Félix Leclerc : TV Mini-Series, Radio-Canada, 2005

The 4-part mini-series Félix Leclerc*, was met with a complicated critical and public response and ignited passions all the way to a lawsuit upon its release in 2005, but over the years it has attained a surprising longevity of a fan cult classic due to the participation of enormously popular Daniel Lavoie**, who seems to be having the last laugh in this story.

La route d'Altamont / Gabrielle Roy

La route d’Altamont is one of those quiet but profound books. It is fashioned as a book of memories, but it is a philosophical work centered around a theme dear to Roy’s nomadic heart: journey. Every character in this four-story cycle has le mal du départ.

Notre-Dame de Paris in Sherbrooke (QC), October 2018 (English)

One may try to resist the charms of Notre-Dame de Paris, but when the musical is approaching a geographically acceptable point, the invisible bugle calls, and time, money and even perhaps company come out of nowhere, and all of a sudden here you are sitting in the audience and your face is blue with the gleam from the stage light, and the show is about to begin ...

"Нотр-Дам де Пари" в Шербруке (Канада), октябрь 2018 (по-русски)

Можно сколько угодно сопротивляться чарам «Нотр-Дам де Пари», но когда мюзикл приближается в географически приемлемую точку, невидимая труба зовет, и находится время, деньги и даже, возможно, компания, и неожиданно для себя ты уже сидишь в зрительном зале и на лице твоем лежит синяя тень от сценического света, и спектакль вот-вот начнётся...

J’écoute la radio : notes on Daniel Lavoie's concert tour (2012-2014)

©Spectra Musique

 

To see a big picture one needs to step away from it. In order to understand the role a concert tour played in a performer’s carrier one needs to wait a couple of years after the tour’s ended. So, what exactly was the J’écoute la radio tour? Now, 3.5 years later is the best time to answer the question.

La Belle Bête / Marie-Claire Blais (Québec : Institut littéraire du Québec, 1959)

 

Cover of 1st edition of La Belle Bête, 1959. Source:
https://laurentiana.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/marie-claire-blais-la-belle-bete.html

Once upon a time there stood an evil farm where Hatred, Vanity and Vengeance ruled...  Marie-Claire Blais's La Belle Bête reads easy, but offers its reader no comfort, as the world of this Quebec author is cold and frightening. The characters are torn away by their passions, but the only true feelings here are hatred and envy, any positive feelings are either fake or selfish or borne by people who are either blind or mad (i. e. mentally blind). Physical beauty is one of the central themes (as the title implies), but it is always accompanied by a physical or mental flaw, and always - by a flawed soul. Yes,  in her novel Blais leaves no place for hope, no "crack" through which the light would get in. And yet it is an interesting work.

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.

Histoire du Manitoba français : de Gabrielle Roy à Daniel Lavoie (1916-1968) / Jacqueline Blay (Saint-Boniface, Man. : Éditions des Plaines, 2016)

This book is volume 3 of the series on the history of the French Manitoba published by Les Éditions du Blé / Les Éditions des Plaines and it covers 1916-1968, the period defined by existence of the Association d’éducation des Canadiens français du Manitoba (Manitoba French-Canadian education association), the organization that made possible teaching French language in Manitoba’s schools during those 50+ years when it was prohibited by the provincial government, thus saving the culture from becoming extinct.