La fille de l'Ouest takes the reader by the hand and
transplants him/her right in the middle of the Quebec countryside. Yes,
Louise Dubuc is obviously in love with Nature and understands it deeply.
She knows how plants grow and how animals live, how food and love are
made, how farms are run, how rivers get flooded, how the seasons bring
change to Quebec's fields and forests and she writes about all this
beautifully.
But it’s not for the purpose of describing the beauty of life that Louise Dubuc writes. This author has a very strong agenda. She is truly passionate about exploring the relationship between nature and humans, and that relationship is understood broadly, in its physical, spiritual and ethical aspects. For the author, “living naturally”, “living in harmony with nature” is not just a figure of speech, but a concept that is scrutinized and taken literally. If human beings are part of nature, can they truly live by the nature’s rules? What happens if they do? Is “human beast” an anomaly or a natural state? To answer these questions the author enters the realm of fantasy, and moves inside it with the chilling logic of a realist. And to the author's credit, she does not give us ready answers, but rather makes us think about these issues.
Where Dubuc does not waver is her treatment of the issue of child abuse. The author obviously feels strongly about it and the theme of children suffering on the hands of adults will be developed even further in her second book, Les chenilles du brigadier.
Another important motif in La fille de l'Ouest is people disconnected from their cultural roots, be it Native Americans (or First Nations, to use the Canadian term) or Manitoba French, both gradually dissolving in the modern Canadian society.
To sum it up, the book is an interesting reading, the author has her own original viewpoint, creates her own world and makes the reader think.
P.S. Curiously, the plot reminded me of a novel "The barrier" (1976) by Bulgarian Pavel Vezhinov. The main character picks up a girl with no belongings at a bar, takes her home and discovers that she has some very unusual abilities... The outcomes however are very different in the two books.
But it’s not for the purpose of describing the beauty of life that Louise Dubuc writes. This author has a very strong agenda. She is truly passionate about exploring the relationship between nature and humans, and that relationship is understood broadly, in its physical, spiritual and ethical aspects. For the author, “living naturally”, “living in harmony with nature” is not just a figure of speech, but a concept that is scrutinized and taken literally. If human beings are part of nature, can they truly live by the nature’s rules? What happens if they do? Is “human beast” an anomaly or a natural state? To answer these questions the author enters the realm of fantasy, and moves inside it with the chilling logic of a realist. And to the author's credit, she does not give us ready answers, but rather makes us think about these issues.
Where Dubuc does not waver is her treatment of the issue of child abuse. The author obviously feels strongly about it and the theme of children suffering on the hands of adults will be developed even further in her second book, Les chenilles du brigadier.
Another important motif in La fille de l'Ouest is people disconnected from their cultural roots, be it Native Americans (or First Nations, to use the Canadian term) or Manitoba French, both gradually dissolving in the modern Canadian society.
To sum it up, the book is an interesting reading, the author has her own original viewpoint, creates her own world and makes the reader think.
P.S. Curiously, the plot reminded me of a novel "The barrier" (1976) by Bulgarian Pavel Vezhinov. The main character picks up a girl with no belongings at a bar, takes her home and discovers that she has some very unusual abilities... The outcomes however are very different in the two books.
Здравствуйте, Анна!
ReplyDeleteЭто же ваш текст?
Значит, Луиза искала в декабре именно вас ).
Надеюсь, нашла ).
Да, мы в контакте. :)
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