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(Gaudette) and Jeanne (Désormeaux-Poulin), whose mother, Nawal (Azabal), leaves instructions at her death to deliver two letters that require her children to hunt down a father they thought was dead and a brother they did not know existed , back in the unnamed war-torn Middle-Eastern country from which Nawal had fled after years of imprisonment and torture. Shot in Montreal and Jordan, the film, while largely faithful to the play’s essence, does omit certain elements (including the telltale clown’s nose which, in the play, reveals the identity of Nawal’s lost son), and, most notably, adds a final twist, with a return to Montreal for the culminating encounter between the twins and the individual they seek. While some might find it implausible that a torturer and war criminal could immigrate to Canada and find work as a janitor on city buses (in an ironic echo of a horrific bus massacre witnessed by Nawal during her own tragic odyssey), the film preserves a symbolic and visual coherence that serves the interwoven dual chronology of Nawal’s and her children’s stories well. Its only obvious nod to its literary origins is the use of ten red titles, names of characters and places, dividing the narrative into chapters. Villeneuve’s decision to let images and silences do the talking, rather than rely on the lengthy dialogues and monologues that characterize Mouawad’s play, ultimately creates a more powerful film than would have otherwise been the case. One of the film’s most memorable sequences is the opening one, set to the music of Radiohead, in which the unwavering gaze of a silent child-soldier communicates the true price and cruelty of war. Shot principally in French and Arabic, Incendies is notable for its effort to remain apolitical (actual Middle-Eastern conflicts, geography, and historical figures are merely suggested, not referenced), even as it uses the troubled region of Nawal’s birth as a platform for a cross-generational exploration of anger and forgiveness . Although origins, family secrets, and individual and collective suffering are central to this plotline worthy of Greek tragedy, in this film they do not always determine who the characters are or can become. Today’s generation of survivors of conflict, embodied by Jeanne and Simon, may be “scorched” by the past, to borrow the film’s English title, but their scars do not dictate the future that Quebec holds for them as for so many immigrants who, like Mouawad, are contributing to a new transnational aesthetic and vision of the world. Georgetown University (DC) Miléna Santoro Literary History and Criticism edited by Marion Geiger BÉLISLE, MATHIEU. Le drôle de roman: l’œuvre du rire chez Marcel Aymé, Albert Cohen et Raymond Queneau. Montréal: PU de Montréal, 2010. ISBN 978-2-7606-2199-2. Pp. 317. $34,95 Can. Cet ouvrage lucide et bien documenté étudie le roman drôle français de la première moitié du vingtième siècle, un drôle de roman qui met en question les conventions romanesques issues du siècle précédent et que Marcel Aymé, Albert Cohen et Raymond Queneau ont tout particulièrement illustré avec des textes comme La jument verte (1933), Mangeclous (1938) et Gueule de pierre (1934). Dans son introduction, Mathieu Bélisle note à quel point le comique est lié au roman: il Reviews 743 suffit de penser à Pétrone, à Lucien, à Cervantès ou, dans la tradition française, à Rabelais et au Berger extravagant. Bélisle note également que les romanciers fran- çais du dix-neuvième siècle n’ont pas la tête comique. Enfin, il souligne que la “drôlerie” inclut non seulement ce qui est lié au rire mais encore ce qui subvertit les codes et procédés du réalisme et qui met l’accent sur l’insolite, le fantaisiste, le merveilleux. Bélisle examine ensuite, dans les trois grandes parties qui constituent le corps de son étude, le rôle fondamental du rire chez Aymé, chez Cohen, chez Queneau et, plus spécifiquement, leur recours aux ressources de la comédie, leur insistance sur les liens du rire avec toute...

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