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Chargement... My Octoberpar Claire Holden Rothman
   Aucun Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre.  gypsysmom | Jan 25, 2015 | 
 But it’s the personal, not the political, that suffers most. Too much internal struggle rests on Hugo’s underdeveloped shoulders to lend the novel serious resonance. Rothman also stops short of convincing us that Hugo’s parents have ever been a loving couple. Luc is abrasive – a fantasy of the French intellectual as horny curmudgeon – while Hannah’s long-suffering-wife goodness borders on the Victorian. The somewhat happy ending is not only unearned (and glossed over) but so Hollywood that it makes awakening the ghosts of Quebec’s past feel more like a violation than a literary intervention.  This usually works splendidly, but the book alternates between affecting passages and an overblown sentimentality. There’s a lot of explosive personal and political material bound closely together in this story, and Rothman does a remarkable job of illustrating the complexities of middle class life in contemporary Montreal — at least among Anglo and francophones. However, in juggling all these elements, what suffers is the plot. It’s essentially constructed to illustrate these complexities and relies on the improbably late revelation of secrets, particularly to adults by their parents....My October has real strengths, and carries the reader effortlessly along, but it’s undercut by plot elements that don’t convince, even if they allow a redemptive ending. Prix et récompenses
Shortlisted for the 2014 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize Luc Levesque is a celebrated Quebec novelist and the anointed Voice of a Generation. In his hometown of Montreal, he is revered as much for his novels about the working-class neighborhood of Saint-Henri as for his separatist views. But this is 2001. The dreams of a new nation are dying, and Luc himself is increasingly dissatisfied with his life. Hannah is Luc's wife. She is also the daughter of a man who served as a special prosecutor during the October Crisis. For years, Hannah has worked faithfully as Luc's English translator. She has also spent her adult life distancing herself from her English-speaking family. But at what cost? Hugo is their troubled 14-year-old son. Living in the shadow of a larger-than-life father, Hugo is struggling with his own identity. In confusion and anger, he commits a reckless act that puts everyone around him on a collision course with the past. Weaving together three unique voices, My October is a masterful tale of a modern family torn apart by the power of language and the weight of history. Spare and insightful, Claire Holden Rothman's new novel explores the fascinating and sometimes shocking consequences of words left unsaid. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires  
 Google Books — Chargement...GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne: (3.83)
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Luc Levesque is a well-known francophone writer whose books are set in the working class neighbourhood of Saint-Henri in Montreal. Since that is the same neighbourhood in which Gabrielle Roy set Bonheur d'Occasion (The Tin Flute) Luc has been compared favourably to Roy. (Incidentally, as a Manitoban it irritates me to no end that Quebeckers claim Roy as their own because of that book when, in reality, she lived much of her life in Manitoba and set many of her books here.) His wife, Hannah, is anglophone and the daughter of the man who was special prosecutor during the October Crisis. She has distanced herself from her English family and works as a translator of French books. They have one son, Hugo, who attends the same private school that his father attended. This family's crisis is sparked by the discovery of a Luger in Hugo's school backpack. Hugo is a typical angry young man who withdraws into video games when he is not at school. His parents, especially his father, are frustrated with trying to communicate with him and to understand why he took a gun to school.
I found this book interesting for its picture of modern realities for the people of Quebec but I thought the writing was uneven. I especially found that Hannah's motivations were hard to understand. Hannah's father had just suffered a stroke in Toronto where he and Hannah's mother lived, having moved shortly after the PQ came to power. Hannah's mother begged Hannah to come to Toronto to help her get their house ready for him to come home from the hospital. Although Luc had left Hannah shortly after the incident with the gun, she still seemed unable to leave Montreal to help her parents. I understand that she was torn between Luc and her parents during the marriage but people usually get past that when push comes to shove. Rothman describes Hannah during this time as being depressed but, to me, that does not fully explain her withdrawal.
All in all, I did like this book but I never felt any deep connection to the characters. (