La détresse et l'enchantement / Gabrielle Roy (Montréal : Boréal Express,1984)

 … car c’est souvent en errant seule dans les villes inconnues que je suis le mieux arrivée – mais à quelque chose d’autre que ce que je pensais chercher et qui fut presque toujours meilleur.

(Gabrielle Roy, La détresse et l'enchantement)

 

La détresse et l'enchantement is a great autobiography of a woman artist.  And as any great biography it is both unique and typical. Actually it is unique and typical on not just one, but at least two levels.  The first level is a story of a young woman searching for her path in life, and the second is a story of a Manitoban French-Canadian in the first third of the 20th century, and both stories are relatable and extraordinary at the same time.

Initially it was the Manitoban line that made me take up this book, but it was the story of the young woman that made me fall in love with it. La détresse et l'enchantement was suggested to me as a follow-up reading on the subject of the history of the French-speaking minority in Manitoba in the 20th century. And so I set out to read a book about those far away people, but to my astonishment instead ended up reading a book about … myself. Yes, that's a trick any good autobiography plays on a reader, when similarities in certain details seem stunning,  and the parts where the similarities end make one think about one's own life experiences even more! Yes, in reading, just like in traveling, there is no escape from oneself.

Actually the motif of escape/leaving is one of the central ones in this book: time and again Gabrielle has to leave places and people and each time no matter how difficult it is, leaving results in her obtaining yet another unknown piece of the puzzle that is herself. Wandering as part of the coming of age ritual belongs to youth, and this text is about youth of a woman gifted with enough luck, talent, optimism and freedom but initially with very little understanding of herself. In the second part of the book her soul-searching takes her to France and Great Britain and eventually to Quebec, where Gabrielle finds her path, her true calling and settles into the rest of her life. The wanderings are over and the book ends.

And what about Manitoba? It occupies the first half of the book and its image is painted with affection and tenderness.  The homeland that had no future to offer to Gabrielle and where she would never resettle nevertheless provided her with the basis on which the rest of her life and her oeuvre would be built. And although Roy went on to become a celebrated Canadian author, her story is still typical for Manitoban French who until this day are faced with a dilemma of remaining at home to face assimilation or leaving the province in order to preserve own francophone identity. A typically Canadian story? Yes, but not only. Anyone who has ever had to leave the familiar for the true has known his or her own Manitoba.

And that’s why this is a great book: through the individual it speaks about the universal. And so for whatever reason you pick it up – for its historical, psychological or travel diary aspects or simply for its beautiful French – I think  its 500 pages are sure to make you discover something about all of these aspects and more importantly, about yourself.


A few quotes:

Je lisais … comme toujours lorsqu’on est emporté par la magie d’une histoire bien racontée ou la simple ivresse de se reconnaître à travers des mots plus habiles que les siens.
(P. 97)

L’on est ignorant de sa propre vie plus que de toute chose sur terre.
(P. 108)

…cette volonté de partir ne me semblait pas venir de moi seule. Souvent elle me paraissait émaner de générations en arrière de moi ayant usé dans d’obscures existences injustes l’élan de leur âme et qui à travers ma vie poussaient enfin à l’accomplissement de leur libération. Serait-ce donc le vieux rêve de mon enfance, qui me tenait toujours, de venger les miens par le succès ?
(P. 182)

Quelquefois je m’avoue que ce qui me plaît le plus dans cette idée d’éternité, c’est la chance accordée, en retrouvant les âmes chères, de s’expliquer à fond avec elles, et que cesse enfin le long malentendu de la vie.
(P. 240)

… car c’est souvent en errant seule dans les villes inconnues que je suis le mieux arrivée – mais à quelque chose d’autre que ce que je pensais chercher et qui fut presque toujours meilleur.
(P. 274)

…au théâtre qui nous apprend à mieux regarder la vie percée à jour, mise à nuous nos yeux !
(P. 279)

Car il m’est arrivé dans un isolement trop complet, cernée de trop de silence, de n’avoir même plus le sentiment de penser, comme si le pauvre mécanisme de la pensée – qui est quand même toujours un appel aux autres – c’était bloqué quelque part en moi.
(P. 304)

Ce qui, à mon sujet, m’a causé le plus d’etonnement, c’est peut-être que, malgré ce fond de détresse qui ne m’a guère quittée, j’ai asi souvent pu être heureuse et laisser penser à beaucoup que j’étais, que je suis d’une nature gaie et rieuse – et sans doute ai-je été ainsi, au-delà d’une tristesse qui souvent alors se laissait oublier.
(P. 446)