes par Pierre Breton (review)

revolt against being placed in a weaker position by her formerly egalitarian partner. This is no adolescent confused about her emotions. This rejected adult is articulate in carving out her initial denial and in morphing from being part of a couple into a woman grieving her accustomed lover. She is angry at a time when Paris has recently been ravaged by yet another terrorist act so she feels like circling the wagons without identifying who the other victims could be. Run-on sentences convey her overwhelming emotion that precludes her ability to finish her thoughts.With the assistance of a psychoanalyst, she leaves behind her self-destructive emotions and embarks on her journey to find the new self that is emerging. While Adrian would like to control how she accepts his declaration of independence,A. is insistent upon seeking“ma direction” (35). The other woman in Adrian’s life elicits the narrator’s curiosity to the point that she begins collecting photos of both new partners from the Web, downloading her enemy’s phone number and address, and even finding photos of her home on Google Earth. This information gives A. some control about the reality of this woman stranger in her life. A. even joins the blog organized by Adrian’s lover who knows that A. is reading this online presence and offers statements and pictures meant to antagonize her rival.A. would rather not depend on her analyst because she knows that eventually she must do this work herself because “nous seuls avions la clé de nos verrous” (108). But she also knows that there is no court to which she can appeal for the justice she seeks. Her writing is the forum for this hearing about how she endures and reacts to finding herself without Adrian. She has been harmed and crushed by Adrian’s rejection, such that the author claims this narrative to be un roman de résistance in her synopsis of the plot on the book’s overleaf. Her reader feels, along with her, that this opposition must be developed from what was an emotional dependence not easily left behind. The narrator’s odyssey to find her own heading and the shores mentioned in the title lead the reader to wonder whether the adjective in the title leads to ironic places or whether the new places she finds for herself do give her the calm that she is seeking through her writing. The irony does make this writing better because it allows for a future both for the narrator and the author who must give us more to enjoy. Trinity University (TX) Roland A. Champagne Breton, Pierre. Le zouave qui aimait les vélocipèdes. Montréal: Boréal, 2017. ISBN 978-2-7646-2476-0. Pp. 288. Le 17 février 1868, Séverin Lachapelle cambriole le Saint James Club de Montréal. Il y dérobe une truelle d’argent qui commémore l’inauguration du pont Victoria à Montréal par le prince de Galles en 1860, ainsi qu’une coupe en argent dans laquelle il trinque aux portraits des fondateurs du club—Misters Redpath, Ogilvy et McGill. Ces deux objets uniques et précieux sont destinés à la vente au profit de l’escroc qu’il est. Séverin s’empare également d’une locomotive Trevithick miniature identique à 200 FRENCH REVIEW 91.4 Reviews 201 celles qu’on assemblait autrefois dans les ateliers du Grand Tronc à Pointe-SaintCharles ; ce sera un cadeau pour un gamin qu’il chérit. Il s’empare aussi d’un globe terrestre en émail qui sert de tabatière, qu’il offrira à une vieille dame tenant une épicerie dans le quartier et qui expulse de temps en temps une giclée de jus de tabac jusqu’au crachoir placé au bout de son comptoir.Pour échapper à la force constabulaire de Montréal qu’il sent à ses trousses, Séverin s’enrôle dans le bataillon des zouaves pontificaux que Mgr Ignace Bourget, deuxième évêque de Montréal, organise en vue de défendre les États pontificaux et le pape Pie IX contre les forces de Giuseppe Garibaldi qui veut unifier l’Italie, le Vatican...